With each day that passes, I find myself soaking up the afternoon’s sunshine and hoping against hope that autumn continues to chase its tail into a long sunset. One that outlives the looming “fall back” of the clocks.
I know that winter is coming and I know that we need snow… eventually. I know when darkhouse spearing is supposed to start and my fish decoy box is ready. My spear tines are sharp. Right now, I’m focused on the few remaining hours in the sixties that one of my coworkers referred to in this way right after the lunch hour, “dare, I say, it is hot out there.” Yes. Soaking in the warmth. We’ve been walking with Mr. David out at Hidden Valley and other places soaking in the color and my thoughts are staying pretty close to Halloween. On the leash, he pulls me toward it.
The long shadows and the fallen oranges, yellows, punchy reds and browns are all crunching underfoot as we stretch out the year towards the Night of the Great Pumpkin. I know kids focus these days on “full-size” and there’s an uptick in creep with an edge each year. I also know that more and more adults dress up and, like myself, have a great nostalgia for a holiday that resonates from their lost youth.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.
Walking through the woods with half the canopy still intact overhead and bluer than blue skies lighting up the afternoon, I think about the walking we used to do on Halloween night. If you wanted to fill your tote bag and your plastic jack-o-lantern, you had to rub off some shoe leather (or rubber).
I’m all for modern trunk-or-treats within reason, but when things are too easy, the effort doesn’t get put in, the neighborhoods don’t get canvassed and the lights start to turn off. People miss out. It used to be something most of the town shared in. We got to know each other a bit better, at least one night of the year.
As a kid and later as a parent with little kids, I’m not sure that there was an evening any time of year that I spent more time “mask to face” with people in my hometown.
There was no time to check out what was going in your bag, that was for later, for trading piles and sorting with your friends and family.
There wasn’t a notion about how one house might be giving something special or one street might have “full-sized” candy bars. It was all just a welcomed surprise.
We loaded up, but the volume depended on how many drift piles of leaves and often snow we were prepared to shuffle and slog through, how many doors we were ready to knock on and how many shadows or “haunted” yards we were able to brave. It was about quantity and the quality came from the experience. I never remember feeling cheated on Halloween -- not even by the weather.
It felt like Spooky was a season; it felt like a trip through a candy store in Witch :) everything was free. Sometimes we sprinted to the next block or through a completely dark area of town, sometimes we took it slow and visited with folks we knew better or were related to, sometimes we were invited inside. Occasionally someone that was special to us would have a special treat bag with our name on it. It was Valentine’s Day, Christmas Eve, our birthday and an Easter Egg hunt all put together in a massive dress-up party.
I think I’ve shared before about a birthday party I had once with a Halloween theme. At least I remember bobbing for apples and losing a tooth.
I remember everyone wore costumes and we tried to be the first to eat a donut without our hands (Mom hung them from the ceiling on string). We did pin the face on the jack-o-lantern and we probably had some fantastic cupcakes. I remember giant cupcakes with sprinkles and waffle cones for hats and licorice grins.
Turned loose on town with darkness enveloping us like a comfortable blanket with nothing more for protection than a plastic Joker mask and a too-loose elastic strip holding it on underneath my stocking cap.
It always felt good to be just a little scared. It felt good to be in a group of like-minded monsters. It felt good to be welcomed. It felt good to be safe and scary. On almost every occasion the weather moved in, through wind and sleet and rain or snow. Before the 31st was over and sometimes even before it began, autumn was over and winter had moved in. That frosty edge was part of the fun. Things change… we can’t help that. Or could we?
I gotta go. There’s more afternoon to crunch through before dark…
