Halloween used to be fun. We knew what it was about. It was a ritual in which the night before All Saint's Day, you put on your scary costume and walked about the earth making it safe for the saints. You know kind of scare them away. To the lesser developed minds of the 70's it was the day that you went out and got candy. But mine was a little different.Halloween was a two day event. A night of mischief and a night of celebration. Now we were good kids and we liked being out on mischief night but we were not terrors. There was one name in our town that was associated with that terror though...The Keating Brothers... One was pure evil and the other was evil with a softer side.
Now at that time, they were evil in its youngest stage. Simple acts of random nuisance terror is what they were into. Pulling fire alarms, and framing others, beating kids up after school, and on Halloween their signature small town terror acts... Smashing the pumpkins you carved in the middle of the streets, and taking the candy you collected.. Kind of endearing now that you look back, but at the time it made you scared and mad at the same time. It kind of made Halloween. They were adorable little punks that rocked our world.. Kind of taught us more about good and evil then our parents ever could have.
But all Hallow's Eve has changed even more over the years. I am talking about the quality of the holiday and the character of the Trick or Treaters.
Back in the old days, I had some really rag tag costumes...Our costumes were always dreamed up a day or two before and being the only boy between two girls, I got the worst. My older sister got the nicely tailored costumes by my Godmother the seamstress Mary. My younger sister seemed to get the best costume from the Woolworth store. I got a hodge podge array of hand me down costumes through the years that bordered on the ridiculous to the sublime.
One such sublime costume started out as a tribute, but by today's standard would be considered the most stereotypical racist costume ever worn by a young child. I was to be a wise China Man. Now I say sublime because I went through intense training on how to act as the wise man. If asked what I was, I was to bow and say Domo Arigato (sp) and Assso...Wise for the time...But there I was putting on a karate outfit, a stocking over my face to make me look Asian or a theif, and a yamika with a long braided pony tail in the middle that hung behind my head. Now do not get me wrong. It was original, but had you given me a bike, a basket, some throw away chopsticks, an extra menu, and a number 69 (broccoli and rice), I would have been a short step from the Emperor of Japan to local Chinese food delivery boy.... But I did get a lot of candy that year...and fortune cookies.
Other costumes included a gypsy (chic) and girl cat, and a witch...Not a warlock but a witch. Now I know the economics of the time dictate you use what you have got, but come on.... I was an after thought at best or at worst my parents thought I was gay and were trying to give me the push to come out... Stone Wall had just happened in the village and we were a very liberal family...
Be that as it may, the holiday itself has changed. We wore dark costumes and walked on dark streets. We were a minute away from becoming a hit and run. Our parents did not go out with us after the age of two but did provide us with a flash light with batteries that were partially used and usually died a few minutes into the first dark driveway we had to walk up. I remember one night in my girl cat uniform when a car wized by and the wind from the car ripped my mask off and it flew into a pile of leaves into the street in which there was no sidewalk to the side where the Keating boys were about to light the leaves on fire committing their third act of arson that night. You cannot replace moments like those.
Tonight I had the usual...Parents collecting candy for thier kids, just like they do when they sell girl scout cookies, greedy kids reaching into the bowl and trying to steal more than their share, kids with no costumes, the uncomfortable conversations between a 40 year old man and children, and souless bodies that walked up and down the street making no attempt to go up to a door, ring the bell, and say those magic words..Trick or Treat..Instead they passed by my place like Sockeyes trying to get to their spawing grounds and me like a bear trying to pass out candies instead of feasting. A very sad statement on the times.
Oh, by the way I retreated into my place and took a photo of the candles I was burning for Halloween, but apparently the country left me off the memo in which they said all houses had to have 6 systems of safety lighting before any trick or treater was allowed to enter the property....
