This is not Amanda writing this Journal entry. I'm Jeff again, Amanda's significant other. It's Halloween, a holiday of little or no significance in Amanda's country of Australia, so I'm the guest journalist for the day. It's my job to enlighten and elucidate regarding the holiday.
"Halloween:The Really Early Years"
Halloween was started by my ancient ancestors (and probably Amanda's, since her family came from Cornwall originally...and maybe even your ancestors as well...), the Celts. These are the same wacky bunch who, along with the Druids, gave the British Isles that little bit of eccentricity that survives even to this day. Like I said, Halloween was originally the Celtic equivalent of New Year's Eve. Actually, it was New Year's Eve for the Celtic calendar. Every October 31st, those Celtic party animals would party like it's 1999 B.C. In reality, it was more of a celebration for the dead. A day to remember your dear departed friends and relatives because, as was the belief in those times, they would be wandering the Earth looking for trouble. It was kinda like Monty Python and the Holy Grail meets Night of the Living Dead. Halloween was a night of serious stuff back then. If you were careless, Old Uncle Ian would come back to leave small bits of rotten flesh all over the hut...or worse. When Christian missionaries came to Britain, they were appalled that anyone was actually having fun...especially fun involving dead people. So the massive PR machine in the Vatican took it upon itself to merge its All Saint's Dayfestivities into the Pagan New Year Festival. All Saint's Day would be November 1, and the evening before would be known as All Hallows Eve.Since "All Hallows Eve" is a bit of a mouthful, esepcially when you've had a bit too much mead down at the Cock & Hamster Pub, the name was corrupted into Hallows Evenin',then Hallowe'en. The night, Oct. 31, belonged to the souls of the newly departed as they awaited the arrival of the Saints who would guide them to the hereafter. The day, Nov. 1, was spent in church praying, thanking the Saints for doing such a great job. So how do you get witches and skeletons and kids begging for candy outta some ancient religious festival? Well, I'll tell you...
The night where the dead are supposed to walk amongst the living provided a terrific opportunity to scare the bejeezus out of one's friends and neighbors. Imagine that you're expecting dear departed Uncle Ian to be wandering through the streets. Wouldn't you soil your codpiece if your neighbor, dressed like old Uncle Ian showed up outside your door? Now wouldn't you want to get revenge on your neighbor for making you soil your codpiece?
So what about the goodies people beg for? "Halloween:The Wonder Years"
Fast forward to the 20th Century. The 1960's to be exact.
Back in the 60's there used to be all kinds of cool stuff to do on Halloween. My school, Culver Primary School, had a Halloween festival every year. All us kids would dress up in costume and there'd be all kinds of games set up on the playground. Best of all, it was held at night!
One year, mom decided to make costumes for my brothers and I. My oldest brother wanted to be a clown (talk about type casting), so mom made him a clown costume. My other brother wanted to be a tiger, so mom made him a tiger suit. Of course, I wanted to be a ghost. Mom was releived she didn't have to sew another costume. "Jeff the Friendly Ghost vs. The United Nations"
The next year I got smart and convinced mom that I had to have a storebought costume.
That year we went trick or treating for UNICEF. We went to my grandma's church and got our little orange boxes, then went about the business of double-dipping for Halloween. We got the candy and the kids in the world less fortunate than ourselves got the loose change. I can still remember the enthusiastic chant as we rang doorbells throughout the city: "Bum's Rush" As I grew older, Halloween never lost its significance. Heck, any time you get to dress up in a costume and go begging for treats... sounds like I'm a Drag Queen, doesn't it? Let me state here that I have never dressed up in women's clothes. At least not for Halloween (grin). But seriously, or maybe not so seriously, sometimes Halloween had a way of sneaking up on me and catching me unprepared with a proper costume. Fortunately, I had a dad. More specifically, I had a dad with a closet full of bad clothes. The perfect remedy for those "It's Halloween and I've got no costume Blues". The last-ditch costume of every kid from my generation was "The Bum" character. This was long before it became politically correct to refer to them as "homeless". To us they were "Bums", "Hobos" or "Tramps". Back then, they still has that savoir faire, romanticized character instead of the tragic reality we've come to know today. In any event, when nothing better came along, I was a kid wearing my dad's old clothes with a few patches and holes applied for effect, a big plastic cigar and some charcoal five-o'clock shadow. My grandmother (my dad's mom) lived just around the block from us. She was the best house in the neighborhood to hit for Halloween treats. When everyone else had downsized to "fun size" candy bars, my grandma was still doling out the regulation size and weight Baby Ruths, Hershey bars, Fifth Avenues and Butterfingers. And not just to us, but to all the neighborhood kids. It must've cost her a fortune. What a great lady she was! "Spit the Dummy" There were a few years in my late teens when "Trick-or-Treating" became uncool. Getting free candy was still cool, but "Trick-or-Treating" wasn't. So my friends and I went through "The Dummy" stage of our Halloween careers. We created lifelike dummies of old stuffed clothes and terrorized the neighborhood with them.
We dropped them from trees onto unsuspecting pedestrians (we lost more dummies that way because most of the people out walking around at night were other smartass kids). The conversation in the car would go something like this:
What is that? About the time when they were beginning to suspect it was a dummy, we'd yank on the rope and the dummy would lunge towards the curb. It was good for a few screams or gasps from the car's occupants. Unfortunately, our glee was short-lived. The third car to arrive on the scene of our mayhem was a police cruiser. We barely got away with our lives.
Unfortunately, the dummy was taken into custody. "Soap and a Rope" Halloween pranks and mischief are a traditional rite of passage performed on "Mischief Night". Some places call it "Devil's Night" or "Hell Night", we called it Mischief Night". All we ever did was soap a few windows, throw a couple of eggs or tomatoes, throw toilet paper into trees, cut a few clotheslines and ring doorbells then run away. Harmless childish pranks. In recent years, it's snowballed into a night of unbridaled mayhem, arson, looting, pillaging and murder in some cities. Some people don't know where to draw the line at good clean fun.
There's a science to good clean mischief. Certain products work better than others to achieve that "just right" mischief effect.
The application of soap is an art form.
The laws of soaping are thus: 1. Glass only. 2. No paint. 3. No screens. 4. No damage. "Grown-Up Fun" Being an adult at Halloween isn't quite as much fun as it used to be. My friends & I still get dressed in costumes, but now it's just in an attempt to win the $100 grand prize at the local Pub. Costumes have included: A cartoon cat, Sir Bedevere from "Monty Python & the Holy Grail," A pirate, Death, Dr. McCoy from "Star Trek II," Enid Gumby, A Shriner and others. I've won three times in 10 years. I always make my own costumes. It's fun. One of my most impressive ones was a Klingon warrior costume I made for my best friend. It was pretty accurate. Unfortunately, the members of the Algonquin Round Table at the local pub never watch Star Trek, so they had no idea what he was supposed to be. My friend was quite pissed-off by this development, but not enough to not try again the following year with the same costume.
One of the years when I won the contest I was wearing my Pirate costume. I had a real wooden pegleg I made from an old junk table I'd salvaged, a hook for a hand, an eye patch and a parrot on my shoulder. It was a hoot! Even if I did have to hobble around all night with a table leg strapped to my knee. Halloween still has tricks and treats... even for adults.
Come back again soon!
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