Hollow Weenies......

Hallowe’en is upon us once again...truly a holiday for young ‘n old alike unless you’re Seventh Day Adventist which views it as ‘The Devil’s Holiday’....ah well, live ‘n let live, I guess....Hallowe’en is pretty much an Anglo-Saxon, Scotch-Irish kind’a thing but the USA is so diversified and it’s such a kid thing that it’s been adopted by almost ev’ry culture that resides here, ‘cepting for the aforemention SDA’s.....
It ain’t changed a whole lot over the years ‘cept t’get fancier....it was wartime when I was a little boy, WW2, y’know, but little kids still liked to dress up ‘n go trick or treating...we didn’t have the commercial costumes like they do t’day, we had to make do with old bedsheets or g’parents old clothes...that was alright....imagination allowed a stick to become a horse or a towel to be transformed into Superman’s cape...or a forefinger ‘n a thumb to be a blazing sixgun....’n the treats were apt t’be a piece of fruit or, sometimes, home-made candy... fudge or taffy or suchlike....Heck! It was wartime ‘n sugar was rationed.....’n besides, trick or treating was just for little kids anyway....the bigger kids just wanted to play tricks....which mostly consisted of knocking on doors ‘n running to hide in the dark...maybe soaping windows...nothing really destructive ‘cause people didn’t really have a lot of stuff so private property was pretty much sacrosanct...well, except for maybe the occasional outhouse that got overturned......not that I ever did that myself but I heard stories.......
It’s a big deal for kids t'day....lots of nice costumes and lots ‘n lots of candy....bags full of candy...support your local dentist....’n you get lots of big kids knocking at your door looking for candy...well, any tricks that they would play t’day would prob'ly border on vandalism ‘n that would bring the cops....
What blows me away however are the decorations ‘n the parties.....all the lawn thingies started, I believe, in the South but it has spread all over the country....not quite as big as Xmas but still a big deal.....and the adult parties, well....One of my favorite bartenders used to tell a joke in a Swedish accent....it was the only faux accent he c’ud do ‘n he didn’t do it all that well anyway...

“Vell” he’d say, “First I t’ink Vell, den I t’ink Hell, den I t’ink, Vell, wot de hell!”