Kooks & Spooks & Terror-nooks - Halloween Is Here Again

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© Copyright Arthur Levine 2008
Words: 578
Keywords: Halloween, Kooks, Spooks, Terror-nooks, Treats, Tricks,

Little painted faces, pointy witch hats, two feet tall clowns, skeleton costumes – it’s that time of year again - Halloween is here.

Tell the truth, when you rummage through the basket of your kids trick or treat candy are you checking to make sure it’s safe or are you looking for your personal favorite candy bar to munch on?

Sometimes I think there is still a little bit of the child left in each of us. Who can forget the anticipation we all felt as Halloween approached. Don’t you remember going out in the dark dressed up in weird costumes with your friends, and depending on your age maybe one parent lingering in the background? Don’t you remember the tinge of fear mixed with a tingle of excitement?

Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat, I can still remember the well-intentioned taunt make to smiling parents of your friends and your neighbors. Then there were the nasty older kids who were only out to spoil everyone’s fun and throw raw eggs that splattered on doorways and sidewalks. I wonder if they grew up to be bullies or patrons of some other form of anti social behavior.

Today there are also unfortunately the Kooks. The weirdo’s who place razor blades in candy, who sneak up behind people and punch them and run off with their cherished possessions and rob them of their self-respect. I guess they are a product of the true state of terror we live in. No one is safe any more, not old people or little children, not the infirm or feeble, not the weakest amongst us, and especially unfortunately not on Halloween. And the worst is that there are terrorists lurking out there in every nook and cranny of our economic and social system waiting to take advantage of this era of our discontent.

The term Halloween (and its alternative rendering Hallowe'en) is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the eve of "All Hallows' Day", which is now also known as All Saints' Day. It was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions, until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian feast of All Saints' Day from May 13 (which had itself been the date of a pagan holiday, the Feast of the Lemures) to November1. In the ninth century, the Church measured the day as starting at sunset, in accordance with the Florentine calendar. Although All Saints' Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day
∑ Wikipedia

Today carved pumpkins called Jack-o'-lanterns are used to scare off evil spirits and for decorative purposes and the holiday has become popular as a children’s event.

Isn’t it time we all returned to some basic values and helped our children celebrate a holiday of treats and traditions? Isn’t it time we tried to take the fear out of every day living for ourselves and for our kids? Isn’t it time we looked inward to our personal clown and started to have some fun again? Why can’t we just enjoy the moment?

Let’s cherish our traditions. Let’s spend some time with our kids. Let’s bob for apples not problems. Let’s have fun again. Let’s give ourselves a treat and not trick ourselves into forgetting who we really are and what we stand for. Don’t let a bunch of kooks and terror-nooks spook you. The guys behind the masks are the ones who are really scared.

Happy Halloween.
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