Unfounded Fear

Wooooooo! Halloween is Coming! If your not scared, you may be after reading this post!

Before all that though, I wonder what my little grandson Nathan, will be dressed as tomorrow night. Every year his mom likes to surprise us, keep us in suspense, guessing. But being the perceptive, intuitive, type, I'll bet it will be cars. He doesn't care to have his face covered, just like his dad, and last year he struggled in a lion costume. The previous year, a lobster.

Among the many things that stand out for me, is the horrible parade, fire engines and the High School Band. This entertainment was provided for the youth of the town for many years. We used have a place called the Strand Theater and we saw many great shows there, which included scary movies, like the FLY. They always gave out candy.

As a child, I remember being dressed as a witch, and when we dunked for apples, my black crape-paper costume got wet and dripped everywhere. What a mess. We always got nickel candy bars, I liked the big Musketeers, or the Almond-Joy Bars. It was the greatest night of the year. When we got home we ate chocolate, my favorite. There was some mischievousness going on, like ringing doorbells and running away. Some kids threw eggs at us, or at cars, that weren't waxed.

Years later,we had fun with the kids. One night my brother, dressed in an old black raincoat that was my father's (pea coat style) with a white skeleton mask. Limping along, he would howl, and everyone that saw him cried and ran away, even the dogs. Man, he was scary. (My father wore the same outfit when we were kids, and had the same reaction).

Then there was a guy named Raymond, who wanted to dress like a woman each year. My parents got a kick out of him. He would wear a hat like the one you'd see on the Beverly Hillbillies. (The one worn by granny, with a net). Besides the heels he couldn't walk in, and the stockings with the crooked seams in the back, his boobs were outstanding, to say the least. He said he would use two huge potatoes, in "his" bra. He walked proudly, strutting around in his dress. (This is a guy who was pretty tough and was always on a motorcycle). No one messed with him. His stop was the local bar room. My grandmother dressed as Aunt Jemimah, blackened face and all, she use burnt cork. Believe me, she didn't need the potatoes. She wore the girdle with the bones, and the outfit you see on the syrup bottle. All you could see were the white of her eyes. Outside of the blue eyes, that she couldn't disguise, it was a perfect imitation.

Some of the costumes that I won prizes for, in the past were: a sexy black cat, tail and all. A hooker, no explanation needed. And Mary had a little lamb. It was all in fun! Except, when I was a young mother, in my early twenties, my oldest son was an infant and sleeping in his bed.Toward the end of the evening, while I was distributing candy to some small children, three older boys made their way through the door. I was alone in the apartment at the time, and they would not leave, demanding treats. (Things are different today, parents accompany their children as they should.) It was frightening for me to say the least. They finally left. I'll always remember that night.

I don't know how many people believe in spooky things, they must or why all the stories? My kids will probably remember going to Grandma's house, with the lights flashing and eerie sounds coming from Bobs car. Seems everyone went to grandma's house. Grandpa used to give out bags and bags of candy, then they would have to close the light, always worrying about running out. I can hear him now, "EEE, son of a beach, Leona". Leona would say, "Oh Dad!" That was many years ago but, (Steve said, he still has a lot of foot traffic there.)They would complain that there weren't that many kids living on that street. Apparently, they were seen being trucked up. Living on the boarder of another town had advantages. Those children got to go around two nights.

It seems Steve was always sick on Halloween, fever and all, every year, since he was a little tyke.

If nothing else, just the feel of the night was always eerie. So, back to my first thought, sometimes people have fears that are in fact unfounded, based on imagination. Then, there's the ...OOOOOOOOuu!

We lived in a time that was fashionable to tell tall tales, stories about hair-raising monsters and creepy things. This was always part of the art of conversation that I spoke of earlier. My grandmother used to tell some stories that made you scared, so scared you couldn't sleep at night. Oh, things like boogie men in the closet, in particular. Or the dead, sitting up in their coffins, being shown in those days at home. She said, sometimes, they would make strange sounds. My dad used to tell us that he had to go through the cemetery at night, when coming home from the show, alone...and of all the sounds he would hear.

A long time ago, my husband John and I heard a bell ring in the middle of the night. We woke at the same time saying, "did you hear that?" "yes, I said," "what did you hear?" "A dinner bell," "Me too!" Then we checked things out and everything seemed okay. The next day, after much difficulty getting back to sleep, I went into the adjoining room and asked him which one he heard, as we had two. We both agreed on the same one. Now, strangely enough, the windows were not open, and there were no earthquakes. The only way you could hear that bell, was to pick it up and ring it. This is an unsolved mystery, to this very day. It sort of falls in with the one where the kitchen cupboard door open and slammed closed, during the day, while I was in the living room. There is no doubt in my mind where the sound came from.

John disagrees that those were the only two times that we experienced eerie, unfounded and mysterious happenings, and reminded me of the cute teddy bear that he won years earlier. It was the type that if you pushed the button it would play a series of children's songs. Except, this one would do it all of a sudden on its own, without anyone even being close by. Anytime it felt like it.

It's gone!