Halloween has always been my favorite of the major holidays. Being born in October doesn't hurt either. For me it all started in class, we had these big poster calendars and when October hit, it always had the coolest designs of haunted houses, fall leaves, ghosts and just really set the tone early for me.


One of my favorite things was going into the supermarkets and seeing all the displays and decorations. My brother and I would grab the fake plastic scythes and axes and have at it right in the produce isle! And who could forget those bizarre hard pimply pumpkins they'd have out. Gross!

The TV programming was always very exciting to me. My mom never let me rent scary movies, but now they were easy to find on cable, and not only that I could watch a horror movie during the day, which was great for a wussy 8 year old like myself! I enjoyed all the staples like Friday The 13th, Halloween, Chucky, and so on. Of course when old mom walked in I'd switch it to It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown...




I remember for school the last Friday before Halloween you could wear your costume to school. Then the entire student body would go on the field and there would be a parade. On a particularly bad year you could expect half the school to be princesses and the other half to be wolverine. One year I totally forgot my costume, it was horrible. The teacher let me call my mom but she wasn't answering. There were a few extra costumes but they were HORRID. My memory is hazy now, but I'm pretty sure I had the choice of a Barney like full body dinosaur costume, a Luchador mask (That was it, just the mask) or Jazmine from Aladdin. I just pulled my shirt over my head and walked around as Cornholio.


Finally, on the Eve of All Hallows my parent would take my brother and I out. We lived on a very quite street that subtly ran off the main road leading through town, you really wouldn't even notice it driving by. There were only like 4 kids on the entire block so we drove to the more affluent area in town. But we did have one neighbor, a kindly man who was an electrician by trade. He really went over the top, he set up his whole yard and would hide in a coffin and hand out candy. It was kind of sad though because no one trick or treated on our block, so I think the poor guy remained in the coffin most of the night. Really a shame too because kids would have loved his set up. Sadly I have no actual pictures, but it looked somewhat like this.



It was always a fun night. Me and brother were both awkwardly shy and would be too embarrassed to say "Trick or Treat" for whatever reason. Most of the time we'd just knock on the door and hold out our bags..silently. How's that for creepy? Then after we'd made the usual rounds the community center would have a cool party for the kids in the gym. I remember one year my bag of candy was stolen because we had to place it on a table to go into the gym.

Halloween is still a cool Holiday. Even though in High School it all just sort of transformed into girls dressing scantily which don't get me wrong was ok with me. But it just never felt the same. Maybe one day when I have kids it will again. This year I'll spend it watching movies and being on the lookout for hooligans. Thanks for reading!