I'm not really a big Halloween person. It really seems like I should be...it's got candy, which I like, and there's the whole theatrical nature of the holiday, which you would think would be up my alley.
It's not that I dislike it, really. I've just never gotten that into it. When I was a kid, my older sister (by 16 years) was a Halloween person. She liked making costumes and going to costume parties and all of that. Her and her husband would make these really elaborate costumes, many of which stayed in their basement for years. I was never clear on where these costume parties were, but my brothers seemed to go to them too during one stretch. Still remember my oldest brother, who spent a number of years as a military police officer, dressed as a nurse, and my other brother, who's 6-foot-8, dressed as a sheik. Outside of Christmas, I don't actually remember that many people in my family having a good time at once on a holiday.
Yet, while I love Christmas -- possibly a little too much so -- I'm pretty indifferent about Halloween. I went out to a costume event at a bar exactly once. Then I remembered that I don't really drink that much. It didn't take long before I almost got into a fight with a drunk jackass about 8-inches shorter than me, and decided that I should probably just go home.
I don't remember having any traumatic experiences when I was a kid. There was one time that I was sick and laid in bed watching a rerun of "The Carol Burnett Show," but I don't think that particularly scarred me. And, when I was a little bit older, one of my cousins was amongst the neighborhood bullies. All I had to do was give him a handful of candy and keep my mouth shut, and me and my friends got to go about our business (sadly, we fared much better than the non-relatives).
My concern is that I'm passing my indifference on to my children. They should really be free to decide if they want to be into the holiday or not.
This is only the second year that the boys have actually gone trick-or-treating...and the second year that I went to Casey's classroom for their party.
This year, one of his classmates was kind enough to say, "Who's this, you're grandpa?" While, with the history of teenage pregnancies in this area, it might be entirely possible that there are grandparents around here my age, I'm happily not one of them. But, it did make me realize that I need to shave my head more often to get rid of the stupid gray hair.
Last year, the town that we live in inexplicably decided to have trick-or-treating on Friday night, and I had to cover a high school football game. So, this year, I got to be the parent that takes the kids walking around. Where I come from on the East Coast, this usually involved a group of guys walking around each holding a six-pack, but I don't really have any guy friends here and there were cops all over the place.
I did not know that people apparently now stand outside of their houses to give out the candy, thereby eliminating the whole knocking on the door thing that I had to do as a child. I guess all of that knocking must have been annoying.
While we were walking around Marty kept stopping every so often and staring blankly. I had to keep pushing him to catch up. "I keep hearing something," he said. After a few more times, he said, "I think someone's saying my name." As we started to walk away, I stopped. "Wait," I said. "I heard that one too."
Finally, we noticed the girl that had been apparently trying to get Marty's attention for quite some time running up to us. Turns out it was one of his classmates, and it took a couple of more minutes to realize that she had apparently abandoned her sister to get to where we were. No wonder she wanted to talk to Marty...that's the kind of thing that both of kids would do.
We didn't really stay out very long...much more and we would've almost been forced to go to one of the various church based functions around town. I don't have anything against those, but I always get heartburn from the hot dogs that they give out.
Instead, we went back to our house where Marty and I started passing out candy while also studying for a social studies test (his, smart guy). After a couple of visitors, Marty decided that he wanted to be the one handing out the candy. Towards the end of that, a kid came up that knew him, leading to one of those classic, "Hey..." "Hey" moments that 9-year-old boys share. When Marty came back to me, he shared conspiratorially, "I gave him two, since he's my friend."
That's at least part of the Halloween spirit that I'm glad that he's gotten down.
