Halloween was scary when I was a kid, and it’s scary now. There. I’ve said it. It may be second only to Christmas as far as popularity goes, reality TV also appeals to a large number of people. That does not mean that Keeping Up With the Kardashians or the Real Housewives of New Jersey are not terrifying.

One source attributed Halloween’s popularity to the fun adults have in “acting out fantasies that are not part of the adult landscape.”  Do we really need to see our wives in a “High Seas Honey” or “Sexy Dirty Cop” costume?  And somehow, I don’t see myself in a “Captain Six Pack” getup.  You want to be really frightened?  These come in plus sizes. 

If these fantasies were part of the adult landscape, they would be enjoined by the EPA as environmental hazards.

 The word itself, “Halloween,” has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contraction of All Hallows Eve. November 1, “All Hollows Day” (or “All Saints Day”), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain, the Celtic New year.

It has been written that the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.

The still-living were not crazy about this idea. So, on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes , to make them cold and undesirable. They would then parade around the neighborhood , being as destructive as possible to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.

In other words, it was like your co-workers at the office returning after a long weekend. This is no Santa and his merry elves or the Easter Bunny we are talking about here.

During the potato famine of the 1840’s the Irish came to the United States and gave us Notre Dame football, New York cops and Halloween. 

  And pranks. 

  At that time, favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates So, what was so scary about outhouse tipping?  Nothing I suppose – unless you were in it at the time.

 The Jack ‘o lantern came to us from an Irish folk story where Jack, a notorious party animal and jokester, who probably would be dating Paris Hilton if living today, tricked the devil.  Too ornery to get into Heaven, he was denied entry to Hell because of tricking the devil.  Jack spent the afterlife wondering around using an ember placed in a hollowed-out turnip as a lantern.

  Luckily, when the Irish came to America, they used poetic license to make Jack’s lantern a pumpkin.  Otherwise, our grandchildren would be sitting around watching “It’s the Great Turnip Charlie Brown.”

  It is thought that trick or treating originated from beggars going door to door with a lit candle inside a lantern.  The candle and lantern represented a dead soul in purgatory.  Although not an exact science, in exchange for a soul cake, the beggars would offer to say a prayer for the dead.

Sort of door-to-door televangelists.

 As for witches and broomsticks, long before they were associated with mothers-in-laws, they were identified with Druids.  Witches were thought to be able to change shapes and forms, often taking the form of a black cat.  It does not appear that they had nine lives however, as evidenced by the Salem witch trials.

My childhood Halloweens were fraught with danger.  Not many events are fraught with anything these days, much less fraught with danger. 

  We would dress up in our $1.99 costume from Kresge’s Five and Dime.  The outfit included a plastic mask with eyeholes so small you could not see down or to the side.  The nose opening was cleverly designed to cut off oxygen. This made crossing the street a challenge.  If you were fortunate enough to see a car coming, you couldn’t run because you would asphyxiate yourself  Nor did you want to get too near the candles in the Jack ‘o lantern because the rest of the costume was flammable.

Then there were stories of some boy in a faraway town, such as Bismarck, North Dakota that had found a razor blade in an apple or a little girl in Ann Arbor, Michigan that found a needle in a Tootsie Roll.

Luckily, two doors down lived Mr. Kinney.  He had not quite adjusted from his service in the Pacific in WWII.  Suspicious of yet another sneak attack by the Japanese aided by the Red Menace, he had stockpiled WWII surplus weapons and equipment. While other kids had to dump their candy on the kitchen table and have it inspected by their parents, the kids in my neighborhood went down the street to Mr. Kinney who, while in full uniform, went over our sack of treats with a mine sweeper.

But our biggest threat was not from traffic, spontaneous combustion or booby-trapped treats.  What made childhood Halloween terrifying were the McClaskey brothers –Dwayne, Wayne and Layne.  They were large, oafish miscreants each of whom sported a sneer punctuated by a toothpick in the corner of his mouth and a three- day growth of beard.

Despite being two years apart they were all repeating the fifth grade.  Evidently, they had hit the academic glass ceiling.  They came from a hard scrabble family.  I am not sure how many siblings they had, I just knew that three McClaskeys were more than enough. Their father was a public servant.  He made license tags for the public while serving time in the state pen.

Their mother was a Bible thumper. When the boys got out of line, which was daily, she thumped them up the side of the head with the large print King James version of the Bible complete with concordance.  Faced with eternal damnation in the hereafter, the McClaskeys dedicated themselves to making the here and now hell for the rest of us.

 Their ideas of Halloween pranks involved extortion, theft and destruction of property.  They would lay in wait for unsuspecting trick- or- treaters to step onto their turf, with their turf being anywhere they happened to be at the time They would pounce from the shadows and shake down a kid for the good stuff – the nickel candy bars and the quarters that some gave out when they ran out of candy.  No trick- or- treater’s wax harmonica was safe from possible seizure.

        My best friend, The Mole, and I had to spend each beggar’s night hoping the sound of a broken twig or the swishing of leaves was Jason or Freddie Krueger and not the McClaskey brothers.  Dressed as Casper the Friendly Ghost and Bobo the Clown did not help our chances And yet somehow, The Mole and I miraculously avoided being mugged.  A couple of times we were chased home, but the McClaskeys were slow, stemming from their size and their chain smoking.  Even with us lugging our bags of candy, they were no match for adrenalin fueled head long flight, as we ran for the safety of my house.

        Eventually their father got out of the slammer and the McClaskys moved away.  But they are still out there somewhere.

        So be careful this Halloween.  There are dangers lurking in the shadows.  It could be ghosts looking for a body to inhabit.  It could be the McClaskys looking for your treats.  It could be Republican presidential candidates looking for your vote.

        As I said, Halloween is scarey.