all souls

I'm not the world's biggest fan of Halloween, never got into the whole turning my yard into a place of reenacted ritual slaughter and whatnot, but little kids in costumes are so freakin' cute and I honestly think the day is what you make of it. Every day is a gift from God and I don't see why people make such a big deal about this day being so dark and evil.

I grew up Catholic-turned-evangelical, and the Catholics I know don't talk about how Satanic the day is. Heck, at St. Bridget's we could wear costumes instead of our school uniforms that day and that was awesome.

I wasn't allowed to tell the other kids I was friends with that we went trick-or-treating because even though we saw it as you get to express your creativity and make the elderly neighbors happy, this of course would lead to future teenage devil worship, what with that and my dad's Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath records. He explained to me once that not only did early Sabbath rock, it was more of a political thing than anything else.



I'd meet other kids whose parents told them the same thing. Never underestimate the power of peer pressure on our parents. I was told that as long as I wasn't anything "bad" I could do whatever I want, and then came up with costumes like Cleopatra and a flamenco dancer and a geisha, none of which I have the coloring to pull off but you'd have one of those nylon colorful jackets on anyway since it was the 90s and we live where it's cold.

Halloween was the biggest holiday ever when I was at Kent and I only went out for the big street celebration once. That was enough for me, honestly, since I didn't drink back then and found the sheer mass of drunk people overwhelming and ended up wondering how many girls were going to get date-raped later on that night. Not to mention the local cult with their megaphones and posters of Jesus with a machine gun yelling through megaphones and the Hare Krishnas chanting across the street.

My friend Josh and I used to carve pumpkins and throw in leftover supermarket pyrotechnics of various kinds and the kids with too much time on their hands and a video camera take this just a bit further...



So at church tomorrow night we're throwing the 5th annual "Holy Ghost Party" where the kids from the neighborhood get the chance to walk through, get good candy, and play games. After that I might hit up the Sachsenheim for music and merriment along the lines of local talent and people dancing with fire.

Evidently there's a market for "graveyard tourism" which makes a whole lot of sense because old cemeteries are awesome. I would totally take a road trip and go to old cemeteries but I wouldn't want to go in a group and I sure wouldn't want to go around Halloween.

Then again, I don't know what it says about me or my city when people ask what cool places there are to check out and you recommend the Funwall and Lake View Cemetery... abandoned factory complexes and graveyards, you know, good times.