Queens Line Halloween

 Queens Line Halloween

Nowadays they probably don't do it at all, preferring to go to town, but as us upper Queen's Line kids got older, it was a riot on Halloween to walk from farm to farm to collect our booty. All the farms were great to us, too; they didn't give us apples or oranges; no, our bags quickly filled up with brand names like Cadbury, Hostess, Rowntree, Neilson, etc... You name it: KitKat's, Areo's, Jersey Milk's; anything that was on display below the front counter of any of the local general stores was there, plus licorice, jaw breakers, encouraged handfuls of loose candy, and bags of potato chips. The occasional can of Coke, Sprite, or Canada Dry ginger ale slowly stretched our booty bags to the breaking limit. 

We'd posse up around Tabbert's, hastily come up with a game plan, and start off. The miles went by easily as we boisterously and enthusiastically bantered away the time. 

Normally we'd take off our masks when we were on the road, but on a chilly Valley October 31st, sometimes we'd wear them, happy for the windbreak they provided our faces. They were always hard to see out of because the eye holes were never big enough and the darn things never stayed in place on your face anyway. Sometimes the super cheap elastic band would break on one side and we'd then be left balancing holding the stupid thing on with one hand, holding up our baggy costume plastic pants with the other, and somehow carrying our bag and our flashlight as well. 

Speaking of flashlights, they were a must out on an open farm road. Our parents, for our safety, would usually give us each a new flashlight for our Halloween hike so we wouldn't get our goofy lookin' butts run over on the road. "And watch for traffic!" would be all their finger wagging parting words as we headed out on our country speedway. Flashlights in those days, in the event you didn't know or have forgotten, weren't worth a hoot. Tiny incandescent bulbs combined with two very short lived C cell batteries didn't exactly equate to much light. Or for long. The weak, yellowish, narrow beam of light they feebly coughed up wasn't much more than enough to keep us from getting run over by a horse and buggy. 65 MPH pitch black night Queen's Line traffic? Forget it. We watched for them because they could never see us. 

We'd trudge along, using one flashlight at a time, so, between the bunch of us, we'd have enough light to last the evening. When one kid's light bit the dust the next one became the leader. We'd usually start out waving them around, light saber style, or blinking them on and off, but as they all quickly lost power we inevitably went into a more sober ration mode. What we wouldn't have done for LED flashlights then. 

While Halloween could also be called Greed Night in a lot of places, we were all good kids from very modest farm families, so we were very grateful for what we got and didn't push it. Nobody ever had to tell us, "That's enough". No, it was often more on the lines of, "Don't be shy--take some more!". 

Walking into a farm lane in the black dark in a scary looking costume in those days would have been a perfect recipe for getting your arm ripped off by the loyal farm dog on constant night patrol and perpetual guard for thee. Halloween night the dogs were all tied up behind the house or shut in the barn so it was safe for the local tussle haired miscreants to rambunctiously stride in with shiny plastic masks and nylon suits that made funny noises. 

As an aside, on Halloween night, many mailboxes just magically disappeared. Our mailbox and post got trundled over Dad's shoulder and placed out of sight--and access--behind the pump house. 

Things were different for the younger set than us. They got driven in cars because they were too small to keep up to the bigger kids on the long walks between farms. While the bigger ones, being farm kids, were more than responsible enough to monitor and take care of the little ones on the road, the long, cold walk was just too much for them. So they got Chauffeured. 

When my sister, Polly, and I were just starting out, Dad would drive us to local farms in our dark blue 1956 Meteor 4 door. Some people called them a 'Mercury Meteor', but the name brand was actually only 'Meteor'.  It was reasonably comfortable, but sounded like a pickup truck with its straight six engine and 'three on the tree' manual transmission. 

Dad would turn in the driveway, and park the car, but leave it running for heat. We'd get out and walk in the driveway in the beams of the car's headlights to the house. We'd do our thing, collect our loot, and then walk back out a somewhat illuminated driveway towards the two round headlights to a warm car for our next conquest. Easy as pie. Like taking candy from a baby, except it was the opposite. You get the idea. 

All of our Halloween visits everywhere at all ages are lost to time and depleting brain cells except one. It came from our first night as Trick or Treaters. And it is as clear as crystal to this moment.

Our next door neighbours in those days were the Selkirks. They bought it from my Uncle Osborne and Aunt Irene Bowes. The McClure family bought it when Selkirks downsized and moved into town. Then the Martins bought it from McClure's and lived there for a while. For the last 20 years it has belonged to the Wright's. So, for a time until I moved off the Queen's Line, on one side of the road was the Wright's and the other side the Wrongs. 

Bowes's, Selkirk's, McClure's, Martin's, Wrights. Time sure marches on, doesn't it? 

I think Mr. Selkirk was a teacher in Pembroke, but I can no longer say for sure. Probably feeling a certain surname obligation, they had the first stainless steel Selkirk chimney I ever saw on the NorthWest side of their big red brick house kitty-cornered across the road from us. The shiny whirlygig exhauster on top of that chimney always fascinated me, but I later found out it only exasperated them and McClure's after them. 

Anyway... 

The highly anticipated night of bounty untold finally dawned... excuse me: set. We were costumed up in my superhero and her princess or fairy godmother (or something equally girlishly dumb) outfit replete with their usual funny smelling masks. Into the at first frosty cold car we scrambled, eager to fill our bags to the bursting point. Then we'd have to empty them into the trunk and the back seat. And maybe have to go home to empty it all out and start over again. Christmas was for toys. This night was to make our bellies round and full for months to come and to get our first cavity off to a good start. 

Our first stop was Selkirk's. Dad pulled into the driveway and let us out. The big maple trees on the property, having lost all their leaves, looked creepy along the outer bands of the hooded headlight beams of our (somewhat) trusty old Meteor as we walked away from Dad and towards the house. There didn't appear to be any lights on in the house for some reason.

Not used to being in the dark kind of on our own, we walked out of the fading power of the lights of our old car on the crunchy gravel driveway. That Meteor only had a 6 volt electrical system and a generator (that went lazy at idle) instead of an alternator for power. 

We got to the side door in the crisp Fall air and climbed up the steps in nearly complete darkness. Completely out of the path of the distant headlights, the summer kitchen was black dark. We fumbled our way to the back door of the kitchen and knocked. There was no answer, which was unusual, because Selkirk's were always home at night. We knocked again.

The sound of the doorknob slowly being turned was heard, and the door slowly started to open, with loud, very creepy, creaking hinges. As it sloowly opened, very faint light coming across the kitchen from the front windows from our weak headlights out at the road played out the crack of the door. 

The old, white painted, wooden panel door continued to very raspily creak open, but there was no one there. The kitchen was dark, except for that little bit of light coming in through the closed blinds and curtains. It opened almost all the way, and a man's voice that sounded like Vincent Price slowly said, "Come innn..." 

We gingerly stepped inside... and the door slammed shut with a BANG behind us!

We screamed and spun around... and there in the near black dark was a tall SKELETON, glowing in the dark... and reaching its long arms and bony fingers out to grab us! 

Our first scream was nothing compared to the second one. We hit the closed door like two of the Three Stooges trying to make our first and only exit. We madly fought to turn the big white porcelain knob in our little hands as that absolutely TERRIFYING skeleton towered above and reached for us! We fumbled the knob open and spilled out the door as one. Tripping over each other going through the summer kitchen, we somersaulted down the steps into the yard like a pair of Charlie Browns. We scrambled to our feet and ran and tumbled and ran and tumbled for the two distant dim round headlights of the car way, WAY out there at the road past all those scary trees. 

In our flight, we looked back, and that SKELETON was running after us in the dark waving its long arms! The most horrifying part of it was its SKULL was now missing! A HEADLESS skeleton was chasing after us! 

Little feet can really move when they need to, and they must have heard us shrieking in terror five farms away as that glowing bunch of bones chased us out towards the road. 

If little tyke's hearts acted the way old fogy's do, there'd be a poignant little headstone in a local cemetery with our names on it and a coinciding date of Oct 31, 1971. 

I caught a glimpse of Polly's ghastly, positively panic-stricken face during our headlong, stumbling, all-four-limbs clashes in the distant glow of the headlights. If my bigger, braver, more experienced sister's face had the appearance of being at least three full pairs of panties shy of a calm, cool, and collected front, I wonder what mine must have looked like? 

Poor Mr. Selkirk turned back before half way, not wanting to scare us any further. He was likely expecting older kids, which would have got a great kick out of it; not two li'l wee little twerps like us. He didn't mean to frighten us so bad, and had yanked off his mask to show us his face but it was too dark to see it. The black light he used to perfectly light up his excellently fitting glow in the dark skeleton suit did nothing to light up his face far above our little heads. Not that it mattered. We hadn't taken a second look at him and were already out the door like gunshots anyway. The weak car headlights on low beam didn't light up his face in the yard either but they made his running skeleton show up in a particularly horrifying fashion. He was likely calling for us not to be scared, but it was WAY past too late for that. We found out the hard way that night that carloads of candy comes at FAR too high of a price. 

From our little perspectives it all seemed to last a slow motion, nighmarish eternity. In actuality the active part of the whole episode start to finish probably comprised less than 30 seconds of our lives. But it lingers, let me tell you. 

In case it hasn't occurred to you up until this point, you don't "Come baack!" when it's a headless skeleton that is calling you to do so. 

Dad was more than capable of handling the Boogieman, the monster under the bed or in the closet, or a skeleton chasing us out a long driveway, but you had to bring him into the mix, first.

I don't know about my sister, but I was so terrified I can't even remember making it to the end of the driveway. I must have fainted from sheer fright. Maybe Dad picked my limp little body up off the cold driveway and carried me the last 30 feet to the car. Maybe the two of us. I don't know. I honestly don't remember a single thing beyond passing the well about halfway or so out. Not the safety of our big, powerful Dad, not the security of the warm car, not getting home to the sanctuary of our bright house: nothing. 

Dad's littlest charge could very well have been a wee bit soggy with pee, too. That was a thing with me at night or in fright in those days. It wouldn't have been a dribble, either. That said, given the particular set of circumstances here, solids definitely weren't out of the question. All I can say about that from this distant perspective and out of sincere sympathy for dear old Dad is hopefully there was a fairly sizable plastic bag in the car that particular night. Or he hadn't taken in a package of paper towels from grocery shopping. Cheap vinyl seats weren't all bad, you know. 

It's a good thing Polly's life and limb wasn't up to me. 

One thing is for sure: despite what he likely had to deal with after, Dad must have been treated to an unforgettably hilarious Halloween Theater in his headlights that evening. 

                  

There is a vague, very foggy recollection of dear, remorseful Mr. Selkirk dressed as himself visiting our home in the brightness and security of the next mid-morning. His sincere, profound, and profuse apologizing and asking our forgiveness still did nothing to make me ever want to go back to that place at night again. 

But then Cory came along and that changed all that.

Just so's I wouldn't forget, I was reminded a little later in my childhood with Cory that glow in the dark stuff and that house didn't seem to go together well. Or maybe it's glow in the dark stuff and me. That's a distinct possibility.