Two Pumpkins And A Gourd
10.30.09
“I am the ‘who’ when you call, “Who’s there?”” I won’t even ask you to name that movie. You all ought to know. This is Halloween. For most of us, the most wonderful time of the year. Wet leaves, hot cider, hay rides, haunted houses, horror movies, candy apples, costumes, and candy. The air bites a little differently. The rain is smaller and colder. The fragrance of carved pumpkin kisses every house’s front step. It’s a fine time of year.
When I was little, I would try to figure out my costume early so that I could gather the appropriate props I’d need to make it authentic. My dad and I would always try to find a creepy mask at the one-time-use Halloween stores that spring up from old Caldor’s and Bradley’s. I have a terrible memory on the whole, but I remember one mask was a skinned head. There were demon masks, and skulls, and all sorts of twisted creations. The clothing would come second, of course, only to accent how badassed the mask was. One year, we took a broom handle and a foam and rubber skull and made a crazy staff using plaster. The costume had to always accommodate a jacket, and sometimes a rain coat. Autumn was always frightfully cold. I even remember in the lean years of the Phillies at Veteran’s Stadium, one of the late September, early October Sunday giveaways was a pair of socks with the Phillies’ logo.
There were always children everywhere. Glowsticks bouncing up and down, pillow sacks filled with individually wrapped happiness. Everyone had a plan, which houses were the best, which ones gave out fruit, and which ones you had to go to because the owner was a friend of the family and seeing children happily begging for sweets in costumes brought joy to their senior eyes. Every once in a while a cop would roll by to make sure no candy bashers were terrorizing the little ones. I fell victim once or twice to the candy bashers; the older kids who would push you down and take your candy filled pillow sack. But I knew what streets they would typically be on, so I’d avoid it. I remember how few kids came to the door in 2001. Though a month and a half after the highjacking in New York, DC, and Pennsylvania, the joy of free candy in exchange for the simple phrase “trick or treat” seemed to be collateral damage of the hangover from the attack.
Mischief Night was a big deal too. Maybe it is because I grew up in the suburbs, and we don’t have much else to do, but we used to turn it up a bit on the day before. We never went nuts. We never set fires or broke windows, just the normal toilet paper, shaving cream, eggs, and pumpkin snatching. So maybe snatching pumpkins is up there with real vandalism, but we never took a carved one, or one with a candle in it. Just whole pumpkins. And we wouldn’t smash them near the houses from which we took them. We would have teams; a pumpkin snatching contest, and then take them to the base of the foot bridge that crosses a creek near my high school. The foot bridge was part of the cross country team route, and since our snatching teams featured many members of the cross country team, we’d smash the pumpkins there to give a morale boost to the team as they ran passed the squashed squash. I remember rehearsing for a school play, when a friend turn to me on stage to surreptitiously show my a crime log clipping that detailed, “Two pumpkins and a gourd were stolen…”
As friends aged and gathered things like girls and apartments, everyone wanted to host a Halloween party. They were typically just like any other party except everyone was in some sort of costume. The men tried every so little, and the women were all in clothes that were slutty versions of everyday jobs. The lights were orange, green, and red. Beer pong, flip-cup, bon fires, marshmallows. One friend of mine, Jarrod, whom I have a vast fondness and probably don’t share that enough with him, would ask me to bring horror movies; and he would let them play on his giant TV throughout the night. I would try to bring the weirdest films with the most gore.
Now, I have no plans for Halloween, and I’ll probably resolve to watching horror movies alone (after the World Series game, of course), and in a way that is kind of sad. At a time, at many times of life actually, Halloween was the most important day of the year. So much planning and work going into a day where we think it’s OK to dress abnormally and expect free food from strangers. I guess it’s one of those youthful things that, for me, is difficult to abandon in these ‘tween years of nearly thirty.
Still, autumn is my favorite time of year. It is often my most creative time of year, though ironically it is is the most difficult physically for me. That’s a fine penance, however, for leaves changing, bon fires warming, and children welcoming in a new season by indulging for a night the macabre safety of an honest scare. Have good Halloween memories? I’d like to hear them. Share, stay beautiful, and Happy Halloween, kids.
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