Chapter Eleven: The Last Beggar's Night

Some of my neighbors were real clowns.

No, really. I mean this in the nicest way possible. If they hadn't been clowns, some of my best memories wouldn't even exist.

The reason I say this is because, at this moment, I'm looking at a photograph of three adults, two children and a dog who are all dressed up for Hallowe'en. Well, the dog isn't dressed up. If it is, it's a darned good costume.

I'm not in the picture, and I'm sorry to say that I don't remember what I was that year, though I have a vague recollection that I, too, was a clown. In the picture, however, are my neighbor Gloria Rodenbucher with her son Jeff, my mom, and Becky Nicely, with her son Jeffrey. Oh, and the dog.

I can remember a few things about this year, and even though I'm not in the picture, I can guess that I was about five years old when it was taken because Jeff Rodenbucher is about five years old, too. I can tell it's him, even though he's wearing a Casper the Friendly Ghost costume, complete with mask. The reason I can tell it's him is because he had very, very white hair and the next up Rodenbucher boy's hair was brown.

Also in the picture is Becky Nicely and her younger son, Jeffrey. I'm not really sure that Jeffrey was a true child. I think he may have been part elf or hobbit or something, because he was so tiny and very completely adorable that he must have been something other than purebred human child. In this picture, he is even more adorable because he and his mother are dressed as clowns, just as Jeff and his mother are. I don't remember Becky Nicely being a professional clown, but based on this picture, she must have been. The costumes are really of professional quality.

My mom is dressed as a mouse. She's wearing a full-body gray suit. She has little ears on top of her head, whiskers drawn on her face, and she's smiling. This is another reason I can tell that I was very young.

I don't know that we had a Hallowe'en party every year, because this is the only one that I can distinctly remember. In the background of the picture, I can see a VW Bug that belonged to the Nicelys, who lived in a very old farmhouse with a very old barn that we were never, ever, ever under any circumstances whatsoever allowed to play in, beside or near. We were not even allowed to breathe on it, because it could very well topple under the pressure and crush every last one of us. The barn was completely and totally off-limits and we were never, ever, ever to go inside. I only went inside once.

But where the VW bug was parked was an old garage, and inside the garage was where we had one of the most awesome Hallowe'en parties ever. There were creepy games, like feeling inside of a box and grabbing a handful of eyeballs (peeled grapes) or guts (cold spaghetti) or liver (JELL-O cubes). There was a strobe light and spiders hanging in cobwebs that were strung above all the tables. There were cupcakes with eyeballs and spiders and other ooey gooey Hallowe'en things. I was intrigued and amazed. I was only five years old, but I remember all of this.

As a mother, I have always battled with how to "do" Hallowe'en in my house. I don't believe that the traditional way that some people "do" Hallowe'en is very healthy for children. I don't want my kids to be afraid of death, or skeletons, or spiders. There have been many times that we have avoided going into public during Hallowe'en because some of the decorations can be so horrible and graphic. People chopped in half, haunted houses, bloody scarecrows hanging from trees. It tends to take the fun out of it a bit.

But, on the other hand, Autumn was such an awesome time for me as a kid. My mother was very instrumental in organizing the neighborhood Beggar's Night which was very widely participated in. People all up and down Hartville Road would turn on their porch lights, the children would all get very excited about their costumes for a month in advance, and we would find just the perfect container to collect all of our loot.

I was thinking about this very thing the other day, because we just recently passed the Hallowe'en weekend. There were children in the major cities and towns walking from house to house in hoards--in the middle of the day. There is also a current trend for an activity called Trunk or Treat, where people pull into a parking lot, decorate the trunks of their cars, and hand out candy from the vehicle. Parents drive their kids to the event, the kids walk about two feet from car to car, and they fill their bags with candy.

This is not the way it should be done.

Trick or Treat had to be done in the dark. Kids would walk in groups and carry flashlights. Sometimes, for safety, the younger kids would ride to the first house in a car, get out and walk to about five houses, and then check in with mom at the car before moving on. That way, if the walk between houses was really, really long (and it could be, out in the country), they could get in the car and ride to the next house.

"Experts" cry out about obesity in young children. We eat too many sweets and too much junk food. Too much bacon and butter. I used to believe this. But now, I think the problem is things like Trunk or Treat.

I mean, when I was a kid, I had to w-a-l-k everywhere. Walk to my friends' houses, walk to the bus, walk to get my treats on Beggar's Night. My entertaining activites were running throught the cornfields and climbing trees. The difference between then and now is satellite TV, four-wheelers, i-Pods, trunk or treat, and the belief that physical activity is to be segregated from the rest of life.

When I was young, you really had to work for your candy on Beggar's Night. And you may walk a mile to get a popcorn ball or a box of raisins or a religious tract.

But I suppose times change.

I remember the first year that my mom had to look through all of my candy, because some wacko somewhere had decided to put needles and razor blades in candy and apples and thought it would be funny to drug the treats. That was the beginning of the end for Beggar's Night.

The end of Beggar's Night, for me, was when I turned twelve.

I don't know what it is about turning twelve that makes grown-ups think you no longer feel like a kid. All I know is that for the whole week before Hallowe'en, I still felt like a kid. I was very excited. I still liked candy. I still liked dressing up. And I still liked walking in the dark with my friends. So, we all put on our costumes (I wore a sheet with holes cut for the eyes...guess what I was?) and we walked from house to house.

But something wasn't the same this year. We didn't get the oohs and ahhs that we'd traditionally received each year when we watched the doors open at each house with their porch-light on. This year, the grown-ups would open the door with verve and a big smile on their face, then look at us for a second, drop the smile and then drop a thing or two into our bags. There was no, "Oh! My! What are you this year?" or "Let's see what goodies I can give the little clown and her friends." Sometimes, they even just peeked through the window and didn't even open the door. We all had to consult with each other to determine if the porch light really was on. We determined that it was. The novelty was just not the same for the grown-ups when a twelve-year-old came to the door.

At Anne Mercer's grandma's house, which was about two miles down the road toward Hartville, the porch light was very clearly on, so we all walked very politely up the sidewalk and to the porch where we rang the doorbell (I have to make it absolutely clear that we were NOT "bad kids" or "troublemakers." There was no trick if there was no treat. We were JUST KIDS). Anne Mercer's Grandma came to the door and apparently wasn't very pleased with what she saw. There were clearly going to be no treats from this old lady. Instead, she raised up her fist and yelled at us.

"You're not kids! You're too old to be trick or treating! Get off my porch!" All of my friends ran away immediately. I guess I thought she was just joking, so I stood there, dazed, with my little pumpkin bucket dangling from my hand, seeing only half of her face through the eye-holes cut into my sheet, which had continually slipped all over my face. She couldn't be serious. Of course I was a kid! I was out here, on Beggar's Night! Dressed up! Walking from house to house to get candy! Who else in their right mind would do that? My parents certainly didn't do that! If I'm not a kid, I thought, what else could I possibly be?

"I said get! Get off my porch! If you don't get off my porch, I'm calling the police!"

I shifted my sheet and looked at her, dumbfounded, through both eyeholes. I could see her angry old-lady face. She wasn't kidding. This was no trick. Anne Mercer's Grandma was totally serious.

I turned and ran, as fast as I could, my eyeholes slipping all over the place, tripping over my sheet and my own, gangly, adolescent feet. I felt like I'd just seen a ghost. I felt like a fool. And even though we had many more houses to go, we all walked very solemnly straight home.

I don't remember pouring out all of my treats on the floor that night, excited about the fact that someone gave me a WHOLE Butterfinger Bar or a WHOLE Marathon Bar. I don't remember being disappointed by the popcorn balls or the packs of raisins. I don't even remember being overtly worried about razors, needles or drugs in my candy.

Because I knew, as we walked home from Anne Mercer's Grandma's house that dark Hallowe'en night. I knew what was wrong.

We had outgrown Beggar's Night.

And that was the last year I went Trick or Treating.