Halloween

I’m not a big fan of Halloween.  When I was young I liked the getting free candy part, but I never liked getting scared to death.  I’m Ok with funny, but choose to avoid scary at all costs.  I appreciate a good joke and laughter, but hate feeling  like I should pull the covers over my eyes.  No horror movies for me. I’m basically a chicken.

When David, Elizabeth, and Michael were growing up, we did it all: trick or treated, carved pumpkins, made costumes, decorated the house with their school made Halloween crafts, went to the school Halloween parties, bobbed for apples, went through a few haunted houses, entered costume contests and, when they got older, had our house teepeed by the kid’s friends.  As elementary school principal, I dressed up for the day and led the annual Halloween school parade.  My  favorite costume was dressing as a doctor.  The doctor required only a white lab coat and a stethoscope.  I was a minimalist.

My mom dressed me as a drag queen for Halloween in the fall of 1950.  Mrs. Mattson dressed Diane as a witch and her sons, Bruce and Bobby, as a couple of Robin Hoods.  Brian Duprey was dressed as a baby in honor of his recently sired triplet brothers.  Chuck and Tommy Prested were decked out as girls, and David Ruff was a clown.  At least the eight of us were human forms.  Poor Bill Graham was a rabbit.

Perhaps the most humiliating thing was carrying my Easter basket to make my Halloween rounds with the gang.  We traveled in packs during those days.  We avoided  ghosts and goblins, and knew we shouldn’t go to houses without their porch lights on, because that’s where the non-believers lived.  They could be scary.

I broke my ankle trick or treating when I was in the fourth grade.  I was doing the rounds with Mitch and Bill, and I tripped over a concrete curb.  I didn’t think much of it at the time, but when I woke up in the morning, I couldn’t walk.  Mom took me to see the doctor who took an x-ray.  I chipped a bone and he put me in a walking cast for six weeks.

Back then casts were made of heavy gauze dipped in white plaster of Paris.  There were no colorful wraps or fancy scooters.  The “walking” part was a big green knob plastered into the bottom of the cast.  I couldn’t take a shower or bath, but managed to keep clean by washing in the bathroom sink.  I wrapped the cast when the snow fell in a plastic bag we received with our dry-cleaned clothes, and did my best to keep it dry.  I used the rounded edge of a coat hanger to scratch myself, even though I was told to avoid scratching at all costs.  Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.  The only cool thing about the cast was everybody wanted to sign it.  I carried a black magic marker with me at all times.

I still recall sitting on an exam table when the doctor pulled out the saw to remove my cast.  My eyes must have revealed my fear, because he fired up the electric saw, set the whirling soft blade across his arm and said,  “Don’t worry.  It won’t cut your leg.  It only cuts hard surfaces.”  That was my first exposure to high tech equipment.

I kept the cast for a few days, but soon tired of the stinky smell from six weeks of foot sweat and toe jam. I held a private ceremony for the cast as I placed it in the metal garbage can and drug it to the curb. My parting words were brief but heartfelt.  If I hadn’t gone trick or treating with the boys,  I would have avoided that fourth grade trauma, and perhaps, I would have looked upon Halloween with greater joy.