I hear that the Archuleta Senior Center will be celebrating ‘Halloween’ today, Friday, during their community lunch, starting at 11am.
Their invitation:
Come dressed in your favorite Halloween costume and get ready for a fun filled time with friends, laughter, and plenty of Halloween spirit! Prizes will be awarded for the best costumes, so let your creativity shine and show off your spooky, silly, or spectacular side.
I assume the press release was written prior to the 100-year flood we just experienced here in Pagosa.
I don’t know what kinds of ‘favorite costumes’ the seniors in our community might be choosing to wear this year, but considering recent weather events, I would recommend that it include a life jacket.
A broomstick is not going to cut it, as a flotation device.
I don’t have a favorite Halloween costume. The last time I wore a Halloween costume, I was 11 years old. Back then, Halloween costumes were sized for children, and I had nearly outgrown mine. A Superman costume.
Little did I know, I was dressed as a future President.
In times past, Halloween was also known as All Saints’ Eve — the day before All Saints Day — and marked the beginning of Allhallowtide, the time in the Christian liturgical year dedicated to remembering the Hallows — the saints and Christian martyrs, and all the faithful departed.
But only the faithful departed were to be remembered. The unfaithful departed, you were supposed to forget about.
Basically, it was originally about dead people who had been ‘hallowed’. Made holy. But somehow, it became a celebration of witches, ghosts, vampires, super heroes, cartoon characters, dinosaurs, cowboys, aliens, mass murderers, astronauts, pop singers, fairies…
… that is, a celebration of just about anything but hallowed saints.
Especially, it became a celebration of sugar.
Following the conclusion of World War II and the end of sugar rationing, the American candy industry stood ready for a massive expansion. And with families migrating to the burgeoning suburbs, the tradition of “Trick or Treating” evolved from a local folk custom into a nationwide phenomenon.
Giant candy manufacturers like Hershey and Mars Inc. recognized that the modern housewife — busy with the demands of mid-20th-century domesticity — no longer had time for labor-intensive Halloween treats like popcorn balls or pulled taffy or candied apples. What America wanted was access to small, affordable, individually-wrapped treats that could be conveniently handed out to dozens of snot-nosed, diabetes-prone children without any more effort than opening a plastic bag of Skittles.
No one stopped to wonder about the uneasy correspondence between Red Vines and a vampire looking for a victim with high blood glucose levels.
When Darlene and I moved to Pagosa Springs, we thought at first that we might escape the madness that Halloween has become. We knew that our new hometown had more churches per capita than almost any little rural town in America, and we hoped against hope that our kids would grow up celebrating saints, rather than sugar. But when October rolled around, alas, we found out that the churches were themselves hosting “Trunk or Treat” celebrations on Halloween.
But this year, Mother Nature took it upon Herself to dampen everyone’s Halloween spirit, by bringing about a 100-year flood and washing out several local roads, just a week before Halloween.
She did a trial run of the same water-borne disaster last year, also right before Halloween.
Is she trying to tell us something?
Like maybe we’re too focused on scaring each other?
Speaking for myself, I will be dressed tomorrow night as Louis Cannon, Humor Columnist. That should scare ’em.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.