Hollow...eeeee!

     Not to belabor the point but somewhere along the way we seem to have lost Thanksgiving.  Oh they're will be cases of turkeys and pumpkins, and watching college football games.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Perhaps I've just noticed this more each year since Halloween decorations now began appearing in August.  Yes, August!  And this year they were huge...and expensive.  But really, who buy these monster figures, say, other than my neighbor who has already put up his Christmas lights (didn't we just begin fall not that long ago?).  And I couldn't help but notice that even at places such as Costco and Home Depot, the Halloween displays are quickly being shoved into smaller and smaller sections of the stores, the part with all those patio furniture closeouts.  A few pallets of bagged candy, one rack of cheap, glittery costumes aimed at parents with 2-year olds, and it's time to make way for Christmas!  What has happened to us?  How did a candy-filled festival suddenly overtake a day of giving thanks for all that we have...or was this yet another reflection of our changing society?  Hand out the sweets then jump right into buying material goods on credit.  Hmm, maybe I am becoming a curmudgeon after all...

     There was a time not long ago when I loved Halloween, the parents patiently waiting below as their little princess or fairy would inch up the stairs of our porch and say "trick or treat" with such innocence that it renewed your faith in all that was good.  It was also a time when I would watch the variety of the older kids, now teens for the most part, trying their best to sneak in those last few candy bars before they grew so tall or bulky that posing as a "child" was just ludicrous, even to them.  But many of them were quite creative, their "outfits" alone worthy of attention and right with the times.  Two of my favorites (which I've mentioned in early posts on Halloween) were one lad who had taped a small blackboard on his shirt and covered it with those yellow Easter "peep" chicks.  What are you supposed to be, I asked, to which he replied, "I'm a chick magnet."  The other standout were two girls, now quite grown (we had seem them since they were indeed little children) and quite leggy but wearing pigtails and very short gingham skirts.  They'd ring the doorbell then quickly drop to their knees, giving you the impression that they were once again little children; the last year they appeared I simply told them to stand up but commended them on their creativity since I was genuinely impressed.

     At "adult" Halloween parties, getting into costume was often a chance for us grown "kids" to be creative since 1) most of us were pretty much broke and what money we had was better directed at buying beer; and 2) to rent or buy a fancy adult costume was prohibitively expensive and limited to those Wall Street traders and their rooftop parties in Manhattan.  Slapping together some fabric with iron-on hemming (which "melts" as you iron it, temporarily bonding the pieces of cloth), a few cuts with the scissors, and you had an outfit.  Granted, it would tend to fall apart the next day, or sometimes even on the drive to the party, but it was all in fun and good spirit (my outfit at the time was one with a pointy head and pointy hands made with a silvery fabric; when asked what I was I would raise my hands up and reply, "I'm a fork!").  All of us "adults" were childless and lived in apartments, often in questionable (but affordable) areas, so the idea of handing out candy to kids wasn't even on our minds.  That was something for the parents or "old folks" to do, a tradition carried on from the baby boom days (which would include me).  Wrote an explanation from History: Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated.  Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived.  Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration.  In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats.  Thus, a new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow.  Today, Americans spend an estimated $6 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country’s second largest commercial holiday after Christmas.  

     But the days of the 50s and 60s, and our childhoods, are long gone, days when parents let you go off on your own even if you were still too young to drive.  Just be back before dark (which most of us pre-teens ignored by an hour or so).  And with our vanishing childhoods went a societal innocence.  The streets began to become scary, the kids were now being taught to never take candy from a stranger, and to only take machine-wrapped candy, never a bag of popcorn or a hot-from-the-oven brownie (but boy were those good).  Who knew what could be in those bags, our parents began to ask, maybe a double-edged razor blade (when such a thing existed) or some sort of poison (the tampering of bottles in stores would soon begin and lead to everything requiring a seal within a seal).  Thus the scariest part of Halloween became not the ghouls and ghosts and plastic skeletons, but the simple act of going door to door.  Best to gather in groups and be dropped off and picked up; or better yet to meet in a single area full of parents who would dish the candy out of their cars, the new trunk-or-treat (picture a swap meet for kids)...things seemed to have now moved further away and into shopping malls where security officers can be spotted.  As mentioned before, what has happened to us?  

     Here's a quick summary of where historians think it all began, why the pumpkins and orange-black colors, and all the Harry Potter-like dementors to be avoided.  Wrote Britannica: Halloween had its origins in the festival of Samhain among the Celts of ancient Britain and Ireland.  On the day corresponding to November 1 on contemporary calendars, the new year was believed to begin.  That date was considered the beginning of the winter period, the date on which the herds were returned from pasture and land tenures were renewed.  During the Samhain festival the souls of those who had died were believed to return to visit their homes, and those who had died during the year were believed to journey to the otherworld.  People set bonfires on hilltops for relighting their hearth fires for the winter and to frighten away evil spirits, and they sometimes wore masks and other disguises to avoid being recognized by the ghosts thought to be present.  It was in those ways that beings such as witches, hobgoblins, fairies, and demons came to be associated with the day.  Added the Library of Congress blog: Carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating, and wearing scary costumes are some of the time-honored traditions of Halloween...For the Celts, black represented the “death” of summer while the orange symbolized the autumn harvest season...The tradition of carving Jack-o’-Lanterns originated in Ireland using turnips instead of pumpkins.  It is allegedly based on a legend about a man named Stingy Jack who repeatedly trapped the Devil and only let him go on the condition that Jack would never go to Hell.  But when Jack died, he learned that Heaven did not want his soul either, so he was forced to wander the Earth as a ghost for eternity.  The Devil gave Jack a burning lump of coal in a carved-out turnip to light his way.  Locals eventually began carving scary faces into their own turnips to frighten away evil spirits.

     Editor Stephen Orr of Better Homes & Gardens wrote that he loved being "scared" at Halloween, perhaps because he knew that he felt safe at home, "an enjoyable frisson that was the opposite of everyday life."  He went on to write: Halloween is a celebration of all those emotions.  It's scary -- but scary with  giggle.  We take power away from things that are truly frightening, like our natural fear of death, and transform them into cartoon versions that are easier to manage.  I love when people go all out with their holiday decorations and costumes.  It's a rare opportunity for ordinary people to be creative and break the rules, be tacky or over-the-top, or adopt an alter ego.  Once again, to not be everyday.  I remember being terrified by some of the decorations on our block during the first Halloween I was allowed to trick-or-treat.  But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.  There were kids everywhere and excitement and laughter in the chilly air.  Clearly, this holiday is serving a purpose.  

     My wife and I were once kids (believe it or not) and like all kids, we couldn't wait to grow up; but no matter how hard we tried, we had to wait.  But in today's world, it almost seems as if society may not giving kids that option: get better looking, get thinner, get with the right crowd, wear makeup or sexier clothes, get with it...or get bullied.  I keep coming back to the words of Billy Joel: Slow down you crazy child; you're so ambitious for a juvenile...You got so much to do and only so many hours in a day.  But you know that when the truth is told that you can get what you want or you can just get old...You can't be everything you want to be before your time...It's alright, you can afford to lose a day or two.  

     The other day I ventured to the local Costco to get a tire fixed, which gave me some time to wander about.  Having just been there not long ago, there wasn't anything I really "needed" so I decided to saunter over to a section I rarely visit, that of the recent book offerings.  There sat The Big Book of Math for Middle Schoolers, and The Big Book of English for Middle Schoolers (I was hesitant to open The Big Book of Algebra for High Schoolers).  Both books reminded me of a book I had earlier glanced at, How to Be Good At English Language Arts.  Here was one small section from that book: A determiner is a word that introduces a noun, giving readers more information about it.  There are many types of determiners, including articles, possessive, quantifiers, and demonstratives.  Huh?  Or take this text: A modal auxiliary verb is written before another verb or verb phrase to describe the possibility of it happening.  There are nine main modal auxiliary verbs that express possibility from possible to certain.  Here was the subtitle to that book: The Simplest-Ever Visual Guide.  It was written for grades 2-8.  Wait, I don't remember much from the 2nd grade but I really don't remember learning about gerunds, conditionals, and subjunctives.  Slow down, you crazy child.  As I told my friends after glancing through those "middle school" books (and I did open the high school algebra book), I am not sure that I would make it through today's schools...

     It is indeed a changed world from my childhood, which were likely the exact words from my parents, and even from the 30-year old parents of today.  And there's no right or wrong here because if my wife and I had little ones, quite likely we'd be at that parking lot with our own car trunk open, happy that our children were safe and enjoying themselves.  But none of that really mattered for us because we were going to miss this year's Halloween, a tradition we've enjoyed here in our home for over 30 years.  We'd always hand out full-sized candy bars of Snickers, Oreos and Skittles, which not only made us quite popular in the neighborhood (at least among the kids) but allowed us to keep track of just how many "children" had rung the doorbell (and a chance for me to hand out copies of my old cartoon book, The Booger Book).  In the early years, we always topped out at well over 100 kids, sometimes 125 appearing.  Then it dropped to half that as those children grew up and graduated; then a lull until the new generation arrived and the newer little ones bravely ascended our porch while their anxious parents waited below.  Last year we had a total of just 16 appear.  So this year, we'll plop out a sign saying that we have gotten Covid or Monkeypox or Boogie Manx or some "scary" virus, and just place a small bowl of normal miniature-sized candy, and leave it at that.  We've decided to head out once again, to temporarily leave our own scary world, one of election ads and countless pundits who "know" what's going to happen and who will be the next President.  We decided to see yet another area we've never visited, that of the Azores and the Canary Islands.  Até ao nosso regresso...

What we hand out each year, to the dismay of many parents...