This Is Halloween!
A very, scary Halloween to you! Yes, this is the day to celebrate ghouls, goblins, and all things dark and terrifying. Not my favorite holiday, I must say. If you know anything about me, you’ll know that I am not a big fan of “things that go bump in the night” – or for that matter – things that go bump in the day. Imagine ‘Barney Fife’ from ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ when he’s scared or nervous. Yeah, that’s basically me. Honestly, if I want to be really scared or terrified, I’ll just go online and look at the financial results of my retirement accounts this year, but I digress.
As I grow older, however; I do enjoy watching little kids dressing up for Halloween and going out to do their annual “trick-or-treating”. Living in a rural area and living in a small town, I don’t think you can fully appreciate what a big “to do” the annual trek in search of candy and treats turns out to be. In my area (for some strange and as of yet unexplained reason), each one of our local municipalities seems to do their trick-or-treating on different nights, which gives local kiddos the chance to really load up on their holiday goodies. My town did theirs last Thursday (the 27th), and for a small borough of barely 368 full-time residents, our little hamlet was overrun with tiny witches, warlocks, and werewolves.
The weather was picture perfect, the leaves were in peak color, and the roads and side streets were lined with parked cars from Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. For two hours, my porch was infested with little superheroes, princesses, cowboys, and space aliens, along with their parents. Each year I start “loading in” treats weeks ahead of time, and my wife and I handed out over twenty pounds of candy (one piece at a time) in a little over an hour. I lost count after 600 kids. Yes, you heard that right. Over. 600. Kids.
This is an annual thing, this onslaught, and I love watching new neighbors when they first experience this phenomenon, sitting there on their porch with their two dozen full-sized Hershey bars, hoping that maybe one or two youngsters will have the courage to knock on their doors and ask for treats. Veterans try to warn these “newbies”, but the uninitiated never believe it. Little do they realize that they’ll soon be scrambling for anything sweet in the house to placate the costumed surge, frantically throwing last year’s Easter candy at them or dousing them with containers of decades old cocoa powder from the pantry.
Yet still, the minions come.
Embarrassed, these unprepared homeowners retreat inside and turn off all of the lights, closing the blinds and peering at the crowds from their upstairs windows, hoping it will all soon end. A little after 8:00 PM, the streets clear, and all is once again quiet in my little town.
Until the teenagers roll through late at night and pelt all of the parked cars with eggs – another annual tradition.
Happy Halloween, everybody!
One thought on “This Is Halloween!”
When I was at the Holloween age my older brother (with his friends) was required to take me with him to go trick-or-treat. Since I was the cute one I was sent to the door to get the treat which was then shared with he and his buddies. Little did my parents know that during these adventures I learned how to throw eggs, write on windows, spread corn on porches and how to spell “bad” words on the sidewalk.