Don’t fear the reaper

By Pat Fule Random Thoughts

I’m not sure if you’re like me, but I’m not a big Halloween fan. I honestly don’t know how the once simple night of trick or treating has morphed into such a huge commercial event. In fact, now you’re a “grinch” if you don’t put out scary or ghoulish decorations. To me, kids should go out, be safe, get some candy and call it a couple of hours. Not the production that it now is, with Halloween TV specials and movies, house displays that take weeks to set up and take down, and kids yelling what’s basically a straight up threat at you – you know, “trick-or-treat!”
Can you imagine doing that at any other time of the year? A kid walks up to your house in spring and yells: “Give me something or the Easter Bunny gets it!” That would go over big.
Growing up in the ’60s and ’70s added another fear aspect to Halloween. That fear was bigger kids taking your candy from you, or slitting your bag with a knife and running off laughing. My hometown was a pretty tough mining town in those years, and the families were often transient; fathers working for a while and then the layoffs would come and they’d move to another mining town. The one thing I clung to as a youngster was that the police had a style of justice that got those teenagers what they deserved. If the “bad kids” were caught doing bad stuff, they were driven up to the Spray Lakes roadway above the town and dropped off. Yes, on a crisp October night, those chumps would have to walk, run or roll down a steep hill to get back to their mayhem. It was Rocky Mountain Justice, and my friends and I loved it. Well, most did, until two of my pals happened to get mistaken for “bad guys” and they were taken up the mountain road and dropped off, and they had to make their way down to town. One happened to be the son of the principal and he was not happy with his boy.
Part of why I’m not a Halloween fan is that I hate getting scared. Which is weird, because I do love the Walking Dead shows. My daughter and her husband used to love to watch and wait for me to get terrified and scream like a little kid in some scenes. Speaking of zombies with body parts missing: if you get the Times on Thursday, you might have time to try a “Zombie Halloween Arm” recipe on YouTube. Send the kids out trick-or-treating and tell them supper will be when they get back. There’s a recipe where you take a pork loin roast, ground beef, thin slices of Capicola ham and a leek to make a roasted arm. Muhahaha (that’s an evil laugh, by the way).
Basically, the roast is the arm, you make the hand out of shaped ground beef and you lay the strips of ham as the muscles. The leek becomes the bone that sticks out of the end of the roast. Spread marinara sauce as “blood” all over the arm and bake it in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes (take that, Martha Stewart!).
It’s actually a cool recipe and mmm mmm, is it tasty! The leek blackens when it’s roasted, so it looks like real bone. PLEASE don’t serve this dish to little kids – I don’t want anyone traumatized and asking where Great Uncle Stan is.
My fears probably started with my best friend Kirk. We had known each other since we were 10, and his family was British. To be his pal meant you had to take a lot of teasing, and learn to “dish it out” because his parents had rapier wit, and they loved to tease and play practical jokes. From them, I learned to love British humour: “Doctor in the House”, “Please Sir”, “Are You Being Served” and of course Monty Python.
Years later, I should’ve known better than to be Kirk’s university roommate. One night in our apartment, Kirk and the other guy had gone to bed in their rooms – or so I thought. I had a late morning class, so I stayed up to watch TV (did I mention it was 1978 and all we had was black and white?).
I’m not sure how long I stayed up, but it was a while (Kirk was a patient prankster). When I final walked down the hall to my room, he leaped out of the hall closet and yelled BOO! I was never so scared in all my life. I shrieked and then fell down whimpering, all while Kirk laughed hysterically. Luckily, my bladder did not empty, but inside I swore revenge. I planned my revenge for a few weeks later. I would sneak into his dark room (okay, I know this part sounds creepy but revenge is revenge!) and hide under his bed. Then when he lay down and was quiet, I would reach up, grab his arms and scare the crap out of him. You know that old saying: “the best laid plans …?”
Well, scaring him did not work, and now he had me trapped under the bed. I do not remember how long he trapped me there, but I do know that every time I tried to crawl out, I would get smacked. It was then I decided I hated getting scared.
You’d think this huge failure would have taught me not to try and scare anyone, but years later I had to try again. This time, my daughter and a friend had come with us to watch Brennen play his U of C basketball game in Calgary. Walking through the campus, I was sure the girls had gone ahead to the parked van. There in the cold, dark, night air, I spied the minivan. Walking stealthily to the front door, I grabbed the handle, pulled it open and shrieked as loudly as I could. Two strangers, a man and a woman, had been trying to read their city map. They jumped up from their seats, the map went flying and I believe one of them (it could’ve been the man) was crying. I apologized profusely and was also trying to explain that I was trying to scare my daughter, and it was then that I was glad people don’t carry guns in Canada; I could’ve been a statistic. So, I’m done with trying to scare people. I’m not cut out to be Freddy Krueger, Mike Myers or Jason. Instead, I’ll be like all my other neighbours, held hostage while kids threaten me with “trick-or-treat”. But hopefully no one will scare me!

(Random Thoughts is a slice of life humorous column that appears in the Strathmore Times, written by long-time resident, current mayor, husband, father and grandfather – Pat Fule. He is also a former town councillor, high school teacher and coach. If you would like to get in touch with Pat, you can send him an e-mail at Pat.fule@shaw.ca)