BOO!

       

October has arrived, and it seems the summer blew by me in a blur of heat. But then, time is moving more and more swiftly as I find myself slowly turning into my parents. ::giggle:: Didn't your parents always tell you that the older you get, the faster time goes?

And with October two thoughts come to mind:  Fall and Halloween. Where I live, fall is a definite and distinct season. Sometimes the early onset of severe cold weather shortens the length of time the trees display their brilliant array of outrageous colors. However, we still get to view the leaves in their splendor and shake our heads in utter amazement. 'Tis a beautiful time of year. I love the nip in the air. I feel alive. I feel so awake. (Winter makes me feel the most alive and perky, though.)

I was thinking about Halloween in particular tonite. I glanced at a painting of my kids garbed in their costumes, and it evoked a lot of memories from the time I was a little Trick-or-Treater.

We always had such fun roaming the neighborhood, scampering from house to house. And EWWW, I recall the early costumes we wore. They were boxed costumes. They contained those blucky molded plastic masks with the elastic band that went around the back of your head. Two little holes were cut out for your nostrils, and there was a small opening for your mouth. Those masks were oppressive. Your breath heated up the inside and moisture collected. It was like a sauna inside there. It could be 45º outside, but inside your mask it was about 150º. Lest I forget, those were not exactly the most attractive masks, either! I liked it much better when we were old enough to create our own costumes...sans boxed masks.

Designated hours were set for all of us goblins to go cruising for candy. Any kid who was on the ball was ready BEFORE the starting time. The minute the official hour arrived, out the door we flew. Pfffft on carrying those spindly little plastic pumpkins to hold your candy. A pillowcase was the way to go. It held a lot, and it supported the weight of the goodies without ripping. We always had some sort of pre-arranged idea of how we would go up and down the streets the most efficiently. It took a few years to determine the route that would yield the greatest amount of candy.

We were all polite. I remember that. No one needed to remind us to say thank you. It was automatic. (Surprisingly, I find that the kids of today in my neighborhood are VERY good about saying thank you. I am impressed.) We also collected for UNICEF a lot of years. We carried little orange and black milk cartons with the UNICEF logo on them, and we would ask if the folks wished to donate. Some did, some did not.

Now to the TREATS. It was a given that if someone gave us an apple, we would smile and say thank you. Then as we got past that house on our way to the next, we fished out the apple and hurled it. Heck, we had apples at home. What kind of treat was THAT to pass out to candy-hungry kids? Besides, they weighted down our pillowcases. It was pretty mean of us to throw them away like that. We justified it to ourselves by saying there could be a razor blade or needle stuffed in them.

Sometimes people gave us coins. A handful of pennies. A dime. A quarter. Quarters were very cool to get. The pennies added up, so they were okay. One lady gave out her homemade doughnuts every year. We ALWAYS hit up her house. Those babies were delicious and designed to eat right that very moment! If your timing was impeccable, you arrived just as a fresh batch had been made. They were still nice and warm. ::sigh::

Candy bars were popular, and the majority of adults bought those for all of the goblins. Gum was a hit, too. Occasionally, we would stumble across a house where no one was home but their front porch light was on. Because they did not want to miss out on the nite of beggars, they would leave out a sack of goodies by their front door. A note was attached asking us to help ourselves to a treat or two, but to please leave some for the other beggars. Once in awhile, we would arrive to find an empty bag. If the hour was still early, we knew someone had gotten greedy and dumped the entire contents of the sack into his own bag. That was more the exception rather than the rule, though.

We became shrewd over the years. We knew which houses kids neglected to stop at because they were set too far back from the sidewalk. You hit the mother lode when you went to those homes. The owners were thrilled to have little goblins arrive, so they would give us handful after handful of candy. We practically salivated watching all that candy getting plopped into our pillowcases. It also made us feel good listening to them compliment our costumes and ask us if we had been having fun. Funny how even as a pretty young kid we knew we were making someone happy. ::pausing and thinking about that:: It really was amazing that they were the ones giving us the goodies, yet they were equally as excited as we were.

We hauled our increasingly heavy pillowcases around until the bewitching hours were technically over. That was a VERY good time to stop at a few more houses. People wanted to get rid of any leftover candy they had. They would just dump their bowls of candy into our pillowcases.

Ah, time for the candy exploration. We ran home, cleared a giant space on the floor, and emptied our cases. I have three sisters, so we all sat on the floor guarding our stashes. We would eye each other's piles to see who got the most...convincing ourselves that our stash was just as large, even if it wasn't.

We separated our earnings into categories. Money. Gum. Candy bars. Individual pieces of wrapped candy. Then came the trading. It sure does NOT pay to have older siblings. Their trades were not always fair ones. They knew how to rob you blind. I hated those Zagnut bars. I think everyone did. I was not stupid enough to fall for my sisters offering up a trade of their Zagnut bars for any of my prized treats. I LOVED Reese's Cups, Snickers, Hershey's bars, Almond Joys, and Mr. Goodbars. We would spend a long time making our trades. Sometimes we would end up having made few exchanges. That was okay.

Mom and Dad told us to be sure there were no signs of anything having been tampered with, so we would give the goods the once over before putting them back into our cases. We ate some of the candy, and we shared some with Mom and Dad. Daddy was partial to Mr. Goodbars, and Mom liked Reese's Cups. (Figures they would be two of MY favorites.) Then we went to bed after having found the perfect place to hide our bulging pillowcases. We HAD to hide them, because we did not trust one another to not steal some of our best stuff.

The candy lost some of its power over us within a few short days. We would still eat it, but not like we did the first couple of days. And we never did eat all of it. I think the biggest thrill and the one that held the most power for the longest time was simply having participated in a fun evening with siblings and friends among friendly adults. It was a memory in the making. Nothing too much more powerful or rewarding than memories.

"On Hallowe'en the thing
you must do
Is pretend that nothing
can frighten you
An' if somethin' scares you
and you want to run
Jus' let on like
it's Hallowe'en fun."
~from an Early Nineteenth Century Halloween Postcard