The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

With Halloween cranking up full volume in stores right after Labor Day, Pastor Paul down at the Little Church in the Ravine made it his mission to warn the South End about a holiday devoted to Devil Worship and the celebration of Evil Spirits.  He’s been pounding the pulpit three Sundays in a row now and we still got three more before Fright Night actually arrives.  No doubt he’ll need chiropractic work on that right hammering hand.

Most of the congregation is my age, meaning they remember when Halloween really was a spooky affair.  Outhouses got moved a few crucial feet back, wagons got disassembled then reassembled on the shed roof, burning bags of dog poop were set on fire in the driveway.  Trick or Treat was no idle threat.  Now, of course, the only Trick is the one played on us by the candy industry.  Like most every holiday, holy or not, Halloween’s been popularized, commercialized and sanitized.  Now they’re profit industries.  Economic engines.  Job creators.

I haven’t seen a kid in a skeleton outfit come knocking on the shack door in decades.  Pastor Paul is maybe a bit overwrought about the flock’s grandkids serving as Spawn of Satan when maybe we ought to worry more about the little tykes dressing up in $50 Star Wars outfits, becoming subjugated Slaves to Obesity.  The poor little high fructose sugar beggars haven’t got the foggiest clue what Pastor Paul is worried about.  And their parents, who’ve driven them to the lucrative candy-rich suburbs of Stanwoodopolis, mostly worry about child predators and sewing needles stuck in apples.

Nowadays Halloween ends before dark and the security lights come on.  Hardly matters with Mom and Dad sitting shotgun in their SUV idling by the curb….  Now, I’m not advocating we go back to the days of cruel tricks.  But it did encourage some creative thinking.  Although maybe this is what Pastor Paul is railing about.  He’s got a steep hill to climb down here on the South End, is all I know.  That, or he should look into Exorcism as a second profession.  Be a cash crop down here.  And not just around Halloween.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2018 at 3:49 pm and is filed under rantings and ravings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.