A VERY HALLOWEENY NIGHT!

A VERY HALLOWEENY NIGHT!

This special Halloween took place in Phoenix AZ, 1963, when my brother, Chris, and I were 8 and 10 years old respectively. It was the first year we were old enough to go trick-or-treating on our own. As always, I went as a ghost, cutting eyeholes in an old worn out sheet. Chris went as a bum. He wore one of Dadâs old collared shirts that hung to his knees, and Mom drew âwhiskersâ on his face with her eyebrow pencil.
Weâd been out for about an hour when one of the kids we hung out with told me about the haunted house 4 blocks away. I caught up with Chris and we both ran over there. The house and lawn were all done up in scary Halloween decorations. A small plot held cardboard headstones and huge glowing Jack-o-lanterns edged the walk-way up to the long front porch. There were loud screams and scary music playing within the house. There must have been 20 kids waiting to come up to the porch.
A scarecrow sat in a rocker on the porch, and we started to walk past it when it suddenly moved causing all 20 of us to jump, scream and run off the porch! My brother, well known for his clumsiness, fell off the porch and wound up sitting on the jumping cactus in the garden. He took his pillowcase filled with candy and limped home, done for the night. (Mom said later she spent a good hour picking cactus needles out of his backside.)
The scarecrow on the porch convinced the rest of us to come back. We yelled, âTrick or Treat!!!â He looked at us and said, âTrick!â What? We looked at each other, mystified. He laughed and grinned at us through his scarecrow makeup and said, âYou said Trick or Treat, right? Okay. I say before you get your Treat, you do a Trick.â We were all stunned! One of the Scott twins asked what kind of trick. âOh, I donât know, do any of you sing or dance? How about cartwheels or somersaults?â The scarecrow reached around behind him to pull out a very big bowl of candy. The 20 of us were busy performing our tricks when another large group of children arrived. One of the parents asked âWhatâs this all about?â Some of us stopped cartwheeling to explain. When we had done enough âtricksâ to satisfy the scarecrow, we each received a full-sized candy bar of our choosing. Wow! But before we left, the scarecrow charged us with a mission. One, we were to tell any kids we passed by about the haunted house at May Ave and Downs St, and the other thing was we were to have a very Holloweeny night.
That was nearly 52 years ago, but I will never forget all of those costumed kids jumping and rolling around on that front lawn for the silly scarecrow and yelling Halloweeny, like it was a private joke!