I am getting old.
When I was young I imagined that Halloween was
for children. It was costumes and candy and imaginary play. Halloween was an
escape from reality, or it was a glance into another world.
We use to go block to block in our costumes,
we called it Trick or Treating, we carried pillow cases with us, taking candies
at nearly every door.
We scoffed at the people who lived in the
houses where they handed out little bibles, or toothpaste, or home made goods.
I remember the drill of searching through our
candy, looking for suspicious things, open packages. We heard that some people
hated children and would slip needles, or razor blades into the candies.
Halloween was not all fun and games, it was
not just for children either.
Halloween was a deeper holiday than we thought
of as children, it was not just about ghosts and goblins and friendly witches.
In the celebration of Halloween there was an ages old conflict, between the
Christian Church, and the “Old Time Religion;” the customs of the pagans hiding
just beneath the surface.
On the Christian Calendar; Halloween was known
as the All Hallows Eve. It was a celebration of the honored dead, of all the
saints who had passed before.
For the old pagans; whose traditions walk hand
in hand with the church, it was a celebration of the dead. Plain and simple,
Halloween was an acknowledgment of all the dead, whose spirits live among us
still; good and bad, honored or not, and more often than not it celebrated the
dangerous, the macabre, the frightening, and the weird.
I was fourteen the last year I went Trick or
Treating, and really; I was only chaperoning my younger brother. I took some
candy nevertheless.
In that same year I remember the Pastor at my
church lamenting the popularity of the pagan festival. Believing that the
Christian feast should be honored instead. There was no fun in that.
In the that have followed, the number of
children who go out in costumes seeking candy has declined by 25%. It is no
longer considered safe or wholesome.
At forty-seven I watch my pears obsess over
this day still. A few of them earn an income through it, I understand that.
Other have children, and for them it is a carrying forward of a tradition. Most
look to Halloween or the weekend preceding it, as a cause to be drunken, to
crawl through bars in costumes, to cling to their childhood and the freedom of they
had as children, which they remember, or imagine.
For me it is just another day, Halloween, I do
not believe that the dead walk with us. I have never seen a ghost, or found evidence
of magic.
Given
1st - 2016.10.31
