For years Halloween has been a holiday to endure and not necessarily enjoy. You have to cash in a CD to have enough money for candy and the whole night is spent getting up and down to answer the door. Before we had the ability to freeze the screen it was impossible to watch any TV that night. When I was a kid Halloween was thrilling because of all the preparation and expectation....or maybe it was because it signaled the upcoming holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. I didn't try to analyze it. I simply prepared myself, my costume, and my extra heavy duty bag for collecting candy from the neighbors. Call me weird but my favorite candy was the peanut butter flavored taffy wrapped in orange or black paper. Good times.
My daughter-in-law, Cayce, asked Debbie and I the other day if we could remember our favorite Halloween night. I had a hard time thinking of one but finally remembered. I was on the edge of proclaiming myself too old to Trick or Treat. It would be my last year because I lived with the fear of embarrassing myself while running into the love of my life. I won't mention her name because she might possibly read this and I would be embarrassed again.
I decided to make the most of this Halloween night. I dressed up in my black cape with top hat (I was into old movies set in London) and I hoped the weather would hold off for a few hours. A cold front with rain was headed our way and I didn't want my cardboard top hat to turn into mush (I never told anyone but I loved that top hat). I also decided for the first time ever that if I came to a house with no treat I would leave a trick. I looked all over for a piece of chalk or a used piece of soap to create havoc. I could never get away with taking eggs or toilet paper. Yes, my mom did keep count of them! I finally found a piece of purple crayon so I was armed.
I stepped out of the house to start my culinary collection finally. My parents made us WAIT UNTIL IT WAS DARK to start Trick or Treating. The oncoming front had pushed in a thick blanket of fog. My dream of stalking the streets of London were complete. My sisters and brother met up with Sharon and Kelly, other neighborhood kids whose faces are in my memory but unfortunately the names are not. We hit the first three houses next to ours with huge success. The fourth house was dark and quiet. I boldly walked to the door anyway, rang the bell, knocked....yelled "Trick or Treat" in a threatening way and nothing happened. That's when I did it. I broke the law for the first time in my short and innocent life. I pulled out my purple crayon and DESTROYED the front door! BRUHAHAHAA!!! Actually, I only had the nerve to put a small mark on the door bell but it felt good...REAL good!
The next house we visited was answered by a wide-eyed foreign man. He looked at our costumes and said, "Hello?" We all yelled "trick or treat". He didn't move. He stared at us for a moment longer before asking, "So, vat is dis trick or treat you speak of?" I explained the whole tradition of hand it over or suffer the consequences, thinking the whole time this guy must be kidding. He wasn't kidding.....he threw his hands in the air and ran off yelling for his wife to find some treats quick!! He and his wife came running back carrying some apples and bananas asking if that was okay. We thanked him and turned to leave. I turned back around and warned him that about two hundred more kids would be ringing his door bell before the night was over. I don't know how they handled that.
The next morning I was so filled with guilt I walked back up the street and cleaned the purple mark off the offending neighbor's door bell.
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