Halloween For the Purist Part Two: Adulthood

In Part One, I talked about how Halloween was a special time for me as a kid. Unfortunately, there is a definite transitional period where Halloween is left in the time of a child and a few years go by where you don’t really have a lot of exposure to it as a teenager, unless you are invited to a lot of costume parties. I only went to one, as Freddy Krueger, and it was disastrous. It will be forever known as “The Afghan Incident.” Now, I did attend a Junior High School dance in that costume which was cool. I didn’t have a green and red sweater but I had a red and white one and a fedora. I was able to construct the glove myself, using a beige glove and foil covered Popsicle sticks that were tapered off at the end to look like Freddy’s blades. I then applied make up to achieve the burned look. It was pretty cool, but still not authentic.

In high school, I had a couple of occasions and even took part in that rite of passage known as corning or tic tacking. My friends and I lived near a lot of farms and would often sneak into the fields to steal corn which prompted the farmer to brandish his shotgun and fire over our heads. Kids would then go out at night and toss loose corn kernels at cars and houses around Halloween. That was probably the least damaging thing you can do. The more serious offenses involved other food items.

Another group of friends had decided to go egging one night. I had never done something this destructive but I gave into peer pressure and we went out and wrought havoc in the neighborhood. We drove up through one neighborhood, sneaking off the back of my friend’s truck and up to people’s houses to steal the pumpkins off their porches. Once nabbed, we tossed them off the back of the truck bed, smashing them onto the road. Then, we picked the one guy who had been egged one too many times and hit his house. He got in his truck and followed us, getting the license plate number. The next day, I received a call from the police saying my friends had already rolled over on me being involved and we got cited $93 each. My parents were none too happy and it resulted in the only grounding that ever stuck in my life. Worse yet, I had already spent money on tickets to see Def Leppard in concert and wasn’t allowed to go. After that, I pretty much stuck to watching movies on television and staying home on Halloween for the next couple of years.

Now, in college, there was a renewed opportunity to engage in some Halloween fun. Aside from an unrealized idea of trick or treating throughout the dorms with alcohol shots in place of candy, there was the occasional Halloween party at one of the coolest venues on the planet. That would Evaline.

It’s hard to describe what Evaline is, at least from my perspective during the years of 1995-1998. In fact, I don’t think you can describe it. You have to experience it. For those not looking for an existential understanding, it’s rather simple. Evaline is also called Hotel Evaline. It’s a venue, of sorts, on Evaline Street in Pittsburgh, near UPMC Shadyside Hospital. Now, for a couple of years I had been in regular attendance at FNI, which stands for Friday Nite Improvs. The people behind the madness were associated with the house on Evaline street and it was commonplace for there to be a Halloween Party every year. I had been to three separate parties during my time at Pitt. Each one more surreal than the previous. Actually, it was quite simply a chance for all of us in the theatre department, or on the fringe, to be those wacky things we call ourselves.

For the first year, I accompanied two friends of mine to the party entitled, “Pimps and Johns.” You basically had two choices for costumes. I went as a Puerto Rican pimp in a skin tight shirt and chinos with a hat, although people thought I looked more like Michael Jackson. My friend, Ray managed to snag a Pope style costume, complete with miter, and went as Pope John Paul Robinovitz. He was Jewish…you see. I was very drunk and wanted to stay all night because at a party like this, someone as single and lonely as I could have managed to find someone who was as drunk or worse. Unfortunately, like most Evaline parties, they always fell on the day before a Tech Rehearsal for a Mainstage show. I needed to be in bed for the early morning call.

The second year was “The Loving Dead” and I flew solo for that party. I dressed up as the Crow, complete with makeup and fake bird on my shoulder. I actually rode a PAT bus from campus to Shadyside before walking the rest of the way. Unfortunately, it was already after Halloween since it fell on a Tuesday that year. I got more looks than I would have normally had it been on Halloween. That was the first and last time I ever drank Pure Grain alcohol. It was mixed into something called Pain Punch and had no alcoholic taste whatsoever. I had six or seven cups from the dry ice filled cooler. I didn’t even feel drunk as I walked the entire way home, escorting a friend dressed as a roller girl…not the roller girl, but a roller girl back to her apartment. I then carried on the rest of the way home and work later in time to vomit the entire contents of my stomach into the toilet across the hall from my dorm room.

The third time I was dating a girl who had a slight resemblance to Uma Thurman so we went as Mia Wallace and Vince Vega from Pulp Fiction. This time, I brought in a ringer as a date. I didn’t get nearly as inebriated as I had in the past but still had an awesome time.

Since I’ve graduated, Evaline has raised the bar in its parties. I wish I could still attend but I reached that level of adulthood, and parenthood, in suburbia that was robbed me of my adventurous nature. In all seriousness, a lot of the guys involved are older than me and they have the proximity and the lifestyles that can still run with the crowd, I just don’t have it in me anymore. I have moved onto the next level of Halloween purity, which is on the other end of the spectrum from childhood.

When I began living on my own, I really didn’t have a lot of interest in getting my bachelor pad decorated for the holidays. My wife, then girlfriend, had other ideas. She had a childhood where the holidays exploded in their home, leaving traces of decorations from ceiling to floor. She had decided to do the same with my place.

When I had moved into my townhouse and she had pretty much moved in as well, I had the opportunity to decorate outside the home. This where the man should decorate, although I do have the responsibility of decorating the tops of the entertainment center and mantle as well as the trees for Christmas. However, outside is where the man lives or dies by the decoration. My first attempt at Halloween decorations took form as a hooded ghoul made of PVC pipe and dressed in black robes hiding behind a tree. It looked to be coming straight out of the ground around the tree which had headstones placed in front of it. These headstones were made from hard polystyrene, used in floral arrangements, and spray painted gray to achieve the granite look. A green flood lamp finished off the effect. For all my work, I spent the next month putting Mr. Pipes, as I called him, back together as the wind would tear him apart. I also had no real audience for Mr. Pipes to scare because I never saw a trick or treater while I lived there.

Where I live now is ridiculous when it comes to trick or treaters. I have a great venue to display my resourcefulness in constructing a yard display. I have a huge oak tree in my front yard and it makes for a great cemetery. My original headstones ended up getting tossed out so I had to redo them. I bought fake, bendable spiders and rubber snakes and some small plastic fencing that looked like wrought iron. I bought a hanging skeleton which I had no place to hang, so I mounted it on a metal rod that was used for a Citronella torch. It was very wobbly and when the wind hit the skeleton it would sway back and forth over the graveyard. My flood lamp came back into play and it was truly an awesome sight and got a lot of comments from passersby.

That all came to an end, though with the birth of my daughter. It has for now, anyway, until she is old enough to understand that the yard isn’t scary. Now, the house needs to be decorated in a more kid friendly way. I don’t necessarily mean in the types of decorations, I mean their placement in relationship to my daughter’s height. She has a knack for grabbing anything that looks interesting. And though she’s only two, I think she is getting the idea of Halloween. She’s got two costumes this year. She went trick or treating, as a cat, at the assisted living home where my wife’s grandmother is residing and on Halloween she will be a pumpkin for trick or treating in our neighborhood. Unfortunately, she wants to wear her little kitten ears and tail part of her first costume with every outfit, everyday. It’s cute but continually falls off everywhere.

And that first real round of candy getting she had this year has her fully anticipating the main event on Saturday. I do not envy my wife having to bring her home after trick or treating. I will probably take some turns over the next few years but right now, I have a bigger job. I am in charge of the candy dish. We have an insane amount of kids that end up coming to my door. This is where my grumpiness takes full effect.

I like the little kids that come up with their parents, in full costume, looking so proud of themselves. I hate the older kids that wear a mask and carry a pillow case as if that qualifies as a costume. Some, don’t even bother with the mask. They paint their face or wear a football jersey and call it a costume. Some, come back more than once. The first year we gave out candy at our house we were killed with walk ups. I ended up having to scrounge for granola bars and individual Hershey’s Kisses by the end. My wife wanted to be all Martha Stewart with little treat bags and we quickly realized it was like feeding hungry wolves. You just throw the meat and run. Don’t let them see the fear in your eyes and never run out of candy. That gets you egged, corned, or worse.

In order to combat this lack of Halloween commitment, I have two candy bowls. The one for little kids has the good stuff and they each get a couple of candy bars from it. The other is the stuff my wife couldn’t get her piano students to take after a lesson and it goes to the older kids and repeaters. If I am not paying attention, they might also find a beer bottle cap snuck into their bag by my brother in law as a “trick.” As wrong as it is, it’s always funny to think of some teenager getting yelled at by their parents because of the beer cap in their pillow case. Although, I highly doubt their parents check their candy for anything sharp.

While giving out candy is part of the fun, the real fun comes from afterwards. As soon as the end of trick or treating comes, we close the door, shut out the light, and eat. In the past we’ve had hot dogs and sauerkraut in the crock pot and my Father-in-law’s famous chili for dinner. Each as equally satisfying a meal for a cold October night. It’s sad really. Most of my holidays revolve around food and eating lots of it. It’s better than them revolving around trips to the hospital, which is usually the trend.

As the night winds down and the company goes home, I settle onto the couch for watching the “recorded from television” version of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. I own a copy on DVD, but there is something about seeing it on television that makes it all the more enjoyable. In fact, in 2007, when my daughter was just four months old, I propped her up next to me on the couch to watch The Great Pumpkin. She half paid attention, which is understandable for an infant, but this year she was sucked in completely. Score one for me, my kid digs Charlie Brown.

I will also flip around to see if there are any scary movies or such on the other channels while cleaning out the candy dish. Come November first it’s all over for another year. The holiday season begins in earnest around here, after Halloween, but I have seen Christmas advertisements before November. Soon it’s back to the yard with the rake for the leaves and the discarded candy wrappers, damn kids. Another year is gone and it soon becomes harder and harder to get into full commitment to Halloween festivities, but Halloween for the purist is as ageless as the faces on the plastic masks we would wear way back when. The body may grow older, but the heart stays young. Some may say we purists where it on our sleeve…. Now that would be a cool costume.


So, what are your greatest Halloween memories? Share them here.

Halloween For the Purist Part One: Childhood

In the minds of children, three holidays usually ring out as the most fun. Easter, Christmas, and Halloween. It’s no surprise that all three involved getting some kind of treat whether it be presents or candy. In fact, all three have the distinction of sharing a duality with religious iconography. Santa Claus with Jesus Christ, The Easter Bunny with, again, Jesus Christ, and Halloween with the Zombie Jesus Christ….I’m kidding, of course. That’s because Halloween has more connections with Pagan themes than Christianity, unless of course you think of Halloween as being a Satanic holiday. If that’s the case you probably think kids who read or watch Harry Potter will turn into a witch and actually do magic. Face it, Halloween is the Celtic New Year’s Eve. All this demonic worship and references to the occult were added later. Anybody who chooses to look at Halloween as a reason to worship Satan is about as on the mark as people who believe that evil aliens live in volcanoes and for a price can make you famous actor. Jumping on couches is optional.

So, being a Halloween purist, I choose to look at the more modernized version of Halloween, stripped of any religious connotations and boiled down to the basic desire to have fun and be creative from the perspective of childhood and adulthood. To that end, I think if you are going to at least get involved with the holiday and expect others to take you seriously, you need to do at least some of the work.

It’s simple. As a kid, you dress up and go trick or treating, collecting as much candy as you can. You take a lot of time and effort to come up with the right costume. You are respectful to those you visit and you thank them for their treat. As an adult, you do your part to help make the experience for little ones enjoyable and you make sure they understand all the rules.

Growing up, I took Halloween seriously. Now, my mother told me of how her hometown would have trick or treating that would last an entire week. That would have been cool for a kid, and expensive for an adult. What I find sad is that nowadays, some kids are forced to go trick or treating during daylight hours and sometimes on a different day than Halloween. And additionally, a lot kids don’t even put in the effort to come up with a good costume and just walk around a camouflage shirt or football jersey and call it a costumer. They grab a pillowcase and go out with the sort of enthusiasm that makes you think that it really is Night of the Living Dead out there.

I remember the good old days of the early 80s. Your parents would go out and buy you that kiddie costume that consisted of an vinyl outfit and a plastic mask. It was the kind of mask that forced you to make sure you brushed your teeth beforehand because you’d be subject to your own breath for the next few hours, not to mention profusely sweating underneath that plastic shield held together with an elastic band. Visibility was a matter of perspective. If you tried to adjust your mask to see better, you risked cutting your eyes on the jagged holes punched into the mask or massive welts from the snapping of the elastic on your skin.

As I got a little older, costumes became a little more inventive. One year, I scrounged around our house and came up with enough supplies to pull off a fully wrapped up patient. Some old crutches, hospital gown, and a pair of long johns made up the bulk of the costume while bandages around my arms and head completed the look. It also served as a great costume for our grade school’s party. After we would get dressed up, the teacher would try to guess who we were as we sat in different seats. I still don’t know how she was able to easily tell it was me under those bandages. In any case the coolest of all costumes was in fourth grade.

In June of 1984, Ghostbusters had become a HUGE hit at the box office. By October, even at the age of nine I knew the cultural impact of the movie on the Halloween holiday. Come hell or high water, I was going to be a Ghostbuster. I don’t recall if costumes in retail stores had caught up to Pop Culture at this point, so I have no idea if there was already a version being sold to the public. In any case, I knew I could pull it off with what I had around me. As always, I could come up with grand schemes, but the nine year old mind had no way of understanding the mechanics of actually executing such plans. I called on the two smartest people I knew, my dad and my brother, for help.

We took an old gray snow suit and established it as the jumpsuit. I drew the logo of the ghost with a line through it and a name tag to be taped on the pocket area. My two genius engineers constructed the proton pack by taking an old black back pack and putting a cardboard box inside to square it up. Using a six volt flashlight and a discarded gun stock, with no barrel or trigger, they created the particle thrower. Taking the mirrored cone from the flashlight and the bulb they built a lighted front end of the gun and wired it to light up with a trigger on the gun stock. The wire was then run through an old corrugated vacuum hose to a battery inside the backpack. In all, it was a crudely designed costume but it was the coolest thing I’d ever wore and made me an instant hit during our school party. Someone had the 45 of the Ray Parker Jr. movie theme in class and played it as I did the dance from the end of the video, complete with a fake sliming that had me end up flat on my back. From the outside observer, I probably looked like the biggest dork on Earth but, in my mind, it was hippest thing I ever did in my life. Looking back, if someone were to have attempted that same costume, designed the same way, they would probably have been sent to the principal’s office for brandishing a weapon.

Fourth grade was the pinnacle of Halloween for me, as a kid. As adolescence set in, I became too old for trick or treating, but too young for wild Halloween parties. Soon, the problems of the world reared their ugly head into our lives. Kids from my generation were warned by McGruff the crime dog to not talk to strangers and long before Amber Alerts we were well aware of the creepy men in the trucks offering candy. I distinctly remember watching Adam on television and sat in disbelief as they found the body of little Adam Walsh. It was beyond the mind of an eight year old to comprehend that children could be killed. That was my first taste of mortality outside the passing of my grandfather. Still, that was not going to deter a kid on Halloween. We trick or treat no matter what. We are just careful and follow the rules. But when I turned 10 and had moved into a semi rural area outside of our town proper, trick or treating hours was moved to a Sunday afternoon between 2 PM and 4 PM.

That slight was a blaspheme to the heart of the Halloween Purist. I can understand with the danger of abductions and the amount of traffic that would zip along the infrequently monitored roads of my area, you had to be safe and what better way to be safe was during the day. However, the frequency of trick or treaters, along with the bad timing reduced the amount of visitors so much that my parents stopped handing out treats. In my last attempt at childhood, a friend and I wore makeshift costumes and went trick or treating in the middle of the afternoon which made some people scratch their heads. After all, when two thirteen year olds show up on your doorstep asking for candy, you think they are jackasses. But soon, adulthood would come into play and the holiday became fun again for the Halloween Purist. See you in Part Two.

The First Halloween *

“That house has its porch light turned on. Go ahead, Billy.” The young boy, dressed as a clown, approached the old house looking for a treat. As he walked he flopped his big shoes towards the front porch. He had remembered the rules his mother told him about trick or treating. If there are no lights lit, don’t go to that house and don’t eat any candy before you get home so that we can check it out. This was his first time trick or treating and Billy replayed those rules in his head as he walked. He also remembered his mother telling him that she would stand at the end of the yard, watching him. She wouldn’t let anything happen to him, she said. Feeling somewhat comforted by this, Billy continued to increase the distance between him and his mother.

It was only a few steps up to the door of the house. On the front porch he could see a chair which was being occupied by what resembled a scarecrow. It was a makeshift man made of straw wearing a flannel shirt and jeans. The buttons on the clothes strained to contain the straw which had been overstuffed into the garments. A brown bag, also stuffed with straw had a face scribbled on it with black magic marker. Billy thought the scarecrow looked silly and unreal and he chuckled a bit at its appearance. He looked back to make sure his Mother was still standing at the end of the walk, ready to run to his rescue. She waved at him and motioned for him to continue towards the door.

Billy topped the steps and saw that a bowl of candy sat on the porch, unattended. He looked towards the house and saw that the front door was open wide. He could see people moving around inside of the house and thought that maybe they had left their post briefly to fetch more candy or something else inside. He didn’t want to exhibit bad trick or treating etiquette by just taking a candy bar from the bowl and leaving. He wanted to ring the doorbell and show off his costume. He wanted to be proud of his clown get up and be paid for his cuteness in candy.

As Billy reached his tiny index finger out towards the doorbell, he never noticed the shape moving towards him. He only heard the sound of rustling straw and the stretching of nylon material on a creaky metal lawn chair. Immediately, to his right, the overstuffed straw man in the chair reached towards him and moaned a God awful sound that could only mean that he intended to eat the little boy. The silly face, scribbled with marker suddenly looked like it had sharp teeth and piercing eyes. Eyes that pierced into Billy’s being looking to suck the marrow of his soul.

The exchange took less than two seconds but Billy felt as if he was held captive on that porch for hours. Where was his mother? Why hadn’t she raced up the side walk to bludgeon this evil being with her handbag? Finally, the shock of seeing this seemingly seven foot tall scarecrow lunging at him wore off and Billy’s gelatinous legs solidified with a single purpose, run as far away from this monster as fast as possible. Billy tore off down the steps and up the sidewalk, his huge shoes flapping as if he would soon take flight. He raced towards the street where his mother stood looking at him. He could feel the arms of the scarecrow cutting through the air, continually trying to grasp at his neck, the foul hot breath of hell bearing down on his ears with the rotten smell of brimstone all around him. He dared not look back at his aggressor and shut his eyes and ran faster. At last he had escaped the clutches of the monster on the porch and took refuge behind the polyester pant legs of his mother.

A few minutes later, another young boy came trotting down the same street towards the house. On his way, he passed a mother consoling a little crying clown and he thought “Who dresses their child as Canio?” As he reached the top of the porch he could hear the elevated voices inside the house. Opening the front door, he made his way into the kitchen where a brown bag, stuffed with straw and sporting a silly face sat on the kitchen table as a teenager, a few feet away wearing the rest of the scarecrow costume explained himself to his mother. “Honestly, I never touched the kid.” He said, throwing his straw stuffed arms in the air.

“What happened?” The young boy asked his older brother.

“I dozed off for a minute on the porch. Some kid in a clown costume rang the doorbell and woke me up. When I reached into the bowl and asked if he wanted a candy bar, he freaked out and ran away, screaming. I could hear him crying all the way up the street.”

That was the last time my brother ever dressed up as a scarecrow and gave out candy on Halloween.






* This tale is based on an actual event that occurred when I was a kid. My brother thought it would have been fun to dress up like a scarecrow and pass out candy to trick or treaters. Although, the exchange and dialogue has been altered for dramatic effect, a kid did in fact approach come to our house for candy and was subsequently scared by the sudden movement of what was thought to be an inaminate object sitting in the chair next to him on the porch. I was out trick or treating at the time but heard the scream and saw the kid sobbing as he walked up the street, minutes later.