Scary stuff - and it's not even Election Day yet

It’s scary out there, and not just because today is Halloween. Face it — depending on your point of view, the country is either going to hell in a hand basket or is already there.

That’s why a lot of people are pointing at Election Day — two days from now — as the real “trick or treat.”

Will the Republicans come back from the dead? And if so, will they turn out to be bloodthirsty zombies or friendly ghosts? Will Harry Reid have a stake driven through his political heart? Or will he too come back from the dead?

Ordinarily these are all questions that I would entertain, but try as I might to get worked up over Election Day this year, I am having a hard time whistling past the graveyard without stopping in for a visit.

I suppose lots of adults won’t have time to amuse themselves tonight with spiders and goblins and witches when there is so much of importance to concern themselves with on Tuesday.

In fact, every year Halloween turns lots of adults into virtual vampires. No, I’m not talking about those folks wearing scary costumes. I’m talking about the hordes of adults who dread Halloween as the night when “They” come knocking. Instead of putting the porch light on and welcoming the neighborhood small fry to partake of a feast of sweets, these goblins turn off the lights altogether and hide in a dark closet until it is over.

Until THE CHILDREN disappear, and take their voracious appetites with them. Because, yes, Halloween is a children’s holiday — THE children’s holiday, in fact — and you have to either have a small child in your house or a small child in your heart to really enjoy it.

I admit there was a time when I had neither. Back in my twenties, I would sneak out of the house at around 5 o’clock, make sure the porch light was doused, and scurry over to the local watering hole where I still had to observe the strange rituals associated with the horrible holiday, but could do so properly fortified with a Jim Beam and Coke.

I’m not sure why I didn’t care for Halloween. Maybe it’s because I grew up in New York, where Halloween was the night for amateurs and the real evil people came out the other 364 days of the year. Or maybe it was just all those Jim Beam and Cokes, but that is another story.

In any case, my story has a happy ending — or at least a happy middle. Because in the middle of my life, at the age of 40, I became a father for the first time and got to look at Halloween from the other side. That year, we dressed our new baby boy, Carmen, as a clown. Today, he would agree to the role only if it were a killer clown and had some connection either to heavy-metal music or Xbox 360.

But this is now, and that thank goodness was then, a time of innocence and hope. We were still living blissfully in the era of Nintendo and Super Mario brothers. It was too adorable for words, so we took plenty of pictures of the month-old baby struggling to fill up a costume twice his size. We didn’t go trick-or-treating, of course, but we shared our small Pagliacci at the front door with anyone who came knocking for candy. It may well have been the first time I had really enjoyed the “children’s holiday” since I myself was a child.

Not too many years later, a new baby arrived, with new wardrobe needs. This time it was a girl, and within a few years we were making the all-important decisions of whether to face the cold cruel world on Halloween night as a witch, a fairy or a ballerina. Over the past six years Meredith has gone through all of the variations, including store bought and homemade, and has kept alive the Halloween traditions which Carmen has now outgrown.

I was worrying that with me nudging my way out of middle age and Meredith approaching middle school, my time of keeping Halloween in my heart might be coming to an end. But this year has proved that worry to be premature.

Meredith and I carved pumpkins, as usual. Carmen, of course, could not be bothered. But it was just as much fun as ever to pick from a box of plain-jane pumpkins the best candidates to be converted into magical orange orbs on Halloween night. The artistic duties have been turned over to designer-in-chief Meredith entirely, and this year she outdid herself, especially with a Cheshire cat that appears and disappears with eerie results. 

Meredith’s enthusiasm for Halloween might wane in a few years, I suppose, but this year it was amplified by the appearance of another alarming beast in the house — baby brother.

Even though Huzhao is only 3 months old, he is doing his part this Halloween as both prop and audience for the rest of the family. Admittedly, he is easy to please, so we can usually get a chuckle out of him even without dressing up as bumble bees or bumbling bandits. But I think he enjoyed taking his place as one of the pumpkin heads in the rogues’ gallery lineup of scary faces we photographed — at least he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face, and I promise you it wasn’t carved or painted on!

In fact, Huzhao has brought smiles to all our faces, and Halloween won’t be any different. Meredith’s stepmother, River, and I were probably more terrified of not having a baby than of having one, so we are just enjoying our blessing every day.

And for me, it guarantees at least another 10 or 11 years of Halloween fun at a time in my life when I might otherwise start thinking about turning off the porch lights again and hiding out till the whole thing was over.

Getting old and dying — that’s one way of looking at life. That’s probably all I could see back in the day when I was 25 or 30 and hanging out at the barroom feeling sorry for myself.

But today, it’s all about getting old and living. Sure, it’s scary up ahead, in the dark, but it’s a lot less scary if you remember how you got here, how you were the little hobo with the painted-on mustache, dad’s too-big Army jacket swallowing you up, and the bindlestick over your shoulder as you marched from house to house looking for a handout, some hope and a Happy Halloween.

Times change, but people don’t — not really — and that’s our best hope, isn’t it? Because most of the people I know are good people, with good hearts, and that’s why I’m not worrying too much about Election Day this year. At least not till after Halloween.

First things first. Today’s it’s time to enjoy ourselves. Meredith and I will make the rounds; Huzhao and mom will hand our candy; and Carmen will play Halo Reach in another universe far, far away. The scary stuff is all up ahead — you can’t get away from it — but if we remember who we are and how we got here, we can handle anything. Bring on the goblins!