Happy Halloween!

We don't do much for Halloween around here.  Cody is adamant that we not celebrate it.  He says it's a pagan holiday born of devil worship.  I could disagree with him on the holiday's origins, but I'll save that for another post another day.

I did wear my Great Pumpkin socks,

and watched It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on TV tonight.  Yes, I have it on DVD, but there's just something about watching it on TV with everyone else....as a kid, I never missed it.

Back when I was a kid, before Halloween became a pagan holiday born of devil worship, and was just another fun day to dress up and scrounge candy, I loved Halloween.  I loved carving the pumpkin.  I loved the Halloween carnival at the elementary school.  I loved running around after dark.

We were only allowed to Trick-Or-Treat on our street, but it was fun nonetheless.  I remember one year, a boy down the street wrapped himself from head to toe in aluminum foil and went as a space alien.  He could hardly move, and his sister had to carry his candy bag for him.

Before our parents turned us loose to wreak havoc on the neighborhood, though, they would take us to our aunt's house, and our grandparents' houses.  My mother's parents had a neighbor across the street named Mrs. Kanoy.  We usually went Trick-or-Treating at her house, too.

Tootsie Rolls.  She had Tootsie Rolls.  I loved Tootsie Rolls. 

"Only one!"  My mother admonished as I reached for a handful.  Chastened, I only took one Tootsie Roll, and thanked Mrs. Kanoy politely.

"Oh, you can have more than that," she said, as she dumped about three handfuls into my bag.  I'll always remember Mrs. Kanoy's generosity.

After we got too old go to out ourselves, my older brother loved to dress up as a ---I guess he was a zombie, ghoul, or ghost, I'm not really sure.  He'd put baby powder in his hair to turn it white, and put grey makeup on his face, complete with dark circles under his eyes.  Then he'd put on my dad's Sea Captain's jacket with the brass buttons. 

Yes, my dad really did have a Sea Captain's jacket with brass buttons.

We'd turn all the inside lights out, so he was wreathed in shadow, with only the porch light on.  The rest of us would hide out of sight and make haunted house noises.  We'd creak the hall door, which always creaked no matter how much WD-40 you put on it, and make moany, rattly noises.

Only the bravest children got candy from our house.

Finally, before I quit boring you to tears, I was searching for my favorite childhood Halloween song on YouTube, and found this totally cool revamped version: