Halloween is one of those holidays that definitely deserves the full-staff Rookerville treatment. We don’t just stop at one or two articles on a day like today.
Russ:
Halloween is and has always been my favorite holiday. You get to pretend. You show me a child that didn’t like pretending to be something different as a child, and I’ll show you a child I never would have wanted to hang out with when I was one. I was a Ghostbuster for like four years straight and it ruled. You get candy. I don’t think I need to say anything about why that is awesome. ABC Family plays all the hits (Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus etc). However, the coolest part is probably that you get to live out a micro-level “Lord of the Flies-ian” existence with all of your little friends. By middle school, Halloween serves as one of the first times you really get to be alone with your friends in the real world, without parental supervision. You can either trick or treat like a good kid, or vandalize houses and cars with shaving cream and eggs. Either path you choose will likely be decided by the biggest or coolest kid in your group. Fun stuff.
The great thing about getting older is that, like most holidays, Halloween adapts. You still get to dress up and some people really go all out. They think of costume ideas for months on end to make sure they have the right one for them. Yes, some people really screw the costume part up, by doing something uninspired or slutty, but being an adult means you have adult money, so the possibilities are endless. You can still have candy. But let’s face facts, candy is typically swapped out for booze, and you’ll never see me complain about that. You can still watch ABC Family, or you can step your game up and watch AMC’s Fear Fest. With Fear Fest, you can watch all the horror movies in marathon form, grouped by series, on a continuous loop. The long nights out in the streets with your friends change over time, because it is no longer novelty to be out without parents, but it’s still fun if you’re with the right group of people.
Flashforward to today: I’m 29. I’m still fun, but I’m different. I love this holiday so much, that I refuse to half-ass it. I’ve had some excellent costumes and ideas, and have had more amazing Halloween’s than haven’t. To that end, I’m not dressing up this year. I used to always put something together, but now I feel like if you can’t do it right, you shouldn’t do it. Tonight I won’t be dressing up or going out, but I will make sure I get drunk inside, eat candy, and watch one of the better horror movies of the past few years (Sinister). Halloween is what you make of it. No matter how old I get, I’ll always find a way to get my ‘Ween on.
Cargile:
I loved Halloween as a kid. The past tense makes it sound like I don’t anymore, which is maybe a false impression. I still love it, but not in a way I can actually partake in anymore. My favorite part of Halloween, much like other holidays, is the younger sentiment of it. Now that I’m a twenty-something in New York, all holidays take on a new definition. Christmas has become about expensive jewelry, expensive boots, and expensive dinners; when for me I enjoy the sledding, snow balls, and Christmas songs (and sappy rom-coms usually with Hugh Grant). Thanksgiving has become about showing off how good of a cook you are, rather than stuffing your face and eating dinner 4 times in one day and staying up playing spades all night. And today’s special day has become the opportunity for girls to dress as slutty as possible and dudes to possibly take off their shirt, which is not what I reminisce about when I think about Halloween. My favorite part is and always has been the mischief.
But let’s get one thing straight. It better be clever. Simply egging a house—child’s play, hitting a mailbox with a bat—unnecessarily destructive and unoriginal. No I always enjoyed the slow burn style of mischief. I used to put whole eggs in people’s mailbox. That’s it. Why, because that next morning when the house owner found that, they’ll wonder what’s going to happen. Their own mind will torment them more than any amount of vandalism could have. Another one of my favorites was swapping lawn ornaments throughout the neighborhood. I always imagined long term enemies being formed over these little maneuvers. I think a slight penchant for mischief is actually healthy. I think you rebel one way or another as a kid, and if mischief is your way, then maybe it won’t be drugs. I remember after weekends in high school we would go to school and have stories of terrorizing the neighborhood (it doesn’t have to be Halloween and yes I was and still am a perpetual kid at heart) while our peers would talk about drinking a 6 pack in the basement and watching the Girls Gone Wild promo 10 times. So this Halloween let’s put the trick back in trick or treat, and I’m not talking about a prostitute New York, get your mind out of the gutter. Hope you enjoy the egg.
About Russ Stevens
Russ Stevens is an editor and writer at Rookerville and a guidance counselor at Nyack HS. He mostly writes about either loving or hating things. In his spare time, he performs Improv comedy with his troupe Priest and The Beekeeper and is a co-producer of their monthly variety show Pig Pile. He loves all the New York sports teams that are historically bad, and he hates lateness more than anything in the world.