October is here again and that means spooky tales of ghosts and goblins, witches and monsters, but like many things, it does not seem the same as when you were a kid.
I’m not exactly ‘old’ in modern times, having only been on this Earth for forty-three years, but it is, of course, enough time for enough changes to take place to make one really feel nostalgic for what is beginning to be known to me as the ‘good old days.’
It used to be in my youth, kids would line the streets on the last day of October and, beyond the promise of free candy and the usual excitement for anything that broke the mundane status quo, there was a fascination there in seeing the other children dressed up as everything from the classic creeps of the night to princesses and robots, seeing the houses decked out in their best Halloween attire.
Now, even if it was not a year where regardless of your personal feelings on the matter we were not embroiled in a global pandemic, you hardly see the same amount of kids, due to designated trick or treating times or parents opting to do more ‘safe’ activities to celebrate the height of the Fall season.
It makes me sad, because being the age I am, I think it’s very possible I was the last generation of American children who got to experience a life where there were not as many limitations on how you played, ate, learned, and experienced your youth.
Not that it was all good, I mean, I once had a neighborhood bully crush two eggs into my hair after school on Halloween and once had some kid (who I still don’t know who it was) steal my treat bag right out of my space in the coat area, as they called it, but it seemed it was in a way a more realistic preparation for the teeter-todder of life then what people think is acceptable today.
I still recall, which I might have mentioned here before, an image that never leaves my head, of a kid barreling down the sidewalk riding his BMX bike one-handed, not because he thought it made him look ‘cool,’ as we used to, but because he was holding a smart phone in his free hand, making me shake my head that children today are so tied to technology that they don’t even go up to a hang out spot or knock on their friend’s door to see what they are doing anymore.
It’s not like I’m a Luddite, I grew up in the era where the microchip made great strides and still love what it has done for Humanity, however I do feel kids are missing out in a ‘playing in the mud’ purity that quickly fades about the time you hit high school.
Perhaps it is as said, that hitting middle age has me looking more forward than back, perhaps it is this year of ridiculous unrest and division, perhaps it is that no one grew out of the fun of experiencing childhood like we used to but rather than the shape of the world has changed around us and the children themselves, sometimes for the better, but at others, at the loss of lessons that cannot be replaced.
