Halloween26

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Boo

Or

Who

“The worms crawl in; the worms crawl out, they taste your guts and they spit them out. They use your bones for telephones and call you up when you’re not at home”: Kid’s gaming rhyme

        Oh, what a rollicking time we had as young kids. It wasn’t enough that our older siblings, parents and even random strangers said and did things toward us just to see terror in our eyes and minds; no, the world had to imprint in us fear and insecurity as well. In what is called, ‘childlore’, we were sung songs like the ‘rock-a-bye babies’ that fell to earth when the tree branch broke; and when we’d ring-around-the rosy, we would all fall dead. The Itsy-Bitsy Spider would crawl up our arms and ring worms would get all of our hair “cut off up to here!”; plus, this little piggy would “wee wee wee all the way home”. Not even to mention so called ‘Fairy Tales’. They expected us to be amused: we were terrified. Peek-a-boo my ass.

        The Farmer in the Dell was a lesson in humiliation and there was even a kid’s card game called ‘Bloody Knuckles’ that dealt real physical punishment to whoever lost (does anyone know the game ‘Mumblety-peg’ where the loser literally has to eat dirt?). Does anyone else remember being the target in a dodge ball vendetta?  I do.

        In the cinema we had monstrous monsters and demented humans that could turn into wolfmen or blood sucking bats or even sew human parts into lumbering killers that even could get a bride made for them. Giants unfrozen from tundra, giant ants and gorillas, lizards, mummies and Creatures from Black Lagoons. Mad scientists, blobs of skin dissolving goo, mutated giants and alien invaders. All while eating popcorn like it was the only thing keeping us safe (gateway to overweight, if you ask me), and screaming our lungs out. We laughed as the Three Stooges physically perpetually hurt each other.

Oh, that’s not saying that there wasn’t real fun stuff; and, you had to be there to really appreciate it. Marbles, jacks, scooters, skip rope, tidily-winks, Chinese checkers, pick-up sticks and a variety of card games led us from being young kids hiding under desks from atomic attack into insecure acned bicycled hormone crazed teen years playing spin the bottle and dancing to Rock and Roll and then into the demented adulthood that believed that the ‘Commies’ were out to get us. We believed that only the strong survived. Some still do.

As kids, we had kid monsters that bullied us in the playground. We had imaginary monsters under our beds; we had fathers that had fought in wars and killed people; we had older kids willing to belittle our asses, teachers ready to humiliate us in school and somehow, we made some sense of life by dressing up on Halloween and begging for candy from strangers; our brief respite from reality. We dressed up outlandishly as goblins, hobos, debutantes and spooks; no parents attended Trick or Treat. We took and gave intimidations over the hauls. Fun stuff. In life we learned that we were on our own; on Halloween it was us against the world.

        We grew up, had children that we didn’t understand, who grew up only to have more children that they, in turn, did not understand; we get it, our parents didn’t understand us either. Parents do the best that they can with what they have to work with, lessons that they learned that were, in essence, lessons that didn’t work, so, they try different lessons on their kids that, in essence, don’t work either. In my day, when I was a pain in the ass, I received a pain in the ass.

        My children got disciplined but not physically punished; their children get a motivational speech as their lesson; and in turn, their children will get to try lessons, with whatever their limited experience they have, on their children what they think might work. None of it works. The fact is, that kids will be kids (!) with or without parent’s help and will, seemingly, willfully and spitefully be as selfish and manipulating as possible to achieve their own self-centered ends; it’s not your fault or theirs...they’re kids, and that’s what kids do normally. Kids normally seek attention, love, security and candy.

        The only thing common to all generations, that I’ve seen, is the way collectively, we celebrate the holidays we are given or create. Birthdays; beach days; Halloween; Thanksgiving; pizza night; New Years and whatever floats your boat in December (Christmas, Kwanza; Bodhi Day, Hanukkah). The good, the bad and the party pooper.

        On Halloween night, Debbie and I don’t stay home to give out candy; if we did, she’d want to give out fresh fruit and I’d want to give chocolate. So, instead of that, we go out to watch the ‘Trick or Treat-ers (with their posse of adults) and have more fun than watching a litter of puppies in a kiddie pool.

        There they are, the little darlin’s: Spiderman; Captain America; Elphaba and Glinda and isn’t that Wednesday Addams? Mega Minions; a little blue dog(?): a pirate; a cheerleader and a puppy dressed like a hot dog, complete with bun. All the kids have bags for their hauls and some have already been munching (chocolate if I’m not mistaken) Parents are circling around; some also having the time of their life, some wishing that this would soon be over and ready for a glass of wine. Oh, also a couple of geezers (us)laughing at the whole scene and remembering what Billy Joel sang: “you know, the good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow aint as bad as it seems” Keeping the faith, Boo. Also, Boo!