Halloween Memories

 

Halloween. So … this is Halloween. I really only have one memory of Halloween, of Halloween proper, that is, of a Halloween participated in and enjoyed when I was a child. I think it must have been the Halloween of 1969; I am almost sure of it. That year I was a pirate, the brittle plastic mask, held on by a rubber elastic string, gripped a knife in its teeth. John (who must have been four or five) was a black cat, and Mike was a devil, if not THE Devil. His mask haunted the spare room closet for quite a while afterwards, probably contributing to the Legend of the Little Hoofer in years to come.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table with a brown paper grocery bag and some crayons and drawing a picture of my pirate mask on it for a trick-or-treat sack. Rather typically for me, I think, I accidentally drew it upside down. Unfortunately, there were no more bags in the cabinet over the oven where Mom kept them, so I was stuck with my mistake.

We went over to Omi’s house on Cottage Street before we began our trick-or-treating proper. She was making molasses popcorn balls in anticipation of Halloween visitors, and we all got a sample, fresh from the preparation. They hadn’t really had time to set yet and were kind of squishy and falling apart. I remember thinking with characteristic shallow childhood judgement that this traditional old-fashioned treat was not as good as store-bought ‘real’ candy. I have only vague impressions of actually going to any houses, only of the aftermath of our having paper bags of swag that grew ever more wrinkled as over the days we ate our way down from the best to the worst candy.

Then came the time of our bondage to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Halloween became an evening of lights-out all over the house and huddling in the back bedroom until all was over. But we still had the little black-and-white portable TV set, and Mom did not have the heart to deny us the Halloween specials, particularly It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. We lived out our holiday impulses second-hand with the Peanuts gang, especially through Linus with his relatable ‘unorthodox’ response to Halloween.  Emphasis was given to the Dolly Madison snack treats, Charlie Brown’s big sponsor at the time. We very seldom could afford them.

By the time the JW Era had passed for us, I was too old for Halloween. This was still when the holiday was reserved for children, and anyone much over ten who celebrated was seen as hopelessly stunted and immature. But it was well in time for Susan to enjoy it. We could still participate in a way through her, as when we set up a Halloween haunted house ‘run’ through the house and yard, hosted by Green-Face the Fortune -Teller (in a full-head mummy mask) for her and her friends.

There was a sort of upside to the heartbreak of being denied all holiday joys (including birthdays) during childhood. For one thing, it has made me appreciate the holidays all the more. Instead of being a yearly occurrence that staled and grew more unfulfilling as one got older, the holidays became a vision of a lost paradise, preserved in the amber glow of nostalgia, a bright mirror unstained by the dust of ages and use, a present preserved mint-in-box with all the possibilities intact. Perhaps the everyday usages of celebrations, with their tatters and disappointments, were forbidden me, but that, in a sense, preserved for me their inner reality and spiritual essence. And so, a Happy Halloween, indeed.  

  

Afternote: I eventually fictionalized quite a few Halloween memories in a short story, Brother Silas, published elsewhere on this blog. Look it up!