I wanted to talk a little about my most enjoyable Halloween experience. Oh, not trick or treating or a party. But pure mayhem. Shenanigans. Mayhem perpetuated against me. It was exhilarating in the highest sense.
First I want to explain that in New York in those days, Halloween pranks were of the utmost importance. There was not one pumpkin standing on the porch the next morning. Every pumpkin on every porch was smashed in the street. We never carved our pumpkins anyway. We drew on them like the Pennsylvania Dutch. They sold some kind of special waxy crayon. Not sure if it's still done, now it looks like stores want to sell paint, as if it's a new trendy idea. That made the pumpkins even meatier with even more pulp all over the roads. I couldn't understand it when I moved to Colorado and my pumpkin was still intact the next morning. I was very disappointed. I went out there and smashed my own. When I lived near Highway 24 in Manitou Springs I used to go to an overpass bridge and drop it to the creek below. Eventually we started seeing more of it out here. Thank God.
Egging houses was mandatory too. If your house wasn't egged you'd wonder "How boring am I?" In passing I'll mention Ragamuffin Day. Big deal in New York in the early part of the 20th Century. It was on Thanksgiving, but that's where a lot of the Halloween traditions came from. Costumes, tricking and pranks. Many of the really old photos of Halloween costumes are really Ragamuffin Day. My father fully participated and taught me a few tricks, which I'll probably mention in a separate story.
Ok. I was about twelve years old (1960's) and I decided to wear some of my maternal grandmother's old clothes. There were tons of them. Dresses, aprons, coats, hats, shoes, blouses. Everything. I chose an outfit that was old ladyish. It was a smart number but the shoes had kind of a heel. We always waited for dark to trick or treat and went out in packs. All over the place, but stayed in the older areas so it was as spooky as possible.
All of a sudden I hear a commotion. A pack of boys. The girls run but I have those damn shoes on. Down I go. Man that was a lot of force to take down a short girl in old lady shoes. Slam on the ground. Face down. I was strong though and tried my best to fight back. But a pack of boys held me down and smashed about two dozen eggs all over me. My reaction was strange. Not in a "strange" 😉 sense but more in a sense of "hell yeah. This is what Halloween is about." Mayhem. It's going to be the dark time of year and in the old days of living in huts, we were getting ready to be trapped indoors for a while. You gotta let some kind of steam off or everyone will be dead by the time spring comes around.
When I finally got home I was a wreck. No big deal. It's Ragamuffin time. There will be sacrifice. I also had some bruises on my back but that was ok too. Used to deal with caring for my own wounds because of all the stunts I pulled on my own.
Later that year in the winter, I think I ran into the same pack of boys walking home from Catholic School. There we are... two blondes wearing our virginal symbols of repression. The uniform. Our faces scrubbed clean with no make up. It did something to them. "Hey, you go to Catholic School!" They ran across the street at us. No idea what they were going to do. Bam. The two of us slammed up against the chain link fence running right along the side of the church. One boy on either side held us in position. I'm thinking they may have done this before. The other boys pelted us with snowballs. The good thing is that they aimed for our exposed frozen knees. You know the skirt came down to the "middle of the knee" and the socks were pulled up to right below the knee. I don't know how long it lasted but it was pretty amazing. Then they ran off. Both of our knees were bleeding. It was great. Same thing. Got home. "Oh, my knees are bleeding because some boys attacked us brutally with snowballs." Just go clean them up. I'm telling ya, those really were great times.
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