With the end of October fast approaching, it seems appropriate to talk about something Halloween-related. And no, I don’t mean the fun of doing everything you regularly do on a Friday night except in costume, or a seasonal obsession with mellowcreme pumpkins ... which isn’t to say I couldn’t write an entire column on pumpkins, those delicious orange bits of diabetic-coma heaven that grace the shelves of grocery stores only once a year (for the record, it would have been called “Anything you can do, pumpkin do better”).
But I mean instead what Halloween represented to us when we were young and impressionable — sugar highs and costumes, yes, but also fears. Once upon a time, Halloween meant more than spiked cider and finding a costume that’s clever but not obscure, sexy but not unbearable in cold weather. Halloween meant getting scared.
This was back before “creepy” just indicated “spends a little too much time on Facebook,” when fears were less realistic than picking a major or deciding on a life path. Halloween was ghosts and witches, goblins and zombies, vampires and spooky old neighbors on the verge of death or just far too old for dressing up to be acceptable.
It was the sheer daring of traipsing around after dark, with only your flashlight and the moon to light the way — without even any of those dorky reflectors your mom tried to Scotch tape to your outfit. And best of all, it was the ultimate taboo for sheltered suburban children — taking candy from strangers.
Growing up, I was never as afraid of the fantastic as I was of the familiar. “Casper” taught me that ghosts are lonely, friendly creatures who turn into cute boys, and Harry Potter cleared the names of witches, wizards and even werewolves. I believed in Santa and the Easter Bunny, but I had no qualms about things that go bump in the night.
What did frighten me were the real (or at least semi-plausible) threats of Halloween. I thought the jack-o’-lantern might tip over and burn the house down, or that opening the door to strangers in disguises would result in burglars dressed as Coneheads stealing my Easy-Bake Oven.
Most of all, I feared poisoned candy, that staple of urban legends and fear-mongering local news reports. However blown out of proportion the accounts were, I considered them both true and highly likely to occur in my little corner of the world. I dreaded it all — cyanide-laced Pixy Stix, needle-ridden Nestle Crunch bars, even razor blades in candy apples. I had never so much as received a candy apple on Halloween (did anybody?), much less a poisoned one, but I wasn’t naive. I’d seen “Snow White.” I knew what could happen.
While trick-or-treating, I gave neighbors the once-over — my mouth said “Thank you,” but my eyes said “I’ll remember where I got this Almond Joy, mister. Just in case.” Before the beloved sorting of candy (almost as fun as actually eating it if you too were an anal-retentive child), I sniffed, I shook and I squeezed. I carefully and diligently inspected each colorful package for holes or tears, evidence of tampering. Only when I was absolutely sure my candy contained only calories and high-fructose-corn-syrupy goodness did I indulge.
Needless to say, the fact that I’m alive today means that either my scrutiny paid off or my fears were somewhat unfounded. It seems it was just as likely that one of my neighbors was a vampire or a witch as it was that they were hiding drugs in my Dubble Bubble.
If your neighbors aren’t out to poison you, and the supernatural is the mundane, then all that remains are those big-scale fears we try not to think about — war, terrorism, a crumbling economy, Sarah Palin as president. Halloween is the one chance not only to be somebody else for the night and overload on candy, but to be afraid. Not of gas prices or the sinking Dow Jones index, but of something silly, like mummies, ghouls or heroin-filled Hershey’s bars.
This Halloween, try to remember superstition and excitement — the feeling of your stomach soaring into your chest when a plastic witch cackled on somebody’s porch. Carve a scary face into a pumpkin. Practice your best “Boo!” Brush up on your zombie contingency plan, in case of apocalypse.
Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a bag of candy pumpkins with my name on it. And I’ve got to make sure they haven’t been tampered with first.
Rebecca’s column runs biweekly Tuesdays. She can be reached at r.marsh@cavalierdaily.com.
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