Oct 30 2007
One Bad Halloween
Note: For a wonderful story to fit this spooky day, please read the well-written and imaginative “Piper and the Gren” by our very own Moksha Gren.
For a shorter read, see my own “Talk With a Killer,” a thriller that some here have read already.
One Bad Halloween
Whatever you do tonight, do not get into a biscuit dough and raw egg fight in a church parking lot across from the Mayor’s house. The Mayor, and subsequently the police who work for him, will not like this.
In one of the ensuing years after Trick-or-Treat had become uncool for my age, I walked around town with a group of kids armed with toilet paper, cans of uncooked biscuits, and raw eggs. Like some kind of war correspondent, I watched while they chucked eggs at homes of people doing nothing to celebrate the evening. There was an unwritten code of honor that kept anyone from aiming for windows.
In quick, strategic bursts, this ragtag bunch dotted the landscape with toilet paper streamers when not smacking it with a Grade A Extra Large. I may have got caught up in the moment and helped hurl a roll of toilet paper over a tree limb here or there, particularly in yards of friends.
The biscuits? Along with a number of eggs, they were reserved for hand-to-hand combat. I lost count of how many times I heard the familiar, and until then innocent, pop of the biscuit can’s cardboard sides splitting open with a good whack on the street curb.
We ended up in a battle royale in the First Baptist Church parking lot a couple blocks from downtown. Boys and girls alike felt egg shells crack against their skulls. Biscuit joined in to make a tangled mess of hair. The smell reminded me of a big breakfast back home. Our shouts and screams echoed off the church and surrounding houses.
I lost track of time, but probably less than 10 minutes in the cops descended upon our rowdy group. No arrests were made, but they confiscated all our supplies and called a few parents.
My complicity in the affair was the result of self-imposed peer pressure, if that makes any sense. In other words, nobody had to convince me to play along, but I worried what they would think if I didn’t. The most heinous practices (egg-bombing the houses of innocents) I avoided but did not attempt to stop.
Prior to that night, I always stayed out of trouble on Halloween. I walked from house to house, usually with my brother, until my bag was full and before my parents started worrying. We lived in a town and a time where parents pretty much let the kids out of the car (or just the front door if they didn’t live out in the country like I did) to go Trick-or-Treat thing, and nobody had mobile phones to check in during the festivities.
There was that one house that was known to scare the bejeepers out of us every year. The owner put a fake zombie at a different spot each Halloween night, so we never knew where he was going to jump out.
A few homes could be counted on to leave their entire bowl of candy right outside the front door. To my surprise, each kid just took his or her share and went on to the next house. The delicious popcorn balls, now a no-no, were my favorite treat.
After I got married, Halloween took on a new meaning. This time I was the one handing out the candy to the costumed kiddoes. Our home has never been victimized by egg-hurling adolescents and, as far as I remember, we’ve never been “tp’ed.” I finally bobbed for apples after age 30 at a party we threw. I recommend that for indoors unless you live in a very warm climate.
Most of all, at some point I added the pretentious apostrophe when typing the word (Hallowe’en) and then dropped it because it’s already an abbreviation, for crying out loud.
Whatever you do this Halloween, don’t hurt anybody and have fun!
Sounds a lot like when I was a kid… I got in trouble one time too, for egg tossing.
“Honest officer, I bought these for my mom!”
It didn’t work. *chuckling*
Sounds like an event before my time in Heber but much like what was going on in WR before I joined you guys. I think the most fun I had on Halloween is the night we hid in the bushes at our house and jumped out at the older trick or treaters. We were nice to the little folk but when some 6th grader walked up in a Batman costume it was time to jump out as they rang the door bell. They would run down the street as fast their costume allowed. Now I feel little bad. As you said in your post it was time where parents just dropped them off and let them roam. They roamed right into our little trap. I wonder if my Dad, the preacher of the local UM church, got any calls. Hmmmm
Dave - The cop didn’t buy your excuse? No way. Ha!
Rob - Hey! Glad to hear from you. This happened a couple or few years before you moved there. I think only one of the kids was our age, and his older sister was the reason we were involved.
I feel a little bad about scaring little kids a few times, too, but I’ll be that ended up being a good memory for them.
Loved your line “as fast as their costume would allow.” That says a lot about what so many costumes were like back then — a homemade mash-up of whatever Mom (sometimes Dad) could create. You were lucky if you got home with all of it in one piece.
I’m off work today to take part in all of Benjamin’s Halloween festivities. I get to see Shannon’s stay-at-home moms’ club from the inside.
Mark - You did not tell us what Benjamin’s costume will be this year. My nine year old I think has beaten all of my attempts at great costumes. He is going to be a whoopi cushion. We found it at a costume store yesterday. Imagine the fun we could have had with a costume like that. Last night he wore and kept having his brother sit on him.
That I can recall…I don’t think I’ve ever tp’d a yard or egged anything. I was all for scaring the little kids…but property was pretty safe from me and my frineds.
The street I grew up on (described to the best of my ability in Piper and the Gren) was Halloween crazy. It was like a festival, the whole street. Parents from all over the region drove their kids to our neightborhood. Just drop em off and wait for them to make the circuit around th eloop drive and come back. There were no streets leaving the closed loop so parents tended to congregate at the start of the street and things got crazier as you moved toward the loop. We live in a pretty decent trick-or-treating neighborhood now…but it’s just tame compared to the “good ol’ days.”
Also..I’m totally jealous of your Halloween day off!
Oh, and thanks for the plug. Dave is currently tearing through the story and I can only assume he found it here.
Bad timing…We just got egged LAST NIGHT! These a**holes have been doing it to our entire subdivision (5 areas). They are VERY LUCKY that they did not get our dodge charger (yeah, it has a hemi =) )If I ever got ahold of them I would give them a piece of my mind to say the least. I can feel my blood boiling…..
Great story though, it sounds like though this was a one time deal for you, so no worries.
Mark, I never knew you particpated in such things. It makes me miss the Heber days of go anywhere Halloweens, and then later the “wars” we used to have between teenage factions. Epic is the only word I can use to describe them. We would ride around in the back of pick-up trucks and bomb each other mercilessly….stop in a parking lot…pull the biscuit dough off the sides of the vehicle…and go back for more. It was some of the most fun I’ve ever had.
Oh…I could share some stories that would raise hairs. TP, Biscuit, Egg, shaving cream, and fire extinguishers filled with things that you would do almost anything to avoid being sprayed by were the norm.
Our “wars” were great, because they were known entities of trucks that for the most part didn’t do anything but battle each other. Naturally, you could never do that type of thing anymore, because someone woudl fall out and get run over, or someone would get sued for a biscuit smacked black eye or something like that. The only injury I remember was from a guy who was making a valiant effort to steal some “ammo” from the back of a truck while it was moving, and he received an egg to the face from close range. That effectively knocked him off of the back of the truck, and he got a few scrapes and bruises. No harm…no foul. He kept battling.
Fun times…I could write a book about it. LOL
So, not gonna lie here, I haven’t read this. But I was going through old pictures of the family and I found a rather interesting one of you and wondered the story behind it… if you remember the story.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/drowning_this/mark_jumps_cropped_sm.jpg
Also, sorry about your bad Halloween… I think….
LOVE!
Cheryl - Sorry to hear that. Bust those little brats!
Charles - Yep. I’m not sure whether you were involved that year, but J.G. was the one that her brother, J.G. and I were hanging out with. I’m sure you can fill in other names, too, based on that information.
Steph - OK, so yeah it’s obvious you didn’t read this one.
That pic of me is one of my favorites. I call it my Spiderman pose. Ha! I was testing a new camera back for my film SLR back in the day (2000 or 2001, I think). It let me set it to take the picture automatically as soon as something came into focus. I ran and jumped and Snap!, I was caught on film. It worked! And then, less than three more times using that nifty camera back, I got digital camera and have never used that film SLR since. Oops.