Remember Halloween Carnivals? I remember the only time I wanted to go to school as a kid was when R.A. Mitchell Elementary held the Halloween Carnival. It was a blast! A retired teacher told me not to long ago that the school actually owned the casket they used as part of their haunted house. It was kept backstage, behind the curtain in the lunch room. How cool is that? I remember as a kid venturing behind the stage one day and seeing the coffin there. It was a pretty creepy thing for a kid to discover at his school. It wasn't even October. I remember thinking - "Is somebody in there?" I dared not look. The R.A. Mitchell casket was used once a year - for the Haunted House extravaganza that took place behind the stage. When the teacher told me that the coffin was school property - it reminded me of my discovery those many years ago - and it all made sense.
Do you remember Cake Walks? These were real cake walks when a winner won real full-sized two layer cakes? Today you get a Twinky or a cup cake or something. Back then we won real bona-fide cakes.
All the kids came wearing their Halloween costumes. I usually wore a Frankenstein mask. We came home with our Halloween bags full of cool lute. The R.A. Mitchell Halloween Carnival was just as much fun as Halloween night itself.
Today kids have churches offering Trunk-O-Treats and elementary schools offering Fall Festivals. Some anal retentive grown-ups freaked out about Halloween and ruined it for the rest. We were told that Halloween was devil worship and we should turn the night into something else. I admit that Trunk-O-Treats are nice and so are the Fall Festivals - but - they are nothing like the Halloween Carnivals of yesterday.
I don't remember exactly when Halloween Carnivals at elementary schools were spirited away from us - but I will never forget them and don't compare to what we have today. I liked dressing up as Dracula, Frankenstein, or The Werewolf. I enjoyed the spooky as a kid. What's wrong with spooky?
No comments:
Post a Comment