It's funny what you grow up with and think is normal and then when you re-examine it in the context of the movie Harvest Home with Bette Davis or The Wicker Man with Britt Eckland you go "Good Lord", LOL.
When I was growing up I lived for Halloween Night, a lot because of the candy, of course, but also because it was a scary, spooky time of year. We kids (we numbered 7) would get home from school, some of us would do homework and then we'd eat supper. It was always the same every year. My stepmother would throw chicken pieces into a huge pot and cook them for a while, then throw in chopped onions, canned whole tomatoes and egg noodles and basically boil the tar out of everything. We had to help ourselves straight out of the pot and pick the chicken off of the bones ourselves.
Then we'd get into our costumes and she would drive us house to house for trick or treating, on various streeets until about 7:30 or 8:00 and it had grown dark. At that point she would park somewhere (and to this day I cannot remember where--maybe in the cemetery grounds that bordered the main route) and then we would join the town's annual Halloween parade on the main drag. The whole town turned out, most of the parents walking along the side of the road with flashlights. The actual parade was mostly made up of all the town kids, Children of the Corn, (just kidding). We would walk for a few blocks. The end of the parade route was a large community park and we'd finish off the night by standing around and staring into a roaring, blazing bonfire that had been erected by piling discarded pieces of furniture. I kid you not. I do not know from where these poor innocent pieces of furniture originated. Somewhere there must have been a notice that we never received on saving our old castaways for sacrificing on All Hallows Eve.
There was no hot dog roasting, there was no marshmallow toasting, there was no hot chocolate. There was nothing but a giant bonfire that a large group of people stood around staring at and into.
Happy Halloween!
Cathy
36
Responses