HALLOWEEN

When I was a kid, way back in the 1930s, we did Halloween a great deal different. I don’t remember any “trick or treat” routine because nobody had anything to spare and it would have been cruel to ask some little old widow for a treat when she was having enough problems just keeping enough feeding her. I do recall in the small town I grew up (Milford) the kids would roam the streets in huge groups doing not much except roam the streets and make a lot of noise. Once in awhile we might “soap” a window, like downtown or the schoolhouse.

The school house got lots of attention in those days. Big kids and maybe even smaller kids always found some barrel, gallon can or a loose cart and pile it at the school’s front door. The older kids managed to push manure wagons, hayracks, plows and even old cars to the entrance. For many years the football dummy was always pulled up the flagpole and resided there Halloween night. Most of the lower school windows were soaped with words and drawings. One year some very industrious high school boys managed to disassemble a buggy, pull it up to the roof of the school and reassemble it just above the main entrance to the high school. Needless to say it resided there several days until the high school principal located the culprits and had them bring it down. It was the talk of the school for many days and they became our heroes.

In the 1930s there were still many outhouses within the city limits and they were fair game at Halloween. I recall one such outhouse only one block off Main Street in my home town. It was next to my aunt and uncles property and year after year the boys managed to tip it over. There was another outhouse about two blocks from the center of town. The owner of that outhouse was very protective and guarded it trying to discourage any attempt at tipping it over. We had formed a gang one Halloween evening of about ten or twelve junior high boys. We roamed around town looking for mischief and finally decided that that outhouse must go. We knew the owner would be watching and from previous years knew he simply resided in the outhouse most of the evening to discourage all attempts. Our plan was to send about five boys on a frontal attack to divert his attention while the majority of us crept silently to the back of the outhouse and hopefully tip it over. The five boys came up making lots of noise and sure enough his attention was directed at them with his yelling and gesturing to not try and tip his outhouse over. While he was so engaged the rest of us managed to surprise him and tipped it over with him still inside with the door on the bottom. After our tipping we ran like crazy away from that location and only learned afterwards from his son that he had to crawl out of the outhouse through one of the “holes.” Later that year he had sewer piped into his house and he burned the outhouse. We felt we had triumphed but could never duplicate that act as outhouses soon disappeared from the confines of the town.

It is truly amazing the lengths at which young boys will work to make some contraptions. I don’t know where we got the idea or the plans for a “window screamer” but many were constructed but seldom accomplished what was intended scare the girls. The materials for the “window screamer” were a spool that held thread (large one) a long spike (nail), string and a pocketknife. The spool’s raised edges were notched about every half inch. The spike was inserted in the spools opening and string wound around and around so that by holding the spike and pulling the string holding the apparatus pressed up against a window it made an awful noise. It was supposed to scare the girls but most of us were so chicken we didn’t go up to any girl’s house to try it but we had fun making it and dreaming.

When our boys were young they always went out “trick or treating.” They would spend hours planning what to wear and in those days all of the kids in the elementary schools came to school wearing their costumes. Connie taught in elementary and she dress up each Halloween. The kids had a great time and the highlight of the day was when the children lined up and paraded around the school, inside and out. The streets were full with parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and friends to see the “parade.’” A good time was had by all but then some “jerks” had to spoil it by suggesting some ungodly reason to cease. Maybe they did stop some of the dressing up but if Wal-Mart and other places do such a land office business selling Halloween items it must be coming back. Let the kids be kids on Halloween and not have to be governed by some grownups weird ideas.

I don’t know if it is my imagination or not but it seems the marketplace is making more and more about Halloween. The rubber masks that are all too real, costumes and candy, candy, candy for the trick or treat crowd. Many of the stores in Ireland were selling many of the same items we find in our marketplaces. We didn’t buy any as we knew the outlay at home. We don’t attend any horror movies but there are some on TV which we seldom watch. The fires in California last week and even today were scary enough for us.