The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

No, not Xmas. Halloween.

You get to dress up as a fantasy (even if that fantasy implies killing people for money or enslaving them on the Barbary Coast). You get to panhandle neighbors in disguise. You get candy.

What could be better?

Well, it would be better if this was still true. Urban Legends have co-opted the holiday, at least where I live. The city holds a tax-subsidized ‘Boo Bash.’ Some people trick-or-treat at the mall, something that would have been impossible when I was a kid. The ‘Boo Bash,’ is my tax dollars at work to bleed off the people who didn’t run to the mall, so almost no one but the extremely old are home to give out trick-or-treats. For some reason, we’re to believe that our children are safer in a large crowd with total strangers than they are knocking on their neighbor’s door.

We sallied forth to trick-or-treat nonetheless. I’m old-fashioned that way. I believe in the tradition of it. It’s one of the few holidays America can’t ruin with crass commercialism because it’s vulgar and materialistic by nature. I think of it as Mardi Gras minus 40,000 drunks crowded together to flash each other and brawl. And while some people have custom-made breasts to flash, for the most part, Mardi Gras beads are earned by showing something you have only minimal responsibility for even having. A Grim Reaper costume, that’s something you have to buy or make. And there’s more variety to Halloween costumes than to drunken women’s breasts. The costume becomes an extension of your personality, or an alternate persona you can don for the night.

But everyone is convinced there’s a kiddie-toucher behind every bush, so they run off to the mall and the city-run party, and that means the trick or treating is lamer in the neighborhood, which means more parents will cave and give it up for the government-issue version. This wouldn’t bother me nearly so much if it didn’t stem from the War on Childhood.

While pretending I could handle responsibility for my honyocks last weekend, I drove them through my hometown. It's not far, 17 miles from where we live. I grew up thinking when you grew up you moved away. But I’ve lived my entire life in an area that would fit in an 80 mile (or so) radius. Not that I haven’t had variety: small town, suburbs, overpriced urban neighborhood, incredibly cheap but crime ridden urban neighborhood, back to a small town becoming a suburb.

In the process of driving past my father’s long failed pizza parlor, the dentist I used to go to, the grocery that’s now a junk shop, the barber shop were I got my hair cut when my Dad came to his senses and quit trying to save $2 while making everyone miserable, I showed the girls the church where I went to preschool. Then drove them by the house we lived in at the time.

And here’s the thing: I walked to this preschool. It was a thrilling privilege to walk to and from it, something that made me feel big and independent. Three and a half blocks, and it involved crossing the closest thing to a busy intersection this town has, and rounding a corner so it’s not like Mom could watch me the whole way.

The thought of even letting my nine year old take such a journey is foreign to me, that’s how much ground the anti-Childhood campaign has won. Everyone is convinced that if they turn to read the specials on a restaurant sign that their children will instantly be on a milk carton. Safety is perceived to be hurtling the kid down the Interstate at 70mph in a mini-van surrounded by idiots who have no business driving. I’d wager that your kid is in more danger riding in a car than trick-or-treating on foot with their parents. Or walking a few blocks of sidewalk on their own.


Em went as a snow fairy. Mo went as Hello Kitty, though I think (based on things she's said the past few days) she'd have preferred some sort of cowgirl outfit. She went to school today in an overpriced Barbie cowgirl hat because she was supposed to be a cowgirl today according to the notebook. The notebook, it's smoke signals we use to go back and forth with her teachers/therapists.

Her teachers are above average, especially when you consider that they are both public employees and, in some cases, young enough to be my offspring. But the notebook has it's limitations. I wonder what became of the Barbie cowgirl hat...

I went to work in my pirate gear. Okay, Mayhem's pirate gear mostly. I provided the cheesy eye patch and hoop ear-ring. The wrist-guards, I figured, would interfere with my typing, but they actually are an ideal brace in some respects.

The only other guy at my office who went all-out, I thought he'd come as Boba Fett. He has the full getup, Hollywood ready, but it turns out he also has a Sand Trooper getup.

The guy I work with who has the most Halloween Spirit, he's never at work on Halloween. Even when it's an unexcused absense because of mandatory overtime, he simply isn't at work on 10/31, ever. It's his wedding anniversary in addition to being, for him, the equivalent of the Super Bowl, Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and Sturgis Ride-In all rolled into one big joint of holiday.

Zombie always comes up with great costumes, but when Halloween comes around he goes all out.

This is a guy who runs out of room to store hats and false beards. His house, from what I've heard in bits and pieces in the past eight years, looks like the back room of a Toys-R-Us.

Look, it's a Lobster-pirate raiding the fridge!