Halloween Memories

This was the first Halloween in a long time where the weather was perfect and even graced with a near-full moon. It was the kind of night I would have loved to have when I was a kid, back at the old house in Dardanelle.

You see, to me and my dad, Halloween wasn't just a candy-filled holiday. We carved pumpkins, often using unique designs (mine always tended towards macabre jack o'lantern faces). We decorated the yard, getting more and more complex with every passing year and added to it with home-made decorations. The month of October was marked with many trips to Walmart and Kmart to peruse the decorations, which, I should note, did NOT go on sale until the day of Halloween or the day after.

My Halloween costumes were hand-made, and I tended towards the same thing throughout my adolescence. A spirit of darkness, with either a mummy face, a pumpkin face, or no face at all. My dad would also dress up, and once I was "too old" to trick or treat, I joined him in lurking in the yard for unsuspecting trick or treaters. We'd stand perfectly still, and everyone would assume we were fake. After they got their candy (as long as they weren't really little) we'd jump out and scare the treaters, chasing them out of the yard.

They loved it. Our house became a hot spot for trick or treaters.

On this night, this perfect night, as we were driving to a Halloween party, I looked out at the remains of the sunset, burnished red along the black horizon, merging into green-gold and then into indigo. I thought to myself, "If only I could bring this evening into my past, what a night it would have been!" I wanted nothing more than to go back home, put even more decorations up, stick a chair out on my tiny porch and spend the evening handing out candy.

Next year I'll carve a pumpkin (maybe 2) and hand out candy! After taking Kim trick or treating, of course!