Finding the Good in Halloween

This year's happy pumpkin faces to brighten up your snail mail.

Since the pumpkins and candy are already being shoved down our throats by merchants hoping to score big this Halloween, I figured I might as well write my Halloween post right now instead of waiting until October. Besides, the ways things are going in our chaotic world these days, I may not even make it until then.

Once I was done with making costumes for my son and getting drunk at neighborhood parties, I continued to celebrate Halloween by carving jack-o'-lanterns. Sadly, last year I was even bored with that, finally coming through about an hour before dark on the big day with a sad entry: just eyes and nose and mouth, not even any teeth or eyebrows. It was obvious I was turning into that old person who rails about the holiday being bad for your teeth and devoid of all meaning. I was finished with the whole thing, heading down that path leading to a bowl of candy out front with a sign saying "Take one."

But then yesterday at the post office, the clerk announced that the first holiday stamps had arrived, and they are for Halloween. He brought out a strip of twenty orange jack-o'-lanterns on a black background, all with big grins. Of course I had to have them. My purchase engendered a lengthy conversation with the postmaster, a man roughly my age, about how far Halloween has fallen from "our day," back when you got all sorts of interesting things, not just the same boring wrapped candy bars and lollipops. "What's it for anymore?" I asked.

He had a great answer, pointing out that Halloween is the only time people will open their doors for strangers and greet them with a smile, and a treat! It's also the only time children are encouraged to approach strangers, and they do so without fear. People talk to one another on the streets, and it's all very happy and festive, with almost nobody looking down at their cell phones. Really, when you think about it, Halloween is pretty much how life should be all the time. Except for the costumes. And the candy. (And maybe the pumpkins. )