| by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. It seems to me that far too little attention has been directed to the creation of music suitable for Halloween. You can think of classic tunes for Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's Eve... but Halloween? You will be hard pressed. That is why in considering a suitable song for today's much watered down version of its medieval predecessors... when the business at hand was dealing with things like the unhallowed dead and their piercing screams as they burnt in the fires of Hell... or something like that. That is why for something suitably affecting (which means capable of getting your flesh to crawl and have nightmares for weeks), we need to access the far bigger archive of music made for the horror films we pay good money to scare us witless. There are many fine tunes here, but I'm going with the theme music for one of the all-time scariest films... Director George Romero's 1968 masterpiece "Night of the Living Dead." Being of a susceptible nature myself, I can assure you... this grand daddy of horror films will scare you to death which is, I know, just what you want. Find it in any search engine. Listen to the music alone in a big empty house one night when the wind is howling outside and anything could happen... especially if you happen to be dead... and unburied. An out house and Aunt Doris Jean Perhaps my first memory of Halloween is a story that I can laugh about a good 75 years after it happened. My father was a "good boy" from a "good family" and so he got away if not with murder, as least man slaughter. Anyway, one Halloween my father and his buddies got the suave idea of picking up the out house when someone was within and.... you get the picture. The entree and egress of relatives and friends was carefully noted and victim selected: my father's younger sister Doris Jean who was of a noticeable plumpness and a shy disposition. In due course she was left alone in the night air.. suitably pranked... while the laughter of the boys skimmed along the wind like pucas. It was midden mayhem and makes us all smile unless you're a teen-age girl in the icky stage or a 14 year-old boy... and then you'll think this the funniest thing you've ever heard. This set the tone for all future Halloweens, more I regret to report in the telling than in the doing. Pranks I have long felt an avowed contempt for the neighborhood children who, all unknowing, let down the side on the matter of "trick or treat." Not one child in a thousand stops to think (or even cares) that they are the current repositories of an age-old tradition, a tradition where the house holder got to throw down his answer to the question of the hour: "trick or treat?" Here are the facts: The children would knock on the door. The house holder, sometimes dressed for the occasion, especially if they were having a Halloween party, would answer and look astonished at the motley crew of pirates and princesses, pretending not to know a single one. This crew would then scream the choices in high pitched voice and glee, defying the answering authority to make his choice... to either be fleeced by the little monsters at his door there and then... or suffer their judicious mischief later. The flood of cheap candy ensured that canny house holders would get off lightly. It was sensible to just pay up in high sugar booty. As for other tried and true pranks to the deserving, these included soaping windows (always with Ivory soap since it was the most difficult to remove and could do real damage), limburger cheese in the car manifold (guaranteed stench for weeks or even longer), revolting things in sure-find places I once froze a snake and put it in the freezer where my mother was sure to find it. Before she closed the door on her hasty conference with my father, I heard these words indicating this operation was a complete success, "Don, we've got to do something about Jeffrey..." There were still more certified pranks... just mischief you understand... including the lavish use of toilet paper in unusual (and difficult to remove) places... and my personal piece de resistance: the evening I worked long and hard when my brother Kevin was sleeping to create a massive spider web in which he was positioned in the center as dinner. How I managed to do this without waking him remains a mystery even to me. His screams when he awoke and saw those red eyes starring at him resonate in my mind... and with total satisfaction since this was the accomplished work of a master. The matter of costumes. As every cinema star knows, the importance of having just the right clothes is absolutely vital. That's what made a dress genius like Edith Head so valuable to the studios... she could turn a sow's ear into a silk purse... but the problem is we had no such genius at hand in Downers Grove, Illinois circa 1955. Just plenty of sows' ears. Thus, there were just two choices: buy or make do with whatever you had, an odd assortment of old clothes and the even then well worn costumes of past years. What was that red stain on the ghost costume? Blood? Lipstick? Difficult to tell. If you had a costume in mind (as many kids did) you were advised by mom to check the old stuff first. Smart parents counted pennies. But you ranted, railed and threw carefully calibrated tantrums to get what you wanted: something new that would command the eye and admiration of all. Your pleadings, screamings, and artful displays of pique and pertinacity have won you the right to looking for something new and wonderful... not like the abashing hand-me-downs and that "old clothes" look that's so distressing. And thus came the visits to the only two establishments in town that could assist, Mackey's General Store and Woolworth's. It's hard to impart for the new generation of online buyers what a big deal it was to go searching for just the right costume. Shopping online gives you far greater choice, efficiency, comfort and speed... but it lacks the essential mystique so necessary in selecting a costume, for well under $5, tax included. But at last you did find the costume you so wanted,but whose very mention in later years will make you red with embarrassment when the inevitable photos are dragged out. Now it's time for grannie... and the loot. The first place we went after getting ready was always my mother's mother, Victoria Lauing. She knew just how to play Halloween, as she knew how to play so much else. She made a point of pretending she didn't know you until the masks came off and the "It's you!" comments came. Masterful. And she made sure we were well stocked up on her famous popcorn balls, made only at Halloween and with Karo corn syrup; their secret went to the grave with her. But that was no concern of anyone in costume. We had a treasure trove to find and gather, the better to induce stomach cramps and ruin our appetites for months. Suffice it to say, we perfected our "trick or treat" strategies until they produced unseemly bumper crops. But before we were allowed to sample a single morsel (and here our rules of operation were exacting), mother spread a clean sheet on the floor and poured our finds on it, my brother and I keeping a sharp watch so that neither got an extra chocolate bar, the certain property of the other. Infractions were frequent. Then my mother did what made her such a good mother. She scrutinized everything with practised, skeptical eye... and was ruthless in discarding. One year, one of our neighbors was giving out old comic books and copies of "Mad Magazine," and Kevin and I both got several... which she promptly threw in the fire and stirred them into the flame. Such trash, however funny, had no place in her house, or our lives. It is because of her protective love of literacy, words, and language that I am a professional writer today with millions of readers worldwide. That why I'd like nothing more than the chance to visit this Halloween with my ghosts, grandmother and mother both, popcorn balls for all... a very different night of the living dead... |
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