Trick or Treat?

by Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and tonight is Halloween.

Are you ready to be scared? Do you like to be scared?  Like most kids, I used to love to be scared. When you are young and your imagination is so much more powerful, so much more active, it is so much more a part of your life. They say children’s use of their imagination helps in their cognitive development.

I wonder if it helps prevent their cognitive decline, like that of my wife Terry, who has Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. That is what scares me now.

When I was a kid there was a disc jockey in California named Barry Hansen who was syndicated across the country.  His “stage name” was Dr. Demento, and he was famous for playing off-beat ‘novelty songs.’

Novelty songs are the type of songs that Weird Al Yankovik writes and performs. Weird Al would turn classics like “My Sharona” by the Knack into “My Bologna” or Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” into “Another One Rides the Bus” and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” into “Eat It.”

Dr. Demento was the inspiration for the name of this blog, “A Demented Look at Dementia,” because people used to call me that moniker due to my ‘different’ outlook on life.

One of Dr. Demento’s first novelty songs that made it big was “The Monster Mash” which made it all the way to number one on the charts in October of 1962, just before Halloween. Bobby Picket used a Boris Karloff voice in the song and it has been a Halloween staple every year since.

I was six years old in 1962, prime age for being scared on “All Hallows’ Eve,” a celebration of the dead. I used to love to get ‘scared to death’ when I was a kid. Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein and Scooby Doo cartoons were about as hard core as I got back then. I also enjoyed the television shows The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, but they were more on the cerebral level than on the spine-chilling scary level.

When I was in high school, when the testosterone began to kick in, we would test our limits on scary movies. Watching the classics like Hitchcock’s Psycho or Rear Window wasn’t good enough anymore, now that there were movies like Carrie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and, coincidently, Halloween, with Michael Myers. We met our match, however, in the summer of ’74 when The Exorcist came out. If there was ever a scarier movie made, I have not seen it. Nor would I want to. The Exorcist is, to this day, the scariest movie I have ever seen.

I guess because it dealt with the devil, Satan, and it seemed like it could happen.

When our kids were little my wife Terry would make their costumes and they usually turned out pretty good. I remember one year the three of them were M&Ms.

Since Terry began studying the Bible, however, she wants no parts of Halloween. Its roots are pagan, she claims. It originated in Ireland as the pagan Celtic harvest festival, and is associated with the occult. Witchcraft is a real thing, not just costumes of black robes and wide, pointy hats with broomsticks.

The ‘Jack O’ Lantern’ is an ancient symbol of a damned soul.  And All Hallows Eve was originally a festival of fire for the dead and the powers of darkness. A night when the dead supposedly stalked the countryside, and offerings of food and drink were put out for the ghosts and they passed by.

Trick or Treat?

Superstitions linking cats with reincarnation made them special objects of notice on Halloween. Numerous legends surrounded the holiday, but two significant things supposedly occurred on Halloween. It was believed that the dead would rise out of their graves and wander the countryside. Second, it was the supreme night of Demonic jubilation, the celebration of the beginning of ‘Winter and Darkness’ as day light grew shorter and night longer. The hoards of hell would roam the earth in a wild celebration of darkness and death. The only thing superstitious people knew to do to protect themselves was to masquerade as one of them, wearing costumes of devils, witches, etc.

For me, Halloween is simply something to be celebrated by children, amused by costumes and masks, collecting candy, decorating pumpkins, watching a scary show.

When my son was in college he took great pleasure in discovering that, in his words, “Halloween is an excuse for girls to dress slutty.”

Christians have tied Halloween in with All Saints Day on November 1 and All Souls Day on November 2.

Halloween has been a little strange the last few years where I live. Two years ago a trick-or-treater came to our neighborhood dressed as Hurricane Sandy and did some major damage. I can’t remember Mischief Night ever being that bad. We had so many large trees downed by wind fall, some falling on cars and houses, wires, doing incredible damage. We were without power for days just prior to Halloween, causing the festivities to be cancelled.

This year I am expecting the usual crowd of kids coming to the house in full costume, and then later on the teenagers who are way too old to be trick-or-treating to come by.

Me, I am doing what a lot of little kids are doing; using my imagination and pretending I am something I am not. Tonight I will pretend I am not a caregiver.

I am scared enough of the time, worrying about my wife, worrying about the future. Tonight I will enjoy seeing the little ones all dressed up and having a good time. I will remember the ‘good ole days’ when our kids were little. I will remember a more innocent time.

But I won’t be scared. Not tonight.

Until next time, Happy Halloween

Bud