Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Forty-Two

Ah, dear Reader! You are probably reading this article the week of Halloween, 2018, or shortly thereafter. I’m sure you will be righteously amazed, as I was, that there are those who are afflicted with samhainophobia, the fear of Halloween. I learned this through the power of the Internet.

As a child, I never particularly cared for Halloween, though I didn’t fear it. I liked the bulletin board decorations, and the parties we had were fine. Goodness knows I enjoyed eating the endless candy the season provided. I never cared for dressing up, but I sometimes felt a holiday duty to come up with a costume of some sort. Mine usually only consisted of a mask (a cheap, not frightening one at that), and everyone knew who I was.

I have never gone trick or treating, but I did as a child enjoy handing out candy to those who came calling at my house. We used to have so many trick or treaters that we would sometimes run out of candy. The house I grew up in was old fashioned and could look spooky at night. I’m sure that if any ghosts had lived in Maynardville that they would have felt right at home in the upstairs room that was unfinished, especially since it contained (also unfinished) a baby casket just in front of the exposed stone of the chimney.

One of the things I miss most about childhood is the loss of the magic of the holidays. I now dislike interrupting a pleasant evening at home to hand out candy at the door. Times have changed, and now most parents feel more comfortable with taking their children to subdivisions to trick or treat.

In later years, there has been so much danger from such things as poison in candy to razor blades in apples that churches have started having “trunk or treat”. I particularly remember with fondness one of the fall carnivals that we had at the First Baptist Church of Maynardville. John R. Monroe hooked up a hay wagon to his tractor for a trip through the darkness of the city. We ended going through Monroe and Skaggs Cemeteries, where it had been prearranged that “goblins” would be hiding out behind the tombstones. When the goblins rose screaming from the graves, one young fellow who didn’t even know me crawled into my lap and squeezed me tightly for protection. How wonderful it would be if evil could always present itself in such a bold fashion and that protection from that evil could always so easily obtained.

I took a break from Halloween until I began teaching. Then every year without fail came the traditional bulletin board decorations (pure enjoyment) and the Halloween party (a trial for a teacher to endure). I did enjoy Halloween at Sharps Chapel Elementary when I was principal. I once was a mummy in a coffin at the Halloween carnival. I enjoyed rising from the dead and moaning horribly to try to scare some poor child. One year, I bought an outfit and dressed up as Cousin It from The Addams Family. (Consequently, I love pictures where someone places their arms around the person they’re next to and puts a hand on his/her shoulder. Often, the hand comes out looking like Thing from The Addams Family.) The year I was principal of Luttrell Elementary, a colleague of mine told me, “Don’t you have anything to do with that pagan holiday!”

Rather than be afraid of Halloween, I sometimes find real life much more frightening. Sometimes the memories of the past visit in dreams that seem, at least for a short time, more real than life itself. When I was young, I dreamed often of walking down the main hall of the school in my underwear. (I don’t know if I was relieved or insulted that no one else seemed to notice I had no clothes on, just like the main character in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.) I also dreamed of falling backward from the top of a six story building and of being chased through the field behind my house by a short man in a black derby). The recurring dream I have these days is of being signed up for a college class that I never attended until the final exam or of having a test in high school for which I had not prepared.

I always think it is appropriate for it to be somewhat chilly on Halloween night (if for no other reason, to keep the children who wear costumes from roasting inside them) with a full moon in the sky. According to the Internet, it is not a common occurrence to have a full moon on Halloween—it happens roughly every eighteen to nineteen years. In 2018 the moon is full on October 24, exactly one week before Halloween. The next time a completely full moon will occur on Halloween will be in the year 2020, just two years from now. Let’s all hope for a clear night when that full moon can shine in all its splendor!

Next week, I turn my thoughts to November and things I am thankful for.

A Halloween joke for the marrieds:

Someone asked an old man:
“Even after 70 years, you still call your wife – darling, honey, luv.  What’s the secret?" 
Old man: “I forgot her name and I’m scared to ask her."