It’s all about the sugar. Miniature candy bars really. October 31st that is. We were told as kids by the ladies at the church that it was a pagan holiday celebrating demons and disembodied spirits and sorcery. Sure, that stuff was way cool to an 11 year old but we were like “What the Sam Hill does all that crap have to do with tiny Milky Way bars?”

As a kid in rural Indiana, Halloween was not a single day. It rather being a week to ten day event leading up to October 31st. Like the Fourth of July. By the 4th we were just about sick of fire and blowing stuff up. We had lit everything and shot everything off until we were left with pathetic sparklers on the actual night. Halloween started way early in October when you were deciding on your costume and making your hit list of people who were getting vandalized regardless of the candy they gave out. Some disturbing neighbors could have given out Reece Cup’s the size of a hubcap and we still would have got them. The phrase “trick or treat” was merely a formality. When we were much smaller we begged our mom into purchasing our costume around October 6th or so. Back then there was one choice when buying a “store bought” costume. They came in a little square box with clear plastic on the front so you could see the mask. Inside you would find a very cheaply made fragile mask on top of a more fragile plastic sheet thing that could be very loosely and carefully wrapped around you and tied gently. If you were able to stand extremely still the thing would potentially last for 3-5 minutes. If you bent your leg or elbow it would split like peeling a banana. It had the thickness and heartiness of a picnic tablecloth. The accompanying mask had a string of elastic around it that was connected to a tiny staple in the plastic. You probably had a usable life span of like 6 good stretches of the band. So if you did 2 try-on’s, 3 show-your-brothers, and 1 dress rehearsal it was pretty much over. The band broke or the staples pulled through the mask and you were left with a shredded colorful pom-pom for a costume and a mask you had to hold up with one hand so it wouldn’t fall off. And we still had 8 days until Halloween.

As you got older the real quest was trying to find a costume that was reasonably cool and still get you some candy. Usually this meant dressing in oversize clothes and stuffing a pillow in your sweatshirt or wearing army surplus stuff that you wore most days anyway. The last year or so before you are deemed to old for trick or treating you just wore a sock cap low over your eyes and put your jean jacket on backwards. Lame yes, mildly effective…usually. One of my favorite lame costume stories happened in Fort Wayne Indiana. I had an Uncle Rick who was a Vietnam vet. He was very funny and all the nephews loved him. At our age, we didn’t know Uncle Rick was a drinker. We just thought he was way cool and hilarious. Our other uncle, Eddie, was a cameraman for a local access TV station so he had Rick come to the mall with some of the little kids to be shown on camera in their costumes. They patiently waited in line dressed as little cowboys, pirates and princesses. The host would ask each kid as he got in front of the camera what he was supposed to be. The kids would give their answer and move on. Rick waited in line with the kids and when he got to the camera he thrust both hands above his head with one elbow cocked at an angle. When the surprised host asked “Little Ricky” what he was supposed to be Uncle Rick answered “A bent fork.” That is a great lame Halloween costume. Good one Uncle Rick.

I remember when the ladies of the church decided that we should not have Halloween parties, but instead do a “Harvest Party”. We were supposed to come dressed as our favorite Bible character. What? What kinda deal is that? 22 Moses’s, 12 Mary’s, 3 Ester’s and 1 Zacchaeus showed up. Zacchaeus and the Ester’s had to explain who they were. The others were more obvious because of holding a staff or a baby Jesus. We did really, really (feel the sarcasm) fun stuff like a Cake Walk, Pin The Beard On Abraham and my personal favorite, Bobbing For Apples. I loved this because at this time of my life I could hold my breath for an inordinate amount of time. I was right on the cusp of 2 minutes. Of course I had much practice every Sunday morning during the sermon where I would hyperventilate first and then sit there not breathing until my diaphragm involuntarily spasm’ed and I exhaled loudly gasping for aid. Scott Hancock was always amazed. I was born to Bob For Apples. I would dunk my head in immediately driving an apple to the bottom of the washtub. Then I would just sit there with my whole head under water and the apple clinched in my teeth. Forever. Or so it seemed. I could hear muffled voices and finally I would just go limp until one of the bee-hive haired ladies would scream and yank me out by my Moses Robe Collar, dripping and grinning. Oh yeah, I didn’t want the apple either.

So we tromped around the neighborhoods (for 3 miles in every direction) filling our bags with various confectionary treats. Actually we didn’t use bags, we used pillow cases. And at least twice during the night we ran back to the house and dumped them out on the bed making room for more loot as we scooted back out into the night. We started around 3:15pm when we got off the bus and stayed out until 9-ish when we all had to be home. If it was especially cold out we incorporated gloves into our costume or just wore tube socks over our hands. (In the wintertime we sometimes had to double sock it if we were going to be throwing snowballs) We usually went with the Kellar boys and they had no issues with light vandalism. We soaped windows, threw corn at houses and tried to scare little kids who were trick or treating without supervision. It was a beautiful night.

The rule was never eat things that were not store bought. Supposedly there were serial killers out there who would insert razor blades into apples and stuff. No one ever actually saw this happen but it very well could. (A very similar story about putting needles into Pixie Stix also circulated widely) Who cares, all apples went straight into the trash anyway. Same with the weird popcorn balls the creepy old cat lady gave out. She had them made up and wrapped in cellophane and handed them out at her creepy house with all them cats crawling around her legs. And she had a mustache. The popcorn balls had feline fur on them and looked like a sticky, caramel kiwi. No thanks Cruella. We were out for candy. And the good stuff. Some folks gave out retarded junk like little pamphlets on their particular faith or pennies (which sounded great ricocheting off of their aluminum siding) or jellybeans. Jellybeans? I remember one old man doled out handfuls of dry macaroni. Man, if we only would have had some Velveeta and milk we could have done something with it. My personal vote for Halloween Ruiner goes to the dentist who hands out toothbrushes. What? Got one Dr. Fun. Had it since I was 7 and it still works fine. One time a guy who I assume was either a dentist or anal retentive about personal hygiene handed out little box things of dental floss. Wonder how hard it was for him to get out of his house the next morning with 3 miles of waxy floss tying his storm door shut. Looked like a spider web. And this was before anyone decorated for Halloween.

So when it was all said and done my brothers and I retired to our room (we shared one) and carefully evaluated our take. Trading was allowed and stealing was expected. After anything natural, healthy or weird was discarded you divided your bounty into three piles: Miniature candy bars, carefully sorted into sub-piles of chocolate bars with nuts (Snickers, Almond Joy ), chocolate bars with stuff inside (Milky Way, Mounds), and miscellaneous chocolate bars (Nestle’s, Hershey’s, Reese Cups). The second pile was stuff you liked that wasn’t chocolate bars. This included the small boxes of Boston Baked Beans, Zots, the tiny ¼ size rolls of Lifesavers and Tootsie Pops. The last pile was stuff you were going to try to pawn off on your little brother in trade or just keep in a sack near your bed for the next 11 months. This was the bottom of the candy barrel. Good N Plenty (gross), Pez (without the cool dispensers), Sweet Tarts or Spree (they made my teeth hurt) and anything fruit flavored. The plan now was to eat til you got a weird pain in your belly and then go to sleep still wearing some remnant of your costume while guarding your miniature candy bars from your brothers. Lunch the next day at school was candy and you came home to an afternoon snack of little $100,000 bars and milk. (White thick milk, not gray, watery skim milk).

So now we have more Harvest Parties. You can only Trick or Treat from 5:43pm until 6:19pm on Halloween night. And you can only go to the houses where they have the porch light on. No soap. No corn. And $70 costumes for everyone including your mother (who is so very embarrassingly dressed like Wilma Flintstone). You only go to houses of people you know really well and you just ring the door and stand there holding your plastic pumpkin container thing out. No ‘TRICK OR TREAT” or nothing. So now as a homeowner who lives in the country I do what I can to be in the holiday spirit. No one comes to my house anyway. I don’t really miss the candy. I can buy trash bags full of Heath bars if I want to. I do miss the trick or treating though. And the sound of hard shelled corn hitting a garage door. And the smell of bar soap on a clean window. And the Kellar boys. Happy Halloween. Later.