A Very Different Halloween 2014

          Tonight is the night of the year for tricks and treats. It’s an old tradition that goes all the way back to 1900, when the tricks were kids turning over outhouses just for fun. The treat part came when they could actually turn one over and catch someone inside the outhouse. I can still remember how funny that was. Dad didn’t think so, but I and my brothers sure were laughing. The first scare came along when dad pulled his pants up and climbed out of the tumbled outhouse, his eyes spitting fire and his neck all bulged out. That produced shrieks of terror from all of us. I don’t know why he was in the outhouse a block away, but that is I’m sure another story.
          I had a girl bite me on the neck back in 1920; she said I would live forever. I don’t really believe that vampire stuff, but so far she has been right and darned if that gal didn’t drain me that night. One of the biggest frights I ever had was Halloween of 1963 when I had this bad dream that I was in the navy and had four years to go on a four year hitch. It got worse when I woke up and realized it was not a dream and there was a fat old Boson’s Mate Chief screaming in my ear, telling me it was 0430 and I was still sleeping. I didn’t know what time it was, but I knew I was sleeping as people do when it is still dark outside.
          These days the only tricks I’ve heard of are young ladies standing on the street corners of big cities promising real treats. I don’t know how that could be true, because I’ve heard they don’t have enough clothes on with large pockets to hide any candy.