Halloween was a different kind of day seventy-five years ago, according to my dad, Earl Johnson.
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| My grandchildren: Halloween 2020 |
The president of McPherson College once received the very special treat (or was it a trick) of finding a cow in his office the morning after Halloween and a buggy was found on top of North Union School another year. He told about one dark Halloween night, when a farmer quietly helped some boys carry all of his corn shocks out into the middle of the road. Once they were finished, he politely (but at gunpoint) introduced himself to them as the owner of the shocks and asked them to put them all back. They complied!
The most common trick to find yourself a victim of in that farming community was the outhouse turnover. That trick you might discover a little earlier the next morning. Uncle LeRay, my dad's youngest brother, found himself a part of one of those tricks.
LeRay and some friends were talking after a church event one Halloween and one of them mentioned an old outhouse sitting on someone's unused property. They got the idea to load it into the back of a young man's truck and give it a new home at Lambert Lundberg's place. Lambert was a nearby neighbor and the object of many pranks because of his sour disposition. He also had two entrances into his farmyard so it was a good place for a drive-thru prank. The boys piled into the truck and soon had the outhouse loaded in back. They drove in the drive and quickly pushed the outhouse off the truck. It hit the ground, breaking into pieces as the driver gunned the engine; sure that Lambert would be on their heals. Lambert never appeared. Bewildered, and not sure what to do, the boys finally broke for the night and went home. LeRay tells me that he was so curious about the absence of a chase that he returned to the scene of the crime... I mean he drove by the Lundberg farm on his way home. Much to his surprise, Lambert was waiting in his truck at the end of the drive. LeRay hit the gas and after a short chase, he lost his neighbor and headed home another way. The next morning, poor LeRay found that a trick had been played on him. It was a work day and as he walked to the barn, where he always parked his car, he saw Lambert's truck parked nicely in front of the barn door. Lambert leaned against the truck with LeRay's keys in his hand. Lambert laid into LeRay about the prank and demanded he clean the mess up if he wanted his keys back. Grandpa heard the commotion and came to his son's rescue. LeRay describes the scene with Lambert towering over his dad as Grandpa raised his fist into Lambert's face, grazing his neighbor's nose as he said, "Lambert! Can't you take a joke?" Somehow, he got LeRay's keys back so he could get to work with the promise that the outhouse would be removed. LeRay kept the promise and hauled it away later that day.
Dad recalled that it was all tricks back then; never treats.
When I was growing up in the sixties, Halloween was a big deal around Pleasant Valley. For weeks before, plans for costumes, parties and who I would trick or treat with were the main topics of conversation. The parties at my school consisted of lines of children and parading, costumed, through every room and onto the playground, eating giant cookies iced like pumpkins, and playing games such as bobbing for apples in tubs of water or dangling from string. I never enjoyed those games much, except to watch my classmates attempting to snag an apple with their teeth.
It’s funny that I can’t remember very many of my costumes. I do remember an early one. A plastic Snow White costume with a mask that had tiny eye holes that had to be positioned just right to keep me from tripping over everything in my path. That one is hard to forget! Once I was in upper elementary school, I think I just alternated years between homemade hobo and hippy costumes.
In 3rd grade, a boy in my class invited me to his Halloween party. When I knocked on the door of his house the night of the party, it mysteriously opened to reveal a tunnel made of tables covered in sheets. I remember having to immediately drop to my hands and knees and start crawling while someone moved the sheets and made scary noises. I finally came to the family room which was lit only by black lights. The game we played is what I remember the most. Rod’s older sisters told a scary story as we passed bowls around in a circle. Each bowl held something horrible and slimy that went along with the story. They made sure each of us put our hand in each bowl to touch whatever was inside. Such a sensory rich experience full of pealed grape eyeballs and spaghetti brains has stayed with me for many years!
There was always lots of activity on Halloween night as my friends and I would grab the largest paper grocery sack we could find and headed out in our costumes. There were some pretty cold years but that didn’t stop us. We had the entire area to canvas before 10:00 and our plan included every house. Many times we exchanged our weighty sacks of treats for empty ones half way through the evening; hiding the full sack safely at one of our houses before heading out again. The loot included many things that aren’t seen very often now. We found homemade treats; cookies, popcorn balls with sticky, sugar coatings, and caramel apples, along with the regular assortment of candy. No wonder the sack got so heavy! Once in a while someone would feel sorry for us with our red-cold hands grasping tightly to our sacks as we shivered on their front porches. Then we would be invited in to warm up. Sometimes it was a cup of hot chocolate that warmed us. Once we reached our limit of either time, temperature or the heaviness of our sacks, we would head for our homes to sort our goodies on the living room floor, trading certain items with my sisters and dumping everything in a large shopping bag. That bag served as a sweet depository of candy that hung on the back of the utility room door, visited often after supper for months after.
Halloween was different fifty years ago, too.
Updated October 30, 2020 after conversations with my Uncle LeRay.
