What did kids do on Halloween back when you were young?

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Since I’m starting to show my age and gave up on trick-or-treating quite a few years back, my kids and grand-kids have asked me: “What did kids do on Halloween when you were young?”

“Halloween has been around a long time,” I told them, “only it wasn’t called Halloween at first. I’ll tell you about it.

“You see, it used to be called Samhain, the last day of summer and the beginning of the new year. And, since the trees were losing all their leaves, the days were getting shorter and shorter, and the cold, icy wind was beginning to blow, people thought that the spirits of the dead could come back and possess living bodies, destroy crops and do other mischief and harm. That’s why people left food and treats for the spirits, hoping that they would be satisfi ed and go away without doing them any harm. Why, there were even some folk who built big bonfi res and offered sacrifi ces and practiced witchcraft on this night!

“A little later (by A.D. 43) the Romans conquered most of the old country. It seems they had a few festivals of their own which ended up combined with Samhain. Feralia, which they observed in late October, was a day in which they remembered the passing of the dead. Pomona was the goddessof fruit and trees, and they honored her too around this time. This is probably why people started bobbing for apples at some of the old get-togethers.

“Well, when the Roman Catholic Church began to control the old country and all that went on there, they didn’t like all this pagan stuff which people practiced around October 31 and introduced their own holiday to replace the old one. They called the old new year’s day on the first of November, ‘All Saints Day,’ and the evening before it, ‘All Hallows Eve.’ It wasn’t too long before ‘All Hallows Eve’ was called ‘Halloween,’ and, sad to say, a lot of the old pagan practices continued to be observed.

“Most people don’t remember it, but it was on Halloween, back in 1517, when a Roman Catholic monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses (or statements) to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, hoping to debate against the sale of indulgences (pieces of paper in which the Roman Church offered forgiveness for sins). Luther urged a return to the Bible’s teaching and to the central teaching of the Bible, that a person cannot be just and righteous in God’s eyes by his own works but only through faith in Christ Jesus, who lived a righteous life for us and then died on the cross for the sins of theworld and rose again on the third day.

“This became the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation and led to the formation of Lutheran and Protestant Churches. So, many people celebrate Reformation Day on Oct. 31 rather than the old pagan traditions of Halloween.

“Later on, when all kinds of different folk from the old country came to live here in this land, they brought with them some of their old Halloween customs. That’s why people still dress up in costumes, go trick-or-treating and bob for apples.

“I could tell you about old Jack and his hollowed out turnip and how that got some folk over here carving out pumpkins, but that’s a whole ‘nother story,” I said to them.

Now, if you’ve made it this far, you might wonder why I’d delve so deep into the history of this day and possibly bore my inquisitive youngsters so much that they wouldn’t dare ask me another question about Halloween. Well, aside from wanting them to know there are better things to celebrate on Halloween than costumes and bags full of candy, it sure beats giving them ideas by telling them what people did on Halloween back when I was young. They really don’t need to know about turned over outhouses, lassoed mailboxes, burning paper sacks left on porches, or the misuse of eggs and toilet paper! Do you think?

Randy Moll is the managing editor of the Westside Eagle Observer and may be reached by email at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 4 on 10/30/2013