Welcome Steemit friends for a bit of Halloween Nostalgia. First and foremost is that Halloween is All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints Day in the religious calendar.
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Why the scary costumes? A lot of people do not know how saints became saints but it is usually fairly simple - the saints are killed for practicing their religion. In many cases, the costumes have nothing to do with the religion and in others, the persecutors or the reasons there are saints are portrayed. It is also purported to be the highest night for the use of dark magics to thwart good the following day. Secret ancient rituals of darkness are said to be performed by cultist to gain power and favor from Gods of death and demons. It is largely the work of writers to enhance the scary experience but then I knew the one who...
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My Halloweens go back more than fifty years that I can remember. Back then I trick or treated from the time I could walk to a senior in high school.
The carved pumpkin, the jack-o-lantern is a big part of Halloween. It was created to keep away evil spirits. Since population problems weren't thought about back then, there were enough kids in our house to have a carving contest every year. Who could make the scariest carved pumpkin was always something that took hours. We also tried to rush it because we could not dress up and then leave to walk house to house until the house was protected by the magic of the ward.
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We moved a lot and throughout my trick or treating career we lived in Michigan, Ohio, and California. So, as a kid, I had a fine survey of the national character of Halloween without realizing it.
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Until I was 9 years old, a lot of the treats that were handed out in Michigan and Ohio were donuts and cookies, candied apples or caramel apples, brownies, and other confectionaries because those were all rural farm areas. Sometimes, as I grew older, after we went to the local houses that were spread out over miles, we went to an area my parents had scoped out in a town nearby. We left the home made treats from the rural neighbors at home before we headed out and received candy in the town.
That was up north and it could snow on Halloween and that never stopped anyone. Trick or treating did not last an hour. Even as the littlest of kids, we traveled along with all the other children from just before dark until at least ten or eleven pm.
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My mother always made the costumes. The costumes were warm. Sometimes I was a pair of dice made out of painted boxes. A rock monster made from paper grocery bags. A ghost made from an old sheet. Oftentimes, I was a football player, or a knight, trojan, spartan made from the football uniform.
The churches were large and since they were Lutheran, they were always named Saint Andrews. For those who don't know, he is the patron saint of money. Thinking about that, I might want to build a chapel to him where I live.
The churches in the midwest always had huge halloween parties along with haunted houses. Oftentimes, my mother would be a witch with a cauldron. There was a colored light in her cauldron as she mixed her witches brew so it would glow with evil, magical aura. She cackled and said witchy things.
It was fun after our run through the haunted area was over because we were generally terrified by the monsters that popped out, skeletons that shook and spoke, and ghosts that we were always told never to believe in but...if you have read some of my stories.
Once school attendance started, there was a Halloween party at every school I attended, every year. All the kids wore costumes to school. There were games and candy was given out to the kids. there was a Halloween parade.
Halloween was like some sort of Christmas and some people handed out simple toys like a paddle ball, or jacks, or balsa or styrofoam gliders. Kids rose to a fervor as Halloween approached.
Candy was the most important take, as were the homemade treats. Hauling in ten to twenty pounds was not uncommon. Lugging the candy around in a pillowcase by a kid who might have only weighed twice as much as the candy was often difficult as the night wore on. We ran as fast as would could go.
Falls, trips, splays upon the ground - nothing stopped us. No matter how long were allowed to be out to get the treats, it was a fine example of mind over matter. The minds of kids in the armor of a costume solely designed to get an unlimited amount of candy was invincible.
Choruses of 'Trick or Treat' followed after a knock or the ring of a doorbell echoed through neighborhoods. Sometimes, they handed out money! One the gifts were deposited in the bag. "Thank you" and "Run!"
Once children reach three and a half to four and definitely by five, sprinting on halloween is practiced skill making sports dull.
You are supposed to do a trick if they do not give you a treat but our groups focused on quantity and not quality. There was no time for tricks in the bands I travelled with.
If a costume was complemented, wasting extra time, we practiced the art of conversation manipulation and control to get to the next one. Sometimes that did not work and people wanted to take pictures or have us sing a song. For candy we obeyed.
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As kids ran past us going in the other direction there were shouts of who gave away the best things and sometimes we veered course and so did they. No, Halloween when I was kid was not always a straight path along a row of houses but criss-crosses, dodges, and jumps over hedges before the best houses ran out of the best treats.
By Jeff Kubitz
Then we moved to California and I hit my first apartment complex on Halloween!
If you really want a Halloween Story there is always my work in progress - The Dancer - Table of Contents Page 1