The Ghost of Halloween Past

 

Typical Trick or Treater

As a child I loved Halloween, and now I know why.  What a great celebration!  Stay up late on a school night, go out alone in the dark, and get free stuff. 

Adults didn’t get involved in Halloween. My parents, Dagwood and Blondie, never abandoned their roles of man-on-couch-reading-paper and woman-in-kitchen-cooking.  Their only contribution was the simple command, “Be home by ten o’clock.” 
We didn’t prepare for Halloween, it just showed up one chilly night and my brother and I would rush to put on our costumes.  We had four to choose from, the same four every year.  There was the hobo, my dad’s old clothes and a quickly applied beard of ashes;  the pirate, my dad’s old clothes cut ragged at the arms and knees and the same beard thing; the ghost, a bed sheet with holes, and on a good year, the priest. Blondie laundered the church linens, and if we were lucky, we could borrow Father Leahy’s cassock for the evening. We had some rubber masks but if we wore them we'd get so chapped in the Seattle cold we'd look like Gloucester fisherman the next day.

I know lots of folks my age, between 40 and 80, are critical of older kids trick-or-treating. 

Older child trick or treating

Adults even go to the door and say rude things, like "Aren't you a little old to be trick or treating?" These are the same folks whose 35-year-old daughter, a teacher at the grammar school,  is posing as a pole dancer and is working the next block with her kids. Give it a rest, you old fogies! I welcome older trick or treaters. Showing up at our door means they're not removing my hubcaps.

So have a good time tonight. I will report back tomorrow with photos of my Halloween, whether or not it includes my feeble adult attempt to be part of  something that belongs to the young.