Front Porch: Halloween spirit stays with the ghoulies

When a person writes a regular column that sometimes appears at the very end of October, it’s kind of a given that it has to be about Halloween or at least have some kind of nod to whatever this thing is that evolved from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which had some supernatural elements to it and historically had marked the end of harvest season.

It sure isn’t that now.

If you detect a bit of Grinchiness here, it’s not so much that as it is kind of a “meh.” I just don’t care that much, if at all.

Sure, it can be all sorts of fun to dress up and be silly, go trick-or-treating (age limit should be about 10 in Stefanie-world), decorating the house/bedroom/porch/yard, pumpkin carving, eating way too much candy and (if one must) drinking and/or eating all things pumpkin spice. I guess.

Never much cared for the bobbing for apples activity associated with Halloween, which I think is an awful lot of repetitive biting into a rapidly-filling-with-saliva basin of water with nary a chance of sinking a fang into a Granny Smith. Frustrating, unclean and not nearly as much fun as advertised.

It’s probably not all that fortuitous that today’s Halloween Front Porch column falls on my watch.

Make no mistake, we did all the Halloween stuff when Bruce and I were raising our sons. That was in the era when there were a lot of home-made costumes. There was one clown costume, made by my friend Mary, that several children wore over the years.

I made a couple myself, the most durable being a reusable flowing black wizard’s robe, underneath which light clothing or heavy parkas could be worn, depending on the weather, and which could be adorned with different symbols for the preferences of different children, as dictated by popular culture. “Star Trek,” ghosts and ghoulies, “Star Wars,” vampire teeth, even dinosaurs (always popular, though hard to explain on a wizard’s robe).

And it was fun in its own way … because our kids were eager with preparation and anticipation, because they loved it, and because we got to have a part in those same said kids’ (and their friends’) laughter and joy.

We decorated. We participated in Halloween events at school. We chaperoned our little ghoulies out in the neighborhood marauding for candy … in the rain, one year in the snow and in whatever Mother Nature blew onto or over us. This was before most Halloween events became controlled (read: civilized) indoor parties. It was out in the elements we go, baby. Many a little ballerina out there draped in her mom’s rain jacket.

And, sign of those times, we took the candy to be inspected for sharp objects before allowing it to be consumed. No more popcorn balls. It was the era when homemade treats became verboten.

I know that adults also hosted parties for themselves. Adult beverages, sometimes silly games, costumes. I’m sure they were fun, but I never participated. Truth be told, I’ve never been invited. Perhaps my indifference was already showing back in the day.

The thing I truly don’t like about Halloween is the scary stuff. Not the Casper-the-Friendly-Ghost kind of make-believe scary, but the truly and deliberately frightening things. I’m told people love to be scared at Halloween, mostly because they know down deep it isn’t real. It’s fun to be startled and to scream.

Not in my world. If a person ever sets up some ruse designed to scare the bejesus out of me somehow, I will know that he or she is not a friend and will forthwith be ghosted (pun intended). And expanding on that, I’ve mentioned before that if a prank involves an individual leaping out at me in some kind of “boo” moment, my fight-or-flight response kicks in immediately and I am most likely to punch that person in the face. So far in all my years, I’ve quelled that instinct, but it’s lurking deep down within me. Be forewarned.

Along with that aversion goes scary movies. No chainsaw massacre films for me. Or demonic possession, creatures oozing slime from their pores (unless it’s an obvious farse), evil clowns, blood spurting from the headless undead, etc.

The only zombie thing I like is the joke: What did the zombie pay for his new car? An arm and a leg. Badda boom.

I did watch the series “The Last of Us” because, like every woman I know, actor Pedro Pascal is to die for, and the character he played was so appealing – though there were zombie scenes for which I (even at my advanced age) had to close my eyes.

I’m happy that Halloween makes so many other people happy. We can use lots of doses of happy these days, when there are real goblins out there to be fearful of. So I begrudge no one his or her ghoulish delight on Oct. 31. It’s just kind of not for me.

Years ago, my husband fashioned a primitive ghost out of a white pillowcase, with black felt eyes pinned onto it. Every year, this one included, he puts it over our house’s street lamp in October. No Halloween curmudgeon, he.

We live on a pretty out-of-the-way street, so we don’t get many (if any) trick-or-treaters, but we always have candy at the ready. We’ll watch a movie on TV, then when it gets late, we’ll turn the outside lights off …

… and dig into the candy bowl ourselves. Happy Halloween, everyone! I guess.