There was a time not long ago when all you really needed to celebrate a traditional centuries-old Halloween, like the way many past European Kings and Asian Emperors did, was to simply leave a decent pumpkin on the porch while playing classic holiday music like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” or Lionel Richie’s “Penny Lover.”
Those were the days when Halloween meant something. Things like “Peace on Earth” and “Girl, a love like yours is hard to resist.”
Not anymore.
Our neighborhood went downhill this year. The neighbor to the right of me spent 3 weeks building a graveyard and volcano in his yard and used his kids as non-union talent to scream at passing ‘trick or treaters.’ The poor kids didn’t even get to spend much time begging for candy themselves.
Not to be outdone, the other neighbor made a graveyard too but his with a whole series of pullies and levers, operated by his kids, moving all sort of things around with a theater grade smoke machine nearby and all sorts of theatrical lighting. Those kids didn’t get to go begging either.
The block down from us hung a large glowing spider web over their cul-de-sac and used several garage door openers, operated by their kids, as a motor system to make 3, 5-foot spiders (with glowing eyes) move up and down. Word around the neighborhood was that those kids didn’t go begging either.
The sad reality is, it’s the kids that suffer with this kind of nonsense.
I for one am not going to be partaking in any of it. My kids will be doing what kids have been doing for thousands of years since the inception of Halloween by the Great Pumpkin long ago: begging for candy so their parents can eat it. Period.