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During my youth, it was easier to believe that the U.S. would someday recognize Red China than to believe that someday, lots of people who had reached majority would don elaborate costumes and indulge in Hallowe'en high jinks.
All that adults ever did for Hallowe'en was brag about their youthful exploits -- tipping privies, blowing up rural mail boxes with cherry bombs, placing an aromatic dead fish next to the heater core of an unliked person's car -- with solemn warnings about your dire fate if they ever caught you even thinking about perpetrating such malicious mischief.
But now the Boulder Mall Crawl brings out thousands of costumed adults and resembles a state of public emergency more than a party. In mountain towns, the saloons won't let you in if you're not in costume, and they stage costume contests amid stifling crowds.
I first believed this recent Hallowe'en mania might be merely an affectation of Boulder and mountain towns -- spots that are not exactly famous for the high percentage of sane and responsible people in their populations.
A friend in Vail, Allen Best, had the same thought when
he saw the immense proportions of the Hallowe'en festivities
in Vail. He made inquiries in his hometown of Fort Morgan;
Hallowe'en is a big deal there, too. Fort Morgan comes
real close to being the least trendy place in the
cosmos,
he reported. If it's happening in Fort Morgan,
it's happening everywhere.
There must be an explanation. One might be that pagans are reclaiming a celebration which the church co-opted about 1500 years ago.
When Christianity spread into Europe, the Celts and Gauls already had established festivals at certain times of the year. With a new religion, the festivals were not abolished, but were redirected instead. Thus the springtime observance to honor Eostre, the Teutonic goddess of dawn, became Easter, the solemn celebration of the resurrection.
In the old Celtic calendar, Oct. 31 was new year's eve, always an occasion for revelry, and also known as Samhain. On this one night, the souls of the dead were presumed to be at large, visiting their old homes. Given the general run of humanity, it's no surprise that so many ghosts were reckoned to be sinister -- witches, warlocks, hobgoblins, etc.
The church revised the celebration by making Nov. 1 the
feast day for all saints,
or, in older versions of
English, all hallows.
The night before was thus
All Hallows' Even
(even,
as in
evening,
is an early form of eve
), which has
since been abbreviated to Hallowe'en.
Another theory might be that the rise of Hallowe'en from childhood folly to adult ceremony represents some severe and widespread psychological problems.
After all, if you like who and what you are, why go to such trouble to pretend to be someone or something else? Americans spend millions every year to learn how to feel good about themselves, but apparently that doesn't work; a lot of people feel better when they're Tammy Bakker or some not-quite-dead Transylvanian count.
But the truth is probably much simpler. Most of your taste -- what you like and don't like, what's fun and what isn't -- is acquired when you're a kid.
My own taste in music hasn't changed measurably since I
was 14 and first heard Satisfaction
; my preferences
in literature remain unaltered from the days in 1966 when I
discovered H.L. Mencken and then reread Huckleberry
Finn; I would still kill for a '57 Chevy Nomad
wagon.
When you're an adult, you can indulge certain fantasies forbidden during childhood -- eat all the candy bars you can hold, drink pop for breakfast, watch any TV show, anytime. Some kids doubtlessly desired to celebrate Hallowe'en in exuberant style with a costume better than an old bedsheet.
At any other time in history, such adult sport would be an aberration confined to a small percentage of the population. But with a generation as big as the Baby Boom, even a small aberrant percentage means big numbers, and now Hallowe'en is a major production.
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