Halloween

Eeeee!!! I love Halloween. The first time I encountered it I was 6 and had just found a whole new reason (besides sledding) to love America. Free candy! Dressing up! Knocking on strangers' doors and demanding the aforementioned candy. Growing up on Route 9 in Worcester we always had to go somewhere else to do my trick or treating. I certainly wasn't going to let the fact that I lived on a highway get me down. Not while there was free candy to be had.
Homemade costumes was the way to go for me. So I would dress up in my black jeans, white turtleneck, black bowtie, cat ears on a head band and a tail pinned to the back of my jeans. My mom would draw whiskers with her eyeliner and I was rearing to go with plastic pumpkin bucket in hand. The costume would change year to year but kitty cat was a faithful standby. My dad would drive my sister and me to a nicer neighborhood and he would tail us in the car as we went knocking door to door. Thank God that by the time of my first Halloween I had grasped English well enough that I could shout "Trick or Treat" in delight over and over that one night. The best part was getting home, pouring the candy out of my bucket and making the appropriate trades with my sister. 1 snickers bar = 2 almond joys or 4 red licorice sticks. Black licorice was tossed aside and the full sized bars wouldn't be traded for all the fake gold coins in the other's pile.

As the years went by my trick or treating partners changed from my older sister, who was now too cool to dress up, to Michael, Jason and Edwin (the kids of my parents' friends and my adopted cousins). We figured out that the nicer the neighborhood was the better the treats were. So, as we would have to go to another neighborhood anyway one year we went to a upper middle class neighborhood with nice lawns and shiny cars parked in the driveways. The better part of the night went great. But the last house we went to was a cold bucket of water to dampen the night's fun. We walked up to a white house with black shutters, a seasonal wreath hung on the door. We rang the doorbell and waited. An old lady opened the door bowl of candy in her hand. We shouted the ritual chant "trick or treat!" and she looked at us for a moment, not opening the screen door. "You're not from this neighborhood" she said, and closed the door. I was probably 11 at this point and my sense of right and wrong, justice and acceptance was overdeveloped and mostly derived from a certain captain of a certain starship named Enterprise NCC 1701-D. I knew people weren't always good and kind but geez to a bunch of kids on Halloween? But just as suddenly as it happened we brushed it aside. My dad was waiting patiently in the car and soon we would be home counting, trading and feasting.

The last time I ever went trick or treating was with Matt and his little sister Monica. I dressed up as a devil, a la Lola from Damn Yankees, Matt dressed as an angel though I don't recall what Monica dressed up as. I want to say kitty cat but I may be superimposing my standby costume on her. It was short and fun. Mostly I was just enjoying being dressed up and being with them.

Halloween was a great part of childhood and I wish that it was still socially acceptable to go out and demand candy from strangers. New plan as soon as I pop out a kid I'm dragging it door to door umbilical cord possibly still attached if necessary. It's not for me it's for the kid. I swear.