Fear has ruined Halloween

The Halloweens of my childhood were so much better than my kids’. We were turned loose to trick or treat all over town. I think I went to only one Halloween carnival my entire childhood and I thought it was really lame. I wanted to get out of there with my friends and go trick or treating.

I remember Buck and Beth sneaking eggs out of the house.

I remember me and Bill sorting our loot when Buck and Beth would come home, howling, covered with broken eggs and putting us in stitches telling us what happened.


I remember how cold it always was and not wanting to put a coat over my costume.


I remember Buck as a teenager putting together elaborate schemes to scare the shit out of trick or treaters.


I remember the times he played “Spooky” over and over again by the door.


I remember the rivalry between me and Bill on who could collect the most candy.


I remember that my friend Gail’s mom always gave out homemade popcorn balls. Some house in every neighborhood gave out caramel apples and word spread like wildfire. Some asshole would give out coffee candy. Rumors of needles and razor blades abounded. My feet would be soaking wet. My skinny arms sticking out of my coat sleeves (because I would be wearing last year’s coat) would be freezing.


And I was free, after dark, with a bunch of other kids, knocking on strangers doors and receiving candy.





A few of my favorite Halloween quotes:





'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.~William Shakespeare

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.~Emily Dickinson

Where there is no imagination there is no horror. ~Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. ~George Carlin

Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,
Voices whisper in the trees,
"Tonight is Halloween!"~Dexter Kozen

Backward, turn backward,
O Time, in your flight
make me a child again
just for to-night!~Elizabeth Akers Allen

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story. ~Mason Cooley

Just like a ghost, you've been a-hauntin' my dreams,
So I'll propose on Halloween.
Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you.~Classics IV

Acting is like a Halloween mask that you put on. ~River Phoenix

The dream reveals the reality which conception lags behind. That is the horror of life—the terror of art.~One of the best quotes by Franz Kafka

I know'd it, know'd it,
Indeed I know'd it brother
I know'd it - Weeee!
Dem bones gonna rise again.- Anonymous Early American Ballad

THE HORROR ... the horror ...

Dear God in heaven. This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I had my TV on and tuned to a local morning program. The station has been running ads for haunted houses, and Halloween supplies. This morning I actually had chills run down my spine when I heard the music accompanying a local commercial. It was heart-stopping …

it was nausea inducing …

it was …

it was …

gasp …

“Deck the Halls.”

Incoming!

You know, every now and then circumstances converge to create incidents that are comic theatre at its very best. If you’re really lucky you get to witness one of these sidewalk improvisations. I was that fortunate person yesterday.

After another stimulating day of cataslacking at the medical center library, I clocked out and walked outside toward the parking deck. My path takes me along a sidewalk bordered on the right by a shoulder height brick wall and on the left by perfectly spaced, sickly Willow oaks. I noticed a squirrel on the wall and was amazed at how close he let me get before doing a lazy squirrel hop along the flat crest of the wall. He stayed about 3 feet in front of me.

I was mildly interested because we don’t see squirrels around here often. The last time we had a family of the critters in our corner of the campus, it was wiped out in one day by a hawk -- so much for animals killing only for food. Like an avian serial killer, that raptor picked them off one-by-one, sadistically displaying his victims, splayed out on tree branches outside numerous windows of our building.

So, as I was walking along with the squirrel on point, a doctor passed me on the left. Everything was cool until the squirrel ran out of wall. Now this squirrel had several options when it came to the end of the wall:
1. Stop.
2. Run down the other side of the wall into the chancellor’s garden.
3. Run down the sidewalk side of the wall and do the squirrel equivalent of dodge ball like they do in the middle of the street when confronted by a car.
4. Leap from the wall to a tree on the other side of the walkway.
If you picked number 4, you’ve read my blogs before.

The squirrel leaps, grabbing desperately for any branch. It manages to grip the end of a spindly low-hanging branch and swings toward the trunk. Freeze frame. Remember the doc that passed me? Well, he’s now dead even with tarzan squirrel. Resume action. The doctor is walking along, lost in thought, oblivious to his surroundings. I’m more interested because the squirrel’s now committed and I’m wondering how he’s gonna get out of the situation. In a split second I discovered squirrel reflexes are fast but they have their limits. The doc didn’t have a chance. One second he’s walking along, minding his own business. The next he’s smacked upside the head with a branchful of squirrel. I swear the rodent had hold of one of the poor guy’s nostrils as the branch swung back. It took me about .000001 seconds to process what I’d just witnessed and react. Another pedestrian was next to me and in unison we said, “Whoa. Dude!” The guy next to me said, “Did you see that?” I responded with, “Did that guy just get bitch slapped by a squirrel?” We then proceeded to laugh our asses off all the way to the parking deck while the doc kept looking over his shoulder at us. He was not amused. I keep replaying the event in my head -- in slow motion, complete with a high pitched tarzan yell.

The urban jungle … sinister … unpredictable … inhabited by kamikaze rodents.