The decaying aftermath. Photo: M. Imlay
Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. I guess it still is, but I just don’t seem to enjoy it as much nowadays.
The past several years a busy work schedule usually kept me on the road for the holiday. No costume parties, no Day of the Dead processions at Olvera Street, no ghosts, ghouls or goblins of any sort. This year, however, my annual business trip evaporated and I finally found myself available for All Hallows Eve.
So how to celebrate it?
I opted for a nice, quiet, homespun Halloween. I bought candy, spent hours carving Jack O’ Lanterns (and roasting their seeds), dressed up the porch with some scary decorations, turned on Adams Family reruns, and settled down to await hordes of marauding urchins at nightfall.
But, alas, the demonic hosts never came. By midnight a mere seven Trick-or-Treaters had dared to approach my spooky abode.
To be honest, my Echo Park neighborhood has never been awash with ghosts and zombies, but when I first moved here several years ago, there was at least a respectable showing. In my absence the last couple of Halloweens I’ve apparently missed a frightening phenomenon: Gentrification has driven a stake through the heart of good ol’ fashioned Trick or Treating and Halloween mischief here in the hood.
Ever so quietly, all our tough, street-smart kids have disappeared one by one, only to be replaced by “perfect children” raised by “perfect parents” to be “perfectly fearful” of razor blades, fish hooks and poisoned goodies. (Never mind that these fears have been shown to be largely based on urban legend and hoaxes.)
I feel like Charlie Brown the morning after the Great Pumpkin Vigil. Here I am, left with a bowl full of candy, contemplating how I’ll revive an otherwise dying Halloween spirit the next time around. One thing’s for sure, I won’t be caught dead scooping and roasting pumpkin seeds in 2010.
Sigh. I miss my favorite holiday.
But more than that, I mourn what Halloween has become for today’s kids. All the magic seems gone.
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Sorry to hear your efforts to spook did not turn out as expected. Where have all the kiddies gone? I assure you, they are trick-or-treating somewhere! As a mother of two, I can most heartily assure you that the magic is not gone. My children began planning their costumes in August, and only wished they could transform themselves throughout the evening with more costume changes than a Vegas show with Cher—and they both adore roasted pumpkin seeds. Don’t lose heart!