I’ve run out of candy (except for the “small stash” I kept for myself) and it’s 8:30 p.m. so the front lights are off and I’ve stopped answering the doorbell. We’ve had quite a few trick-or-treaters come by this very chilly evening. The weatherbug says that it’s about 26 degrees outside, but no wind which is a blessing for the kids outside. The doorbell just rang again…. at this time of the night it’s all teenagers on the prowl for candy. The little kids that started showing up around 5 p.m. were way cute in their Spiderman, Superman, and PowerRanger costumes, being shadowed by a parent, of course.

Halloween is a shortened version of All Hallows Even, the evening before All Hallows Day. The tradition of Halloween comes from Ireland and is spreading throughout the world. It actually kind of makes sense when put into context with the other holy feast days. November 1st was designated by Pope Gregory III in the late 700’s as All Hallows Day — the day to celebrate a high mass for the saints. Hallows means “saints” so the name of the day eventually became “All Saints Day”. November 2nd is named All Souls Day based on the idea that those who died without being cleansed (through the ceremony of last rites) may be saved through the prayers (and for centuries the donations) of the faithful. Consequently, the night before All Hallows Day was the time when all of the devils and other churlish creatures emerged from the darkness only to be banished by church bells ringing across the land at dawn.

November 1st is a holiday throughout Europe and most of the rest of the Catholic world. For some reason, it is not here in the US and Canada. But we do have Halloween! Mmmmm! Chocolate!

I suppose that the Halloween still has it’s share of shenanigans. While I won’t claim any responsibility or involvement, I do remember a couple alleged pranks from my youth, such as painting a huge black devil on a sheet, climbing high on the roof of the Junior High School where the flagpole was situated, pulling the rope up out of the hole in the roof where it went down into the principal’s office, hoisting the sheet, and then clambering up the pole to tie off the rope so that the “flag” couldn’t be lowered. The sheet stayed up a couple of days until the fire department got a ladder properly situated to untie the rope.

The sheriff at the time I was in High School was not well liked by the teens in town. He had a practice of tailing a teenage driver around town until they did something wrong and then giving them a ticket. If the sheriff got behind you, the safest course was to turn on the right blinker, pull into a parking place, and turn off the car.

There wasn’t much in the way of entertainment in town, except the time-honored tradition of “dragging main”. In our case it was to drive east on the highway to the Junior High School, make a U turn back to the only stoplight in town, then a right turn on Main Street to the railroad tracks, make another U turn back to the stoplight, then right to the bowling alley. Another U turn and do it all over again … at about 15 mph or so. Sometime during the night, particularly on a Friday or Saturday night, everyone who had a car or could get their dad’s car was out making the circuit, stopping and talking, and just dragging main. The Idaho Cafe was at the corner at the stoplight and on a Friday or Saturday night it was also full of high schoolers having a coke or a malt and doing what youth today call “hanging out”.

Well, the sheriff didn’t like all the kids dragging main and making all the illegal U turns (and occasionally drag racing on the four-lane highway going through town). He usually handed out a half-dozen tickets over a summer or fall weekend. So, some kids with whom I was quite closely acquainted decided to have a little revenge.

The sheriff’s daughter worked in the bar at the back of the Idaho Cafe. Sometime late in the evening he would stop, park his cruiser in the alley beside the cafe, and go in for a cup of coffee and a visit that would last about a half hour. When it was really cold outside, he’d lock the car and leave the engine running. That was the opportunity.

Halloween was on a Wednesday night. It was bitter cold. While the cruiser was parked in the alleyway it didn’t take long for a group of boys to mask off the chrome around the windows and spray paint the windows black along with the light bar on top of the car. With the heater going in the car, the windows were warm enough that the paint dried off well enough. Then somehow some keys were broken off in the door locks making it hard to unlock the car (keyless door locks hadn’t been invented, yet), and everyone disappeared. The car sat in the alley all night and eventually ran out of gas. The next morning it was towed over to the parking lot behind the County Court House — paint smeared all over the windows and onto the car in a few places.

The guilty were never apprehended. For some reason the sheriff and the local police department didn’t think that the debate club at school might be the culprits but concentrated on the “smokers” who had no idea who had done the deed. It was kind of fun seeing the guys who had been picked up over Halloween out scraping the paint off the windows of the sheriff’s cruiser the following Saturday morning. It never did look the same after that, however. When I came back home on leave after Air Force Basic Training the following September, the county had traded the almost-new Chrysler Cruiser for a new Ford — and a new light bar.