"Hollow"een

So today is Halloween. Dang, Halloween definitely just isn't what it used to be. That's probably a good thing, because I'm thinking of the days when I used to dress up as some sort of Skeletor
to go on a candy hunt. Not to mention the fact that it's quite a distorted holiday that's way too commercialized (like any holiday). But I still miss the good times I used to have.


I remember class parties with tons of candy and dry ice in the punch bowl. Dry ice made any party cool in those days. Then there were "spooky sounds" tapes, and the kid who got made fun of in class for not dressing up, or for dressing up as someone like Waldo. But no Halloween memory rivals the nights of trick-or-treating.

We would scour our neighborhood on a mission to fill pillowcases to the brim with glucose, dextrose, maltose, fructose, sucrose, and some sugar. We knew which houses gave the goods, and which were the biggest duds. Our neighborhood was filled with little ghosts and ghouls, witches and warlocks, gangsters and thugs, and a few trick or treaters. There was one old man who must have saved all of the change in his pocket at the end of the day, picked out all the pennies, then waited till Halloween to pass them out. He and the lady passing out apples were the worst. But then there were families who were veritable Willy Wonka factories. The trick with them was to have your face painted, then wear a mask. First, we would go down the street with the mask on. Then we would trade coats, take off the mask, and come back down the block with painted faces. Candy would roll in.

When the houses were completely pillaged, we would head back to someone's house to organize the candy with the same precision and determination that we used to organize baseball cards. I would always trade those generic caramels in the orange and black paper wrappers. I hated those things. I was a Smarties kind of guy. If we were lucky, that candy would last a week or so. There were times when I literally had two pillowcases half full of candy. I guess I could've just said one full pillowcase, but I've got to keep the facts straight.

And anyone could get candy in those days. All you had to do was put your hand in your sleeve and say you were a dismembered zombie. It was like that Adam Sandler skit. Everyone was a winner. Yeah those were the days.

So today was Halloween, and the streets were almost empty. There were a few trick-or-treaters out there. Not near as many as there used to be. And where there used to be porch lights on, and families dressed up waiting to pass out the goods, now is mostly cold doorsteps with the door shut and the shutters closed.

I went trick-or-treating until I was seventeen. It was a hard tradition to let go of. It's hard to see the way things have changed. Halloween is a messed up holiday anyway. It's probably for the best. Oh well. Maybe next year I'll break out the old Ninja Turtle suit...

Try out some entertaining E- Halloween fun.