When October arrives, costumes, candy, cooking and chicanery abound. Since childhood, I tapped on doors and ceremoniously cited a poem I learned from one of the few books I read. The annual response is, “We know. We know!”
As a child, at dark, I looked for the moon, imagined a witch or black cat crossing my path, and sought the moon’s tell-tale markings. I had no desire to go there. I do, however, remind myself of the first time I went trick or treating by myself, greedily yearning for a second pillowcase full of goodies. With full skirt, scarves, jewellery and makeup of a gypsy, I told fortunes with my ‘Fortune Telling 8-ball’. One house, burdened with students, threatened, with side grins, that they might not let me go, but go I did, hurriedly. My memory then flashes to a dark, steep stairway between businesses closed for the day, on our main street. This was undeniably my father’s “Don’t go!” area, which I arguably believed was the entrance to my Grandpa’s home. I looked up. I was alone. The stairs were steep. Shadows and poor lighting were foreboding and my fear peaked. The street was hush. No one ventured out. I left, arms chilling, scampering toward my own home, never to test my bravery again. My parents never learned of my adventures but thereafter, I decided to trick and treat in the company of friends and rely on my poem to entertain, as I do, to this very day.
An old jack-o’-lantern lay on the ground.
He looked at the big moon, yellow and round.
The old jack-o-lantern gazed and he gazed
And still, as he looked, he grew more amazed.
“How” said the jack-o-lantern, “How can it be?
That fellow up there looks so much like me!
Sharon Hogan