The question, posed by the presenter of “The Lively History of Halloween in America” conference held at the Bethpage Public Library on October 30, “What are your memories of Halloween?” prompted me to travel on the time to those I consider mine. .
The first, when I was less than seven years old, occurred in the living room of our Brooklyn apartment. Inexplicably inspired by the atmosphere and perhaps intrinsically aware of its creepy purpose, I sat on the floor in front of the round coffee table topped by a bowl of candy and said to my mother, wanting to add to the mystery of the room, “Let’s turn off lights”. off.”
She did. Absorbing the sensation herself, she came back from the kitchen with a dish towel on her head, emitting a ghostly note. Without expecting or seeing or listening, I found my feelings riding the edge of fear, but as I instantly realized that my mother was behind them, I witnessed them melt into loving acceptance.
Our shared experience, despite the confines of the room, was limitless and made Halloween a reality.
The annual school trips to the pumpkin patches were learning experiences, but the lessons were about myself, which I later couldn’t understand. Searching in vain for the perfectly shaped pumpkin, I followed the plow lines across the field, unable to find one as I struggled with that perfectionist part of me that produced dissatisfaction when I didn’t. Rejecting pumpkin after pumpkin, I realized that the idealized image of them in my mind didn’t necessarily match the reality.
The smaller the size, I finally concluded, the rounder they seemed.
A call to get back on the bus left me at a fever pitch, grabbing the last tiny one resignedly, completely unhappy.
Why the other students, who were wearing larger and more grotesquely shaped ones, seemed so pleased only increased my perplexity. Perhaps his satisfaction was more akin to indifference.
Older and now on Long Island, I considered Halloween to be tied to escaping from myself, hiding behind and assuming the identity of the costume I was wearing, and imagination, as the atmosphere was charged with fear and filled with surreal ghosts. With the rustle of leaf-covered sidewalks, I walked past the witch, the vampire, the black cat, the skeleton, the ghoul, and the illuminated faces of pumpkins, slipping into the cold, dark dimension of October 31, alone. the mind of a child. could conjure.[smindcouldconjure[smindcouldconjure
Unrestrained, the approach of houses was allowed, welcomed and seduced, as the magical “trick or treat”, repeated with such regularity and speed, coalesced into an indistinguishable sound with each chime. But the adults knew what it meant and confirmed it with the occasional pop of candy corn, popsicles, chocolates and apples (it spoiled the whole purpose of the event), banging on my plastic bag, pumpkin or haunted house.
The streets were full of costumed children, as if it were peak party time after dark, which sometimes required waiting on the sidewalk until a Frankenstein family cleared the front door, giving the green light for the next group of witches to proceed. and Cinderellas. . Sweet, like gold, awaited, and the ride could not be justified unless the seeker exhausted all his veins.
(I won’t mention the early years when trick-or-treating geo-restrictions were placed on me and I evaded them with at least a second circuit to the same houses after a quick costume change.)
“Back so soon?” my mother would ask.
“No,” I replied, “just passing through.”
The night before also gave me another kindred spirit experience with my mother as we prepared the treasure. The dining room table converted into a production line sported the stack of bags with the full moon imprinted on them, each containing the products: peanut chews, Milky Ways, Baby Ruths, Hershey and Nestlé chocolate competitors, and the obligatory Indian corn. Varies by year.
“I loved making the bags,” my mother would later recount. Me too, because we did it together.
Demand outstripping supply one year forced my “emergency solution”: reaching into the cabinet to fill the bags with whatever I could find.
Though I don’t recall what the non-candy item was, it blew up the bag, prompting the next princess-adorned recipient at my door to exclaim, “Oh, treats!”
Embarrassed, he had convinced her that the size mattered more than the content, but he was relieved that he didn’t have to face her disappointment when he later opened it. I wouldn’t have wanted to receive it either.
I loved inspecting the costumes, which magically hid many of the faces I knew as well as my own, but not in the case of poor Loretta, who lived around the corner. She could hear the hiss of her asthma as she approached the door. Sometimes he felt sorry for her, as he tried to ignore her distress, looking for fun and fitting in with others as best she could.
Age, for me at least, apparently had little to do with my decline for the terrifying occasion, as long as it only existed in my mind. While riding the school bus home from high school one Halloween, one of my fellow students pointed out the window and exclaimed, “Look at those gruff little kids, still trick-or-treating!”
Swallowing my embarrassment, I sublimated it into excitement, eagerly wanting to change into my costume when I got home to join them. When you got to a certain point again, you were supposed to have transcended this meaningless activity that no longer served you, I suppose. But I also assumed that I was one of “those gruff little kids” and because of the joy I experienced, I was proud of it, in my own world, where Halloween existed for me. Just don’t tell them, whoever they were, anyway.
Older still, I was inspired by images of the occasion, which, to some degree, always began with the calendar changing to September and the first day of school. The days grew shorter. Temperatures dropped further. The trees wore autumnal dresses of burnt orange, flaming red, cornhusk yellow, and bark brown. The houses were decorated with their witches, ghosts, black cats and pumpkins. And I slipped into the dimension and out of myself every October 31st like clockwork.
Inspired by all this, I wrote three Halloween-themed short stories and several poems.
Now that I was too old for traditional trick-or-treating (I guess I finally gave in), I started the annual tradition of visiting the Otto the Ghost exhibit at Hicks Nursery in Westbury, purchasing the necessary pumpkins and gourds for decoration, and pairing the event with dinner. in a unique restaurant. And he always capped off the evening with another screening of “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen it over the years, but it couldn’t be Halloween without it.
It was so indicative of the vacation and what I felt. But that may be because there was always, well, maybe even a lot of Charlie Brown in me. I wonder if there isn’t a little bit in all of us. However, unlike those who rode the school bus with me so long ago, I’m not afraid to admit it.
During the evening of my life, I look out my window and watch trick-or-treating costumed kids parade down the sidewalk wailing, “Oh, what a Halloween is this!” The sadness is not so much for the events and celebrations that I no longer participate in, but for the youth that I lost when I could no longer.