Halloween 38
Tonight was my 38th Halloween. Although I was not personally responsible for any of the candy haul tonight, I took pride in seeing our largest bowl overflowing with all manner of confectionary goodness. It made me think back to my biggest candy Halloweens as a child and realize I never filled up a bowl like our kids did tonight. Of course, Lily and Linus can now work people over in tandem, and I was a solitary gatherer back in the day.
It's interesting, looking at the candy now vs. then. There are few similarities between the motherlodes of my youth and tonight's bounty, mostly the lousy Hershey's milk chocolate bar and the venerable Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Glory be to Jesus or whoever that the Peanut Butter Cup has survived to become the predominant candy on the streets today. As you all know, when it comes to candy goodness, there is none higher. Other candy bars will call it "Sire".
Of course, you still get a fair amount of "treats" that are plain evidence some people simply don't know jack shit about candy. Starlight mints for Halloween? Why not just take a dump in their bags instead? I guarantee that mint will be fighting it out with the Bit-O-Honey for the last candy in the bowl sometime around Thanksgiving.
Linus spent a fair amount of time tonight proactively reaching into offered bowls to get the candy he most wanted. Some people were taken aback by that, but nobody said anything. At first I thought about reprimanding him for it, but I figure what's the point of being 7 and dressing up like Darth Vader if you can't take small matters into your own hands every once in awhile? He's a respectful kid most of the rest of his life, so we let that go. Also, he's been trained to ferret out the Peanut Butter Cups, so in a way he's providing for the whole family.
On Halloweens, I miss being a kid. Just the anticipation of the night, the school parade, all of it. It can't just be about the candy. It just can't. But I also remember the feeling I would get at the end of each Halloween, walking back down my block towards my house. I would think, "Is that all?" It's over quick, and the houses are never as decorated or quite as spooky as you wanted them to be. All the hype and mystery of the holliday seemed to come and go without the payoff to justify the buildup. Sure, I had the candy to show for it. But then I woke up and it was November. Fucking November.
And then Halloween of my sixth grade year came, 1980. Still in an emotional abyss after George Brett's near .400 season couldn't carry the Royals to a World Series title days earlier, my friends and I were told by the very first house we went to that we were too old to be trick-or-treating. It was like a punch in the gut, but I already knew it was true. Halloween was gone for me. And I don't want to be overly dramatic about it, but I remember feeling right then that I wasn't a little kid anymore, and I wasn't particularly happy about it. I honestly had never considered a life after cruising the streets for Halloween candy. I looked around and saw that everybody else was smaller than I was. It totally bummed me out. Later that night, we gave those people's jack-o-lanterns some rough treatment, a prelude to an adolescence prone to vandalism, something I'll write about another day.
As Jane and I walked with Linus and Lily tonight, I sometimes thought about what's coming down the line for both of them, that awkward moment when they realize it has all passed them by, even though they aren't ready for it to be over. And when that's over for them, in a way Halloween will be over for Jane and me all over again. We'll be inside our house waiting for that knock on the door instead of pounding the pavement and seeing which houses look the best, and who has the best treats.
But not tonight. Tonight was declarations of resolve to find the next haunted house and more candy, despite cold hands and heavy candy bags. Tonight was Halloween, and it was good.
10:35:43 PM 
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