From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

Legend tells me that the bewitching dark evenings of October are haunted with Halloween ghosts, witches and ghouls. Trick and treating kids will soon be running through neighborhoods in costumes. Be sure that you have bags of candy ready for the little goblins. If your house is dark, unwelcoming to the parading witches, Spidermen, ghosts and cute little princesses, you’ve set yourself up for some dastardly tricks. 

I remember back when I was a kid, walking home alone in the dark with both sides of the sidewalk edged with spirea bushes and overhanging trees. The full moon would guide my feet down the cracked sidewalk, past the familiar Solvie houses, Mrs. Nyhammer’s and the Moen house. But on pitch black evenings, often my imagined fears would cause me to stumble or trip on the collapsing concrete sidewalk. Tree roots of the tall elms would bust through the concrete sidewalk. I was absolutely certain that some monster was lurking behind the prickly, tickling bushes, ready to spring out and grab me. If not monsters, surely there would be wiggly snakes and slimy rats running across my path.

Back then I frightened so easily. My teenage mind was scattered with thoughts of boys, schoolwork, piano practice, football games, teen hops at the Lakeside…you name it; it was on my mind. As fall shortened the days, and nights were longer and darker, spooky Halloween ghosts and goblins added fuel to my imagination.

Every kid I knew back in the sixties loved going trick-or-treating on Halloween. Most of us would be ghosts. It was the simplest costume we could come up with. All we had to do was grab an old white sheet from Mom’s linen closet, cut two holes for eyes and drape the white cover over our bodies. Hopefully, Mom wouldn’t get angry about those teeny, little holes in her sheet…I needed a costume!

To this day, over 50 years later, I still remember the Halloween night when I rang the doorbell of a grim, judgmental  man who looked down at me with such disgust. There I stood, waiting for candy, a mere 16-year-old with my pillowcase bulging with treats. He literally hollered at me, “You’re too big! Halloween is for little kids, not you!” His shriek still looms in my head after all these years. OK, I know that today I’m too old and gray to go trick-or-treating with a pillowcase, but on a few Halloweens, I do show up at a neighbor’s door with a wine glass.  That’s acceptable behavior in my neighborhood. 

Some parents are too busy to make their kids Halloween costumes any more; they buy outfits of Superman or Superwoman, a princess, Ghostbusters, a pumpkin…you get the idea. Where are their kids going to learn about play acting and creative costumes if not at Halloween? When I was a new mother, I used my portable Singer sewing machine to create costumes for my little kids. I made a green dinosaur costume for Andy that fit over his head, and I stuffed bulging spokes out of green felt that ran down his back. He was still young enough to carry so his spokes stuck out. Kate was a big orange pumpkin with an orange hat of green leaves and a brown handle. I wonder where those costumes are today…better check to see if they’re in some closet around the house. 

My imagination goes into fourth gear as Halloween approaches. Every lonely gravel road winding into the dark woods holds haunting mysteries for me. Cemeteries are inhabited by ghostly spirits and darkened houses have ghosts checking me out from upstairs windows. Witches and wizards ride their brooms across the moon on Halloween night, and prowlers and bogeymen haunt bushes, basement cellars and garage rafters where broken shingles flap noisily. 

Have a delightful, fun-filled Halloween. Collect pumpkin bags of Snickers, Almond Joys, M&M’s, but don’t eat them all at once. Most importantly, come home safely. Mom and Dad will anxiously be waiting up with the porch light on for you…. 

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.