Most people I know absolutely love Halloween. Their reasons vary widely, but, hey, whatever carves their pumpkin. For most of my life, the last day of October has never held much significance for me. As a child, yes, I did my share of trick-or-treating and enjoyed the fact that I had quite an arsenal of candy stockpiled in my bag by the time the evening was over. I well remember the last time I did any trick-or-treating. It was on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party in 2006. I was 47 years old. But very much a kid at heart.
Trick-or-treating aside, for some reason I never really got into the whole Halloween thing. I went to the occasional haunted house, Halloween party, dressed up, and even played a "stooge" one year when our church youth group was allowed to turn much of the church property (except the sanctuary) into a walk-through haunted house. My role as "stooge" meant that I joined every group and went with them as far as a room where they were warned that they'd better not stay in that room for long or "the monster" would come out of the closet and grab someone. Well, the monster did come out, grabbed "someone" and pulled him into the closet, never to be seen again—till he joined the next group. I was that "someone," you know, the expendable guest.
A few years later, I participated in something called "Parade of Monsters" out at Magic Mountain before Six Flags bought the park in 1979. For our participation, we were given two admission tickets to the park for future visits—a $15 value! (It would be closer to $200 these days, but that's for another post.)
During the '60s and '70s, most people in our area didn't decorate their homes as much for Halloween as they did for Christmas. There was one family a few blocks away that turned the outside of their home into something they called "McSpook's Graveyard." To us, that was the ultimate Halloween attraction and every year we couldn't wait to see it. Then one year, we walked over there and saw...a regular house with no decorations of any kind. What happened? We don't know and never found out if the people moved, died, or just got tired of setting it up and tearing it down every year.
As for haunted attractions at theme parks, I've been to Fright Fest at Six Flags Magic Mountain, Knott's Scary Farm (aka "Haunt"), Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida (strangely, I have never been to HHN at the much closer Hollywood park), the aforementioned event at Walt Disney World, and Scream Park at the long gone MGM Grand Adventures in Las Vegas.
McSpook's Graveyard may be history, but some people also built their own haunted attractions. One of the better ones was Higgins Manor in Mission Viejo. My friend Chris Higgins put that together for many years, and was well worth the 200-mile drive (round trip) to see it. Chris has set up something this year at his place in the San Gabriel Valley, but I haven't seen it as of the writing of this post.
We've always had candy for trick-or-treaters, but for whatever reason, only a few kids came by. If there's anything I don't need sitting around, it's candy. This year, of course, things are very different with the COVID-19 pandumbic going on.
Sounds like I was pretty busy with Halloween stuff for someone with little interest in it, huh? I'm definitely not obsessed with Halloween as so many folks are, but I've had some good times. Oftentimes I find myself feeling guilty for enjoying the holidays—perhaps for having what others don't have, or enjoying myself when so many aren't so happy. This goes back to childhood, actually. It's a mystery to which I haven't a key.
The bad thing about not working is that it gives your mind time to think about things in your life—things that you or others could have or should have done differently. I could write about these things, but I'm keeping posts like that on the back burner for now.
With no trick-or-treaters coming by, I might use the time to figure out how I want to approach writing what could be a serious post. In the spirit of Halloween, stay entombed...
