Halloween Festivities

Trick or Treats

Halloween (or Hallowe'en) is an annual holiday observed on October 31st. It has roots in the Celtic "Festival of Samhain" and the Christian holiday "All Saints' Day", but today it is largely a secular celebration. (From Wikipedia)

The Celtic holiday of "Samhain", the Catholic Hallowmas period of "All Saints' Day" and "All Souls' Day" and the Roman festival of "Feralia" all influence the modern holiday of "Halloween". In the nineteenth century, Halloween began to lose its religious connotation, becoming a more secular community-based children's holiday. The Celts who lived 2000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and Northern France celebrated their new year on November 1st. This day marked the end of summer and the beginning of the dark, cold winter. The Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred and allowed the ghost of the dead to return to earth and they would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off these roaming ghost. (From History.org)

Except for a few years, early on in their live's, our children never cared much for the kind of festivities surrounding this holiday which took place in the small community where we lived. Although it may be deemed harmless for small children to make believe, it definitely should be left behind with childhood. As a leftover memory from those days gone by, this poem was written many years ago as a spoof of that holiday.

"In the Dark of Night"

"They gathered there in the dark of night / like a Coven of Witches in a glen / the moon was bright in a cloudless sky / but not a ray of its light filtered in / A pot was set up, the wood was laid out / but no flame to the kindling was set / they rocked to the tunes from a musical dog / and howled every chance they would get / in the eerie glow of a single black light / it looked like a scene from Macbeth / that brought back memories of stories long ago / of trials and torture and death.
They gathered there in the dark of night / like a Coven of Witches in a glen / there in the home of their Kindergarten teacher / to re-enact Halloween in her den."

There has been two more items of news, as seen on TV, that probably deserve to be written about here. The first was the firing of Juan Williams, by "National Public Radio", all because he admitted to being a little anxious or nervous when he saw muslims in traditional dress getting on a plane that he was boarding. I have never been a big fan of Juan's but his firing for expressing his feelings in this matter was not right in any shape, form or fashion. The other, and most important, was the report that a young woman is now in legal trouble for posting a note on her Church Bulletion-board asking for a Christian room-mate. Apparently she has been told that she was discriminating against other religions by asking for a Christian. This world, it seems, has been turned upside down and it will take a mighty effort by all right thinking people to get it back on course. Thanks for your time, stay tuned. William