A neighbor of mine, who has no children of his own, has described our street as "Mayberry." Watching the neighborhood's kids grow up from his vantage point made it appear they had what neighborhoods used to have -- lots of outdoor play with friends from the street, driveway chalk, jumping rope, tents in yards, baseball, basketball, bikes, lemonade stands. My street isn't unique to this - I see it replicated in neighborhoods all over Portland so for all we hear that's bad in our world, we shouldn't forget that "Mayberry" does still exist in some ways.
For me, nothing stands out like "Mayberry" than what our Halloween's used to be. I will never forget the joy our kids or we adults had when our kids were small, and we all made a party of Halloween every year regardless of whether it was a week night or weekend. It was as big as Christmas.
Our neighborhood attaches to lots of others so there are hundreds of kids. We had years of handing out 120 or more tiny candy bars; it was a constant parade of kids in costume aged one to fifteen. There was running from front porch to front porch, laughter, tripping on costumes, dropping of plastic pumpkins filled with brightly colored candy onto dewy or frozen grass depending on the year. There was "TRICK OR TREAT" yelled in tiny voices and "thank you" when prompted. There was awe by trick-o-treaters at my husband's intricate pumpkin carvings.
Some years, Frankenstein hung from our 2nd floor, the fog machine blew smoke at just the right moment when a child passed, or huge plastic pumpkins on the front lawn. Our neighbors, the Sneider's, are responsible for the majority of the festive atmosphere - their house decorating was fabulous and included a giant light display on their garage with a 'Happy Halloween' logo. A bat flew around the top of their porch making an eery, spooky sound. They made hot spiked cider for the adults and had not just candy bars, but made up bags of candy!
They also played pranks on us. When our son was only 4 or 5, they put steak gristle from dinner into tin foil as his "treat." When we helped go through his candy that year, there was a moment we wondered who would do such an awful trick...but very quickly knew it was them!
I am so grateful to my neighbors for their enthusiastic embracing of this holiday. I'm hopeful my boys will always remember. I know I will.
Happy Halloween!
