Getting Your Ducks in a Row
October 19, 2012
The Adult Phase of Halloween
November 2, 2012
This essay was originally published in the local newspaper (Thursday before 2011 Halloween edition) and deals with that scariest of holidays from my youth. Brings back all sorts of great memories and anyone reading this will agree with me on the subject.
Start of The
Perfect Season
Never let it be said that Halloween in a small town like Silverton isn’t full of a disproportionate share of excitement. Growing up in the 70’s, the prospect of coming into a cache of candy for a single night’s worth of begging filled myself and every other pre-adolescent I knew with a huge sense of anticipation. Just like Christmas, checking the calendar every day for a month leading up to the event became a ritualistic thing. Why didn’t time move faster, and what sort of sadistic entity was forcing the clock handles to actually move backwards whenever you watched them on the wall?
Now going through one’s formative years in a town where everyone knew everyone else increased the expectation level to an even higher degree. You couldn’t wait to find out what type of treats the lady across the alley was giving out this year. The fact that she handed you, your sisters, and the girls next door special cookies unlike the regular candy she gave the other trick-or-treaters made it that much more unbelievable. Then there was the schoolteacher up the street who made you perform a song before she deposited a treat in your bag.
Everyone else whose door you’d knock on seemed almost as thrilled to see your efforts at designing a costume that would fit over a snowsuit as you did upon showing it to them. Masks were often homemade, and some hosts even gave you money when they ran out of candy. Halloween was a glorious event, and life couldn’t get much more perfect for a kid on the night of October 31st. Why wasn’t the thrill like this every day?
As you got older, the month leading up to Halloween meant you suddenly developed a perverse desire to watch horror movies without closing your eyes during the scary parts. Silverton’s one and only movie theatre, The Lode, provided a ready-made source for appeasing this “Jones”. Running home after the movie became a precipitous walk through the gauntlet of fear.
Dracula, the Wolf man, and various other minions of the night lurked around every corner, streetlights seemed that much more ineffective, and you dreaded having to ask adults to give you a ride home. Exclusively because of the fact that they had mysteriously turned into zombies while you were shuddering in terror during the movie.
Halloween in Silverton also had its fair share of real life trepidation too. While Trick-or-Treating, you often chose your steps carefully due to the fact that roving bands of high school hooligans were on the prowl. Abducting you and your buddies for nefarious purposes such as stealing some of your candy, or making you pull down your pants and climb up a telephone pole. Then there was that kid you heard about who ended up getting driven up to the cemetery and tied to a tombstone. Adult authority types didn’t discover his body till just before Christmas after a particularly nasty snowstorm. Bert Garcia said its true, and he never embellishes these sorts of tales when talking about the subject, right?
Thirteen is the threshold age for various things. Halloween when you’d achieved this momentous milestone in your life meant you could now join in on the infamous Silverton tradition that is “Mischief Night”. You were now welcomed into the that self-same band of roving hooligans, and the group you hung out with on the night of October 30th did more than just hang toilet paper from the tree in front of someone’s house.
Playground equipment from the school was overturned and hauled to the middle of Main Street and deposited. Cars were also flipped over and dragged to the school. Specifically for achieving the abject purpose of delaying the start of classes the next morning. Sometimes this strategy actually worked too.
Nothing too extreme was ever achieved, and wandering the streets trying to look tough seemed to be the main purpose. The simple act of scattering like rats when the cop car started flashing its lights turned out to be more important, and therefore more fun than committing the actual misdemeanors. The sheriff knew you and your folks; so getting caught meant certain death by grounding when you got home that night.
Since those days of my youth, Halloween has turned into more of a sedate holiday. I still love to watch horror movies during the month of October, but look forward to seeing what “The Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror” cartoon will be more than anything else from year to year.
As testament to the fact that it’s turned into an Adult holiday, seeing the various costumes on display becomes a thrill. Giving out Trick-or-Treat candy is such a charge in and of itself as well. Best of all, it’s become a fantastic way to begin the holiday season. Nothing like getting things off to a rousing start by scaring yourself into a slobbering mess.
