Holidays were such a special time on the mill village as it was everywhere else. But as I was recalling those wonderful times just the other day, I realized something. Halloween was the only holiday that was enjoyed primarily for the kids. It was really a time for us, at least back then it was. Today our generation is so self centered that we have hung on to halloween for ourselves instead of handing it over to our children like our parents did. I mean we had our time to enjoy
it as kids, but we have selfishly kept it right on into middle age. Back in the good ole days our parents gave it to us, not like today where grown-ups have to go to wild masquerade parties and professional haunted houses one after another. No, they stayed home and handed out trick or treat candy and let us have all the fun. Times have certainly changed.

     I can recall as vividly as if it were yesterday how we all anticipated with great excitement when Halloween was approaching. It was about the second week of October, the leaves were beginning to turn from the first frost and the nip of fall was in the evening air. The October sky would be robin egg blue in color with fluffy white clouds hanging in the air like great fluffs of cotton. The mill village would be teeming with activity with the memories of summer fading away like the morning mist. The smell of smoke from the chimneys as well as burning leaves filled the air. The sounds of the beginning of the northwind rustling thru the trees accompanied by the faint talking of kids robbing the neighbors pear trees.

     Yes, it was fall and Halloween was just around the corner. Unique types of candy items started to be in the candy case at John Haulton's store as it did every year in anticipation of the coming event. There were various items to lure the kids - rattlers and whistles as if the parents and teachers needed any more noise to aggravate them. I remember the whistles were made of sweet orange wax so that you could chew them like bubble gum after kids grew tired of tormenting the adults. There were also dark red lips and white false teeth that also were made of sweet wax.

     Then there was the annual Halloween carnival at Pee Dee school which was always such a wonderful night to enjoy. Parents and teachers were always there in co-operation to pull it all together. I wish so much I could bring them all back now and thank them for that effort they put into it just for us kids. It seems so unfair that you don't appreciate those wonderful souls while you are living it.

     I remember how each teacher used her class room to promote the event she was responsible for. Those events usually consisted of  entertainments such as apple bobbing, ring toss, or my two favorites, the haunted house and fishing. Fishing involved a curtain over the door with enough space at the top to allow your fishing pole to go inside where someone would attach a simple toy or some other prize on your hook. There were also cake walks in the auditorium where specific lines were marked with chalk, and people marched around the perimeter of the auditorium, up two small sets of steps and across the stage and on around while a teacher (Miss Stowe) would play the piano, and would stop the music abruptly. The person caught within the chalk marks would win a beautiful cake provided by generous parents.

     I still recall the warmth of those old radiators that heated the building. Another memory that always enters my mind is that wonderful smell of hamburgers and hot dogs that were being cooked so well by the ladies in the school lunch room. In my time the two ladies were Miss Davis and Miss Fields. The parents seemed to like to congregate in there and talk during the carnival. Some parents would visit the class rooms to see the arts and crafts the students had made for Halloween which were usually pinned on the walls. Another memory I recall about that was the cardboard art depictions that the teachers always pulled out for the occasion, usually witches and black cats with big yellow moons in the distance and of course the pumpkins and stacks of wheat or corn shucks.

     Then there was the morning before the big event and everyone was all excited in anticipation of the approaching night. A little sleepy eyed from staying up later than normal, the one time allowed by parents to help with the Halloween carnival. We would all be thinking about it with the taste of witches brew still lingering in our mouths from the carnival. "Tonight's Halloween" would be on every students lips at least once during the day. And no teacher would be so cruel as to make anybody stay after school on this day. Then came the night.

     The neighborhood would be filled with ghosts, witches and scarecrows running up and down and across the streets starting about dusk. And no one purchased costumes in those days - we had to make do with the material we had at home. Kids today don't know what they missed out on. I remember the first Halloween trick or treat occasion.  I remember my aunt Lenore dressed up like an old man walking down her driveway over on High Street. It was dusky dark but I can still see her. But my Halloweens were enjoyed primarily around Bunker, New and Aslington streets and sometimes I would cross the bridge and venture a little ways up Steele Street, but that was basically my territory. I can still recall all those Jack o Lanterns that dotted the night up and down the neighborhood. The word was always shared where the best candy houses were.

     One of my favorites was over on Aslington Street - Miss Sweat always prepared apple turnovers - I can still taste them. I would stay out as late as I could on this wonderful night and come dragging in about the time my candle in my Jack o Lantern was just about melted down. By the way, just a little bit of history. The Jack o Lanten was born in my ancestral IRELAND in case you are interested. The Irish, as you know, were known to be very clandish and festive - family visitation was very important to them. They would stay together enjoying the relatives until usually well after dark. In anticipation of this they would bring a hollowed out pumpkin with a candle and one side open like a lantern so as to see their way returning home - thus the Irish name given to it JACK O'LANTERN  like O'NEAL or O'Harreh ect..

     Halloween was such a wonderful childhood memory for me. It was so innocent back then, before today's garbage and slasher movies. The only harm we did was turn over an occasional garbage can.

 

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