My First Halloween

Happy Halloween to you. I am writing Halloween night. Tonight Jane had a few of her friends here in costume and they went out in the neighborhood. This year I did not cook! I made finger sandwiches, and put that out with baby carrots, other veggies, some dips, some chips, crackers and Halloween cookies. They are always too involved at Halloween to eat anything "hot' or fancy.
I will reminisce with you a little today about my first remembrance of Halloween night. I think I must have been about 5 or 6 years old that Halloween Day. I had carrot colored red hair (According to mythology, one of the ways a person can allegedly become a vampire is to be born with red hair...Hmmmmmmmm) and an energy that wouldn't stop. My dad loved Halloween too and always took me trick or treating when I was tiny.
That first Halloween my mom made a ghost costume out of an old white bed sheet, the eyes, nose and mouth cut out for me and a segment of rope to tie around my waist to secure it. I thought I looked scary and said my boos to frighten everyone, but it seems the sheet kept slipping and was too long for me. So I tripped quite a few times, making people who saw me laugh as I tumbled to the ground. Instead of being scared by my "boo" and ghost costume they were amused by my struggles with the costume. I was not deterred by the length of the ghost outfit and trick or treated with my pumpkin trick ot treat bag.
I remember racing house to house and at one encountering a resident who made me "earn my candy". As I yelled "trick or treat' at his front door, no one answered or appeared. I tried again and again and my dad said, "Let's go, no one's home". Well, at that suggestion I turned and a loud "Boo" emanated from a window in the house near the door. The owner had practically sacred me out of my ghost suit! Hey adults aren't supposed to scare little ones... He laughed as did my dad, and seeing I was nearly in a fright of shock, the man let me have extra candy after he finally made his way to dispense the candy. He said he was sorry I was so scared, but my dad was giggling the whole time and I knew that guy would spook some other little one.
I later even suggested to my dad that we go back to that house a second time. But he vetoed that idea. It's strange that after all these years I can still see an image of that house and remember what happened when I got my first big Halloween fright from people I was supposed to scare. Well, even as a 6 year old I was laid back and put aside that fright almost immediately after it happened. I headed for the next house and many others, but always wary of windows near doors where I trick or treated.
But alas! One house I came to after that first fright greeted me with the most realistic Dracula I had even seen. But I think my fear of bloodsuckers is secondary to the taste of candy. I trembled a little but held out my bag and accepted Dracula's candy.. That was a memorable Halloween trick or treat, and it is strange how I became my dad after Jane was big enough to trick or treat for the first time.
I think she was about three or four years old, and I remember as I took her my own first time trick or treating. I felt I was my dad and she was the little red-headed monster (Yes, I am still a monster of sort!) named Jim. And a few years ago we talked about it and remembered some of the same things from that first trip she took.
Memories do tie people together. A parent can be reborn through his child. I know it and did it. The memories from my own and Jane's first trick or treat are as fresh today as they were when they happened years ago. Isn't that a bit of Halloween magic in it's own way?