Higgledy Boggledy Boo!
I love Americans! Who else would take a day like Halloween, with its origins in dark superstition and death, and utterly turns it on its head so that it ends up being a celebration? And not a celebration of bad things or evil things, but good things like benevolence towards our neighbors, wacky costumes, candy for the kids and silly haunted houses.
I remember one parent being shocked that I thought trick-or-treating was a good thing for kids to do. “All those horrible masks and witches and black cats,” she said. “You shouldn’t traumatize kids at such an early age. Are you trying to teach them to worship the devil?”
Traumatize? Devil? Eek! When I was a kid trick-or-treating with my family and friends in rural Illinois, the most afraid I ever got was one night when two of my brothers thought it would be a good idea to go to the graveyard to watch for ghosts.
We snuck out after everyone was asleep and tiptoed through the moonlight for three-quarters of a mile to the county graveyard; an easy hike after consuming several pounds of caramel, marshmallow and candy corn – the sugar rush was in full effect.
The graveyard was one of those flat, square plots with neat rows of headstones dating from the late 1700s to the present. It had a rusted iron fence around it and several ancient trees that creaked with every breeze.
We spent an hour or two playing hide and seek among the chalky white remnants of World War I era monoliths and slick marbled tombs with grated doors that twisted the wind’s sighs into eerie moans. We saw no ghosts and felt more goose-pimply chills from the excitement of it all than any real fear.
After a few hours we figured there were no ghosts around so we might as well head home. One of my brothers suggested we detour to the train trestle that crosses Sugar Creek. This made our trip quite a bit longer, but I was still feeling slightly “sugar-jittery” so agreed readily.
The Sugar Creek trestle is a bridge about 300 yards long, 50 feet or so above the water with two sets of train tracks about five feet apart just past a bend in the river paralleling the railroad tracks. We loved going there on sunny days to jump into the sand muddied water and hook catfish by hanging lines off the bridge. This is the same spot where, during a flood a couple years earlier, one of our schoolmates had drowned trying to swim across the river.
As we stepped into the first inky shadows of the tar-stained wood and steel structure, we agreed that if we were going to see a ghost this would be the place to do it.
Crossing the trestle during the day was always a bit unnerving. You had to step in an unnatural way just to keep your feet on the crossbeams, all the while trying to ignore the rushing water beneath the gaps 50 feet below. At night it was like being suspended over an infinite void with the river like a hidden snake hissing just beneath our sneakers. To make it worse … we weren’t alone!
Just as we got to the midway point of the trestle we heard a strong wind blowing and the moon seemed to flicker around us. Momentarily startled, my brothers and I glanced nervously at each other until I distinctly saw over my younger brother’s shoulder the outline of a locomotive’s headlight on the trees at the bend in the tracks!
Without hesitation, my oldest brother grabbed my arm, propelling me along the crossbeams toward the safety of the riverbank. As we got nearer to the bank, I glanced back and - with horror - realized my other brother had not followed us! I could see him, awash in the blinding flood of light from the train as its wheels sparked on the first rails of the trestle.
Before I could think what to do, I was pushed from behind and found myself tumbling onto the riverbank to end up face down as the wind from the passing train whipped moist dirt and leaves over me – almost burying me alive with the final vision of my brother trapped in the blaze of that headlight.
As the train receded with a metallic clank, clank to the same pace as my heartbeat, I got up and climbed the bank. My oldest brother reached the top at the same time as me and we stood looking, afraid of what we would find.
We peered over the edge of the trestle toward the black water of Sugar Creek searching for some movement. I suddenly felt something grab the back of my neck and someone laughed, “Looking for me?”
It was him! “Why did you just stand there?” we demanded. To which he replied that until the train got closer he couldn’t tell which track the train was on. So, he waited until he was sure and then jumped over to the second set of tracks. We were the crazy ones, he said, for trying to outrun the train, and were lucky we hadn’t been killed.
Years later, I remembered walking home across the freshly harvested corn field in the first light of that October morning with my brother’s arm around my shoulder. I realized why it is that Americans celebrate things like Halloween the way we do. We can’t help it! We cherish being alive! We enjoy sharing our successes and we are generally optimistic about things. So much so that “scary” things like Halloween, evil spirits, etc., just don’t bother us … we parody them, make fun of them and laugh their supposed significance right into oblivion. It’s not the work of Satan, but it is the work of a spirit. The American Spirit.
Happy Halloween!
Joe Kane
Baghdad
I remember one parent being shocked that I thought trick-or-treating was a good thing for kids to do. “All those horrible masks and witches and black cats,” she said. “You shouldn’t traumatize kids at such an early age. Are you trying to teach them to worship the devil?”
Traumatize? Devil? Eek! When I was a kid trick-or-treating with my family and friends in rural Illinois, the most afraid I ever got was one night when two of my brothers thought it would be a good idea to go to the graveyard to watch for ghosts.
We snuck out after everyone was asleep and tiptoed through the moonlight for three-quarters of a mile to the county graveyard; an easy hike after consuming several pounds of caramel, marshmallow and candy corn – the sugar rush was in full effect.
The graveyard was one of those flat, square plots with neat rows of headstones dating from the late 1700s to the present. It had a rusted iron fence around it and several ancient trees that creaked with every breeze.
We spent an hour or two playing hide and seek among the chalky white remnants of World War I era monoliths and slick marbled tombs with grated doors that twisted the wind’s sighs into eerie moans. We saw no ghosts and felt more goose-pimply chills from the excitement of it all than any real fear.
After a few hours we figured there were no ghosts around so we might as well head home. One of my brothers suggested we detour to the train trestle that crosses Sugar Creek. This made our trip quite a bit longer, but I was still feeling slightly “sugar-jittery” so agreed readily.
The Sugar Creek trestle is a bridge about 300 yards long, 50 feet or so above the water with two sets of train tracks about five feet apart just past a bend in the river paralleling the railroad tracks. We loved going there on sunny days to jump into the sand muddied water and hook catfish by hanging lines off the bridge. This is the same spot where, during a flood a couple years earlier, one of our schoolmates had drowned trying to swim across the river.
As we stepped into the first inky shadows of the tar-stained wood and steel structure, we agreed that if we were going to see a ghost this would be the place to do it.
Crossing the trestle during the day was always a bit unnerving. You had to step in an unnatural way just to keep your feet on the crossbeams, all the while trying to ignore the rushing water beneath the gaps 50 feet below. At night it was like being suspended over an infinite void with the river like a hidden snake hissing just beneath our sneakers. To make it worse … we weren’t alone!
Just as we got to the midway point of the trestle we heard a strong wind blowing and the moon seemed to flicker around us. Momentarily startled, my brothers and I glanced nervously at each other until I distinctly saw over my younger brother’s shoulder the outline of a locomotive’s headlight on the trees at the bend in the tracks!
Without hesitation, my oldest brother grabbed my arm, propelling me along the crossbeams toward the safety of the riverbank. As we got nearer to the bank, I glanced back and - with horror - realized my other brother had not followed us! I could see him, awash in the blinding flood of light from the train as its wheels sparked on the first rails of the trestle.
Before I could think what to do, I was pushed from behind and found myself tumbling onto the riverbank to end up face down as the wind from the passing train whipped moist dirt and leaves over me – almost burying me alive with the final vision of my brother trapped in the blaze of that headlight.
As the train receded with a metallic clank, clank to the same pace as my heartbeat, I got up and climbed the bank. My oldest brother reached the top at the same time as me and we stood looking, afraid of what we would find.
We peered over the edge of the trestle toward the black water of Sugar Creek searching for some movement. I suddenly felt something grab the back of my neck and someone laughed, “Looking for me?”
It was him! “Why did you just stand there?” we demanded. To which he replied that until the train got closer he couldn’t tell which track the train was on. So, he waited until he was sure and then jumped over to the second set of tracks. We were the crazy ones, he said, for trying to outrun the train, and were lucky we hadn’t been killed.
Years later, I remembered walking home across the freshly harvested corn field in the first light of that October morning with my brother’s arm around my shoulder. I realized why it is that Americans celebrate things like Halloween the way we do. We can’t help it! We cherish being alive! We enjoy sharing our successes and we are generally optimistic about things. So much so that “scary” things like Halloween, evil spirits, etc., just don’t bother us … we parody them, make fun of them and laugh their supposed significance right into oblivion. It’s not the work of Satan, but it is the work of a spirit. The American Spirit.
Happy Halloween!
Joe Kane
Baghdad
posted by Joe at Saturday, October 30, 2004
5 Comments:
Great Halloween Story. Thanks for retelling your adventure.It's funny cause in America instead of making it into some kind of Druid festival we made it into a kidfest.
Ah - the good old days seem so long ago.
Hey, I have enjoyed...your blog is informative - even entertaining.
I have a halloween sites. They pretty much covers costumes and masks related stuff.
Thanks again and I'll be sure to bookmark you.
Every year my son Dylan and I have been building our Halloween animatronic display. This year we added 12 new figures and my wife had been making the clothes etc. but then I clued in that Halloween Costumes were the ideal solution - ya, ok I'm slow but...This year is really cool because we've done an HP Lovecraft display that I'm sure he'd appreciate but I'm not so sure he'd approve of this - The Necronomicon - Is it just me or is that just plain goofy ? Anyway, everybody is doing their own Haunted House thing now but hey - it's fun and if you've got kids I really suggest you try it yourself if you haven't already. It's a nice change from the usual Christmas Lights routine and a lot of scaaarrry fun. Happy Halloween everybody.
I was just browsing various blogs as I was doing a search on the word halloween, and I just wanted to say that I really like what you've done with your blog, even though it wasn't particularly related to what I searched for. I appreciate your postings, and your blog is a good example of how a blog should be done. I've only just recently started a Posters website - feel free to visit it when you get a chance if you wish. Much success, antonio.
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