I had to run in to the office pretty late last night so as I drove home I got to enjoy the spirit of the season as I drove by all of the homes decorated for…
Halloween?!
When did it become such a popular idea to put up Halloween lights and temporary graveyards and errant witches who have unfortunately flown into trees all over town and gory depictions of who knows what?
(Grumpy old curmudgeon alert)
In my day all we did to decorate for Halloween was put out a Jack-O-Lantern. And we liked it! We LOVED it! We’d spend hours carving faces into these gourds using our neighbor little Jimmy Hornback for our model because through some freak of nature he actually had a nose and two eyes shaped like triangles and had a stem growing out of the top of his head. And little Jimmy would get all traumatized when just as soon as we had created this perfect likeness we would reach inside the top of the head and start scooping out the innards of the orange orb that so closely resembled our jaundiced and diminutive-yet large-headed neighbor. He’d run home crying and we would know that we had captured a piece of the spirit of the holiday by freaking out a small child. Then to top it off we would go around honing our extortion skills by begging for candy that would eventually rot our teeth until our smiles resembled that of the aforementioned Hornback spawn while promising harm to health and/or property should our demands go unheeded. We didn’t care that we were setting in motion for generations to come the idea that begging and entitlement bore no shame. That’s the way we liked it. We LOVED it!
Now where was I?
Oh yeah. Halloween decorations. So last night I’m driving across town and I am amazed at how many huge blow up decorations honoring Halloween adorn the lawns of the wealthy and the lower to middle class alike. These are people who have decided that yep, they gotta have these mammoth decorations even though their deflated condition during the daytime makes it appear that their front yard was the gathering spot for a bunch of streakers who have not yet returned for the brightly colored jogging suits they left scattered about the lawn.
I saw one house last night that went all out. They had the inflatables, the makeshift graveyard, the pumpkins, the spiderwebs, the ghosts hanging from trees, the witch who had run into the telephone pole and of course the skeleton festooned with Christmas lights riding a bicycle. I suppose that was a celebration of Halloween. The only other thing I could come up with was maybe Festivus unless there really is a holiday that simultaneously honors Halloween, Christmas and the Tour de France.
Anyway, while I do enjoy the part of Halloween that is essentially panhandling from your neighbors, I do not understand any celebration of gore or evil. It appears to me that the world is plenty evil already and any gore is too much. I will never for the life of me (or for the death of me if you prefer the macabre) understand the attraction of movies or stories that glorify such things. I think that is the essence of a twisted mentality.
That having been said, I think there are times when it is okay to get a little scared. A great source of healthy fright may be a roller coaster, the price figures on a gas pump or a ride in a Chicago taxi with a cab driver who is clearly foreign but probably not from Mars like he said.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I was involved in a couple of haunted houses in college. But the room I was involved in each time was easily the most scary without being gory or evil (a little mean, perhaps, but not evil). What we did was have a pitch black room for the people to walk through with the help of a guide dressed as a crash test dummy. Nino and I got to be dummies (no cracks about type-casting). Once they were in the middle of the room, the front end of an old Chrysler mounted on a shopping cart would be thrust at them just as high-intensity headlights and a very loud air horn would simultaneously glare and blare and bear down on unsuspecting saps who seemed somewhat shocked by the occurrence. I remember more than once having to shut down the haunted house to repair walls knocked down when people collapsed or tried to escape the ’72 Chrysler that somehow found its way into an old gymnasium. But again, that’s how we liked it. We LOVED it! And it was 99% free of gore and violence. (The 1% accounts for the time I got punched in the face by a lady who got a little carried away).
Ahh. Good times.
Halloween?!
When did it become such a popular idea to put up Halloween lights and temporary graveyards and errant witches who have unfortunately flown into trees all over town and gory depictions of who knows what?
(Grumpy old curmudgeon alert)
In my day all we did to decorate for Halloween was put out a Jack-O-Lantern. And we liked it! We LOVED it! We’d spend hours carving faces into these gourds using our neighbor little Jimmy Hornback for our model because through some freak of nature he actually had a nose and two eyes shaped like triangles and had a stem growing out of the top of his head. And little Jimmy would get all traumatized when just as soon as we had created this perfect likeness we would reach inside the top of the head and start scooping out the innards of the orange orb that so closely resembled our jaundiced and diminutive-yet large-headed neighbor. He’d run home crying and we would know that we had captured a piece of the spirit of the holiday by freaking out a small child. Then to top it off we would go around honing our extortion skills by begging for candy that would eventually rot our teeth until our smiles resembled that of the aforementioned Hornback spawn while promising harm to health and/or property should our demands go unheeded. We didn’t care that we were setting in motion for generations to come the idea that begging and entitlement bore no shame. That’s the way we liked it. We LOVED it!
Now where was I?
Oh yeah. Halloween decorations. So last night I’m driving across town and I am amazed at how many huge blow up decorations honoring Halloween adorn the lawns of the wealthy and the lower to middle class alike. These are people who have decided that yep, they gotta have these mammoth decorations even though their deflated condition during the daytime makes it appear that their front yard was the gathering spot for a bunch of streakers who have not yet returned for the brightly colored jogging suits they left scattered about the lawn.
I saw one house last night that went all out. They had the inflatables, the makeshift graveyard, the pumpkins, the spiderwebs, the ghosts hanging from trees, the witch who had run into the telephone pole and of course the skeleton festooned with Christmas lights riding a bicycle. I suppose that was a celebration of Halloween. The only other thing I could come up with was maybe Festivus unless there really is a holiday that simultaneously honors Halloween, Christmas and the Tour de France.
Anyway, while I do enjoy the part of Halloween that is essentially panhandling from your neighbors, I do not understand any celebration of gore or evil. It appears to me that the world is plenty evil already and any gore is too much. I will never for the life of me (or for the death of me if you prefer the macabre) understand the attraction of movies or stories that glorify such things. I think that is the essence of a twisted mentality.
That having been said, I think there are times when it is okay to get a little scared. A great source of healthy fright may be a roller coaster, the price figures on a gas pump or a ride in a Chicago taxi with a cab driver who is clearly foreign but probably not from Mars like he said.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I was involved in a couple of haunted houses in college. But the room I was involved in each time was easily the most scary without being gory or evil (a little mean, perhaps, but not evil). What we did was have a pitch black room for the people to walk through with the help of a guide dressed as a crash test dummy. Nino and I got to be dummies (no cracks about type-casting). Once they were in the middle of the room, the front end of an old Chrysler mounted on a shopping cart would be thrust at them just as high-intensity headlights and a very loud air horn would simultaneously glare and blare and bear down on unsuspecting saps who seemed somewhat shocked by the occurrence. I remember more than once having to shut down the haunted house to repair walls knocked down when people collapsed or tried to escape the ’72 Chrysler that somehow found its way into an old gymnasium. But again, that’s how we liked it. We LOVED it! And it was 99% free of gore and violence. (The 1% accounts for the time I got punched in the face by a lady who got a little carried away).
Ahh. Good times.
3 Comments:
I'm going to attempt to keep an inflatible in my yard year round. Christmas is easy and now halloween is covered. If you go with a haunted ship theme, you can use the ship part for Columbus Day! I'm not sure where to find a blow-up groundhog, but Secretaries Day is covered...oops, TMI.
Anyway, if Wal-Mart and Hallmark can keep convincing us to spend money on this stuff I believe we'll all be better for it. It's not a celebration of gore, it's a celebration stuff! Get into the spirit Val!
I couldn't agree more.
I have to admit we have a giant inflatable jack0latern in our front yard. target clearanced at 10 dollars three years ago. I can turn it around and just have a giant pumkin for Thanks-giving ...but I don't. I do not like the tombstones in front yards.
I went to the haunted house you spoke of a few times. That car room is the only one I remember! Truly scared me to death the first time. Do they still have Frat Hounted House at Homecoming? Do they still have Frats? I guess if I ever made it to Abilene I could answer these questions for myself. Will be there in 5 for the (GULP) 20th!
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