What Remains Hallowed on Halloween

Nostalgia is the Achilles Heel of septuagenarians.  Discussing anything, but especially holidays, people expect you to start out, “Well in my day ….”  True, some of us start every sentence that way, even without expectations. Nonetheless, nostalgia has its literary value, so let’s talk about Halloween, in my former days and today.  What endures in this one-day celebration of gluttony and horror?

I think it was back in the 60’s when some misanthrope put a razor blade in an apple meant for trick or treaters.  The media spread the story, and almost overnight folks handing out treats for Halloween abandoned homemade delicacies for foil-wrapped, all-the-same versions of mass market chocolate.  How many Snicker Bars or Peanut Butter cups does one child need?  Does any child remember what house gives out Milk Duds and which Nestles Crunch?   Little distinction, even less distinction in flavor or freshness.  Super markets shove bags of Halloween candy on their shelves in late August.

As a child in an Appalachian college town (1950’s), I was rarely lucky enough to be given a candy bar.  There were no mini-wrapped versions, so if someone were to give out candy bars, it would be a whole Hershey’s that could set the host back a nickel each.  Instead, mothers baked cookies the week prior to Halloween.  Cookie cutters shaped the shortbread dough into pumpkins, ghosts and witches.  Orange frosting added authenticity.  Mrs. Cooper, the wife of the Geology Dept. chair, made caramel popcorn confections the size of little cannon balls.  She wrapped each in waxed paper, the tops twisted and tied with orange curling ribbon.  They were my favorites. New neighbors, the Theopolis family, lived in a brick house down a side road yet to be paved in the new housing development.  I wonder now who clued them in about the Treat or Treat custom.  Someone did, for when we walked tremulously down the unlit drive, Mrs. Theopolis greeted us with true Greek hospitality. In each held-out hand, she placed a baklava, warm and dripping with honey, a clove stuck in the top like a fragrant toothpick.  We thanked her, then ran gleefully down her driveway to where the ornamental persimmon trees grew.  Below them we dumped the unfamiliar, and therefore suspect, sopping honey confection.   My adult self longs to return to the front door to be given a second chance.    From many houses we got apples, always apples, barely welcomed in our greed for sweets. Mom separated them out from our Trick or Treat bag, parsing them out for school lunches.  She also saved the nickels given by those unprepared to bake.  Once there was a quarter among the change.

As for costumes, we never ordered anything more than a simple mask from a department store.  Costumes were important, very important, our chance to try on a fantasized identity.  But costumes had to be assembled. First stop was the linen closet, where we pawed through old sheets, feeling which were thread-bare so Mom would let us cut ghost eyes, or drape ourselves like Roman senators who would return home, our togas dripping inches of Virginia’s red clay that would never wash out.  My mother encouraged me toward girlie costumes, to dress me as a princess or Snow White.   Yet having two older brothers, I wanted nothing less than finally to get to dress like a boy.  No Dale Evans for me, when I could be Roy Rogers.  I borrowed my brother’s leather cowboy vest, redolent with his own sweat that I identified with horse flesh.  His cap gun hung heavily from my non-existent hips. If I were lucky, he would share a red roll of caps, their explosive pops filling my lungs with sweet sulfur.

Bunching in cadres of siblings and friends, little ghosts, goblins, and a few witches with broken brooms, swarmed across vacant lots and between new homes set in spindly landscaping. The screams of banshees drifted over the dewberry fields: wait for me . . . Mama said you have to …you’re too slow … I told you that gun was too heavy for you … let’s not go there … let’s do . . . I will if you will.   Groups of other kids ran in and out of sight.  In spite of their disguises we guessed who they were, meeting up under one or two street lamps that offered the only light other than the moon. Like thieves, we exchanged our targets thus far:   the best places to hit up — who gave more generously — who already turned off their porch lights.  Each year, there was the thrill of unknowing in a custom as familiar as home.

Halloween 2018 feels more packaged.  The 30 to 40 children who climb up our front steps are costumed in child-sized versions of super heroes.  The costumes are purchased, so one Ninja looks identical to the one a few minutes earlier.  It is only an occasional child, usually a young one, who has changed identity for the night, who growls like the furry beast it is.  I long for role-playing, for the ferocious tiger who will dare me to open the door wider.  I hold out the wide wooden bowl brimming with mini Snickers and Tootsie Pops.  Each year the packages shrink, but the kids don’t seem to notice.  Their plastic pumpkin carriers are brimming with replicas of what we are giving.  Over their shoulders, the little monsters thank us as they race back down the stairs to the sidewalk where an adult or two waits to escort them to the next house.  As they secure their children’s sticky hands, does their tongue remember the taste of their own childhood?    Gone are the days when children ran out the front door as soon as dusk swallowed the maple trees, to tag along with older siblings, combing the darkening streets until the soiled pillow case, filled with treats, weighed them down. Then it was time to return home to parents, unconcerned about absence after dark, sitting by a lamp reading until their costumed children had played out their one-night characters and were ready for sweetened sleep.

Author: Mary After Seventy

I am a retired teacher, poet, community volunteer View all posts by Mary After Seventy