Falling into Halloween

Boo! I don’t know why I like it so much, I just do. Anything that

is as goofy and meaningless as Halloween is hard for me not to like.

There are the holidays that actually mean something -- Christmas,

Thanksgiving, Veteran’s Day -- and the ones that don’t. Halloween is

definitely a “don’t.” It’s also part of my all-time favorite time of

year, which is fall -- Halloween, pumpkins, turning leaves, etc.

Speaking of time, did you do it? Reset the clocks, wrestle with

the VCR, “spring forward, fall back?” If you didn’t, it’s not what

time you think it is. Put me down and go back to bed.

Halloween has been around a long, long time. Even the name is

interesting -- “Hallow” meaning, “not solid,” and “een” meaning, “the

opposite of odd,” thus “Halloween” -- “the hollow opposite of odd.”

See? Once you know how to break it down, you can figure out the

meaning of any word.

Smile. That was a joke.

I think Halloween is making a big come back, but not necessarily

with kids. Here is my theory. Baby Boomers and above, which would be

me, miss Halloween. They miss seeing streets teeming with laughing

kids toting shopping bags bulging with candy, bobbing for apples,

setting the trash cans on subway platforms on fire then sprinting

through the cars to get away from the Transit Authority cops, that

sort of thing.

Over the years, as the world became a more dangerous place,

Halloween fell from favor. By the 1990s, Halloween, and certainly

trick-or-treating, were on the brink of extinction. But in the last

five years or so, the non-kids have come to the rescue.

Today, you see the proof of my humble little theorem all across

the Land of Newport-Mesa. More and more homes are being decorated for

Halloween, some of them quite elaborately.

In my work, which has yet to be defined, I visit a lot of

companies. Every year, offices are being decked out with more and

more Halloween stuff, to say nothing of pumpkin-carving contests,

costume contests, et cetera, et cetera.

There was a time, not long ago, when Halloween decorations were

strictly for Mrs. Hanson’s fifth grade classroom -- paper mache

pumpkins, pictures of witches, cardboard ghosts and black cats that

had their arms and legs hinged with those little round metal

grommets. If you ever put two of those things away in the same place,

the arms and legs would get hopelessly entangled and you’d have to

throw everything out. But that was then and this is now.

Today, there are stylish Halloween banners for outside your house,

witches and skeletons that do everything but windows, incredibly

realistic holograms floating in crystal balls and strings of pumpkin

lights, bat lights, witch lights, you-name-it lights.

But the biggest evidence of the new Halloween, far and away, can

be found at our very own Roger’s Gardens, which is a stunner at any

time of year, most famously at Christmastime. As the 31st day of the

10th month draws nigh, Roger’s Gardens is the mother lode for the

Halloween-ophile (a technical term, from “Halloween,” defined above,

and “ophile” meaning, “Irish metal-working tool.”)

Have you seen the haunted Halloween room at Roger’s Gardens?

Everything, I tell you, everything you need to make your Halloween a

memorable one is at your fingertips. We’re talking skeletons, spiders

and all sorts of spooky things that dangle or sway or just sit there

or glow green when you turn the lights out. They have wax lips and

teeth that are much better than the wax lips that were around when I

was a kid, which was the golden age of wax lips. Need a rubber rat?

Look no further. They have the best rubber rats I have ever seen.

These things are so realistic they could fool a rat.

In fact, as goofy items go, they have the best I’ve ever seen, and

I’ve seen a lot. I have been to more novelty stores than I care to

admit. The best, by the way, is Ye Olde Curiosity Shop in Seattle,

which is on the docks just below Pike Place Market and has been

there, believe it or not, since 1899.

I never ever leave there without a bag full of things like the

glowing “alien eyeball” glasses, and the glow-in-the-dark alien

family, which is one of the best gift ideas ever, in my estimation,

appropriate for any occasion. There’s a mom alien, a dad alien and

three baby aliens, all holding hands. Turn the lights out and they

all glow bright green -- mom, dad and the kids.

But I must say, with no disrespect intended, that Roger’s Gardens’

rubber rats are way more realistic than the rubber rats at Ye Olde

Curiosity Shop.

Whether you celebrate the old Halloween or the new, celebrate

something for heaven’s sake. Have fun, keep an eye on the kids, and

if you run out of rubber rats, you know where to find them.

I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs

Sundays. He may be reached via e-mail at PtrB4@aol.com.