My First Halloween

With this being the first year out of the family home, it has also been the first year that I participated in Halloween festivities in any meaningful way. Some fundamentalist families get all superstitious about Halloween, declare that it's evil, and refuse to participate in it, while others try to "Christianize" it, and use it as an excuse to proselytize.

My mom was always in the first group, while some in the church I am undercover in, and have been a part of since I was about 11-12 years old, decided to go with the second option (others just celebrated it away from the church without worrying about it one way or another).

I remember years of spending Halloween as a child and teen at home, with the lights out in the house, a movie playing in the VCR or DVD player (that had absolutely nothing to do with Halloween or horror movies in any way, of course), eating popcorn with mom and dad, while my dad had a bolt with a washer tightly fastened to it in the front gate to keep it from opening, in case some kids didn’t get the idea that there was no candy here (despite the fact that the doors were closed, and lights off).

Funny story about that, almost every year there would be at least one kid, usually a boy around 10-12 years old, (with no apparent mental disabilities), who would come up to the gate, find the bolt keeping it from opening, and then walk past our vehicles in the driveway, lean over the porch railing, and knock on the door (the door was about 3 feet from the driveway, small property).