Those Were The Days My Friend….

It was all about the candy at first. No one is too young to eat Tootsie Rolls or a Bit-O-Honey bar. And it was such an independent feeling, we were free to walk anywhere in town, to any house we chose, and knock on the front door with great expectations reverberating in our little hearts.

“Trick or Treat” were the magic words of the evening.

Of course, me and David Mark were only semi-independent. Mom always made Leon go with us. Especially when we were very young. He’d grumble a mite and carry on like it was some big burden. I thought his reward should have been the satisfaction of knowing, as the oldest brother, he was doing his Christian duty.

Leon apparently missed that Sunday School lesson or slept through Brother Hatcher’s “being your little brothers’ keeper” sermon. His self-mandated reward was first dibs on anything in our sacks!

He would let us hurry ahead of him on occasion and “work” a house by ourselves. Of course, he hunkered down behind the hedge and donned that bloody face mask with the hatchet stuck in the skull that we didn’t know he had. As we neared the street, he jumped out with a scream that would have scared the living daylights out of Frankenstein, the creature from the Black Lagoon, and the wicked witch of the East!

David Mark threw his whole sack of candy straight up. We picked up anything that had chocolate or caramel in it. We left the rest laying in the middle of Magnolia Avenue.

We even wore costumes the first couple of years. But you couldn’t half see, and hardly breathe at all, through the mask, be it paper, plastic, or cardboard. And it would get so hot under the ghost sheet, duck feathers, or clown suit we’d be sweating up a storm before we got halfway to town.

When we realized the costume slowed us down, would always malfunction in some way, and limited the size of the goody sacks we could carry, we discarded them and went as the Colbert brothers.

Sadly, we slowly and reluctantly outgrew the “free candy” days.

But we were now big enough to check out the scary movies showing Halloween week at the Park Theatre. Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, or Lon Chaney starred in most of them. Somehow the blood looked more diabolical back then, and much thicker than you see on screen today. I think it was because all the moves were in black and white.

And they did scare us. Of course, nobody would admit that. And you had to have one eye in the back of your head watching out for Leon. Every time the monster was fixing to take revenge for someone walking on his grave…and the background music reached fever pitch…Leon would rise up from the seat behind you and grab you by the throat or squirt shaving cream in your ears!

I got trapped one time in the haunted house with Mary Hadley Hayden. It was in the room where one of the Jaycees, with his face painted white, would rise up out of an old coffin they’d borrowed from Brummitt Funeral Home. She grabbed my arm and moved just as close to me as she could. It wasn’t as bad as you might think.

And you have no idea how many quarters I wasted trying to win a coconut cake at the Halloween carnival. I was not smart enough to figure the odds. There were 25 numbered squares on the cakewalk. When the music stopped, I never one time, ever, in my whole life was standing on the winning number.

That’s why I don’t play the lottery today.

Mom was not a fan of Halloween. She didn’t mind fun and games, but she didn’t like the ghouls, goblins, witches, underworld aspects of it. She thought that stuff was like dancing on the devil’s front porch.

It was why we intuitively understood it would be counterproductive to our cause to recount any of the gruesome scenes from the Halloween movies in front of her. We were young, but not stupid!

The weather may have topped any, and all, of the October festivities. And believe me, after the long hot days of July and August, and the obligatory lingering Indian summer, we were ready for a change. The air was crisp and sparkling clear, multicolored leaves danced in the breeze, and the world smelled faintly of hickory smoke and fresh baked pumpkin pies.

If I had it to do over again, I’d change two things. First, I’d hustle around town “Trick or Treating” as fast as I could, run home, dump my load, change costumes, and revisit every house! And next, I would make Mary Hadley walk right beside me in the cakewalk. At least then, I would have gotten something for all the quarters I shelled out!

It was a holiday like no other.

And if the truth be known, there is no goblin, Vincent Price, or “haint” scarier than growing up; and no treat sweeter than the memory of a West Tennessee Halloween….

Respectfully,
Kes
kesley45@aol.com