Devil’s Night

This past weekend I was discussing Halloween with my 95 year old mother. She has never really been a fan. She just doesn’t get the fascination with the horrific and the obsession with images of death. The conversation was prompted by her being pretty turned off by a yard decorated with fake tombstones.

‟Why would anybody want to do that?” she asked. ‟We'll all be in a real one soon enough.”

She’s not wrong, and at her age I’m sure it feels more real than to the rest of us. I talked some about how it’s psychologically healthy for people to deal with frightening things in a safe and fun environment. But, as much as I love Halloween it’s not my place to change her mind on this and I respect her feelings.

Then, she told me a Halloween story from her youth. She was a late teen at the time and she and her friend Vida, who would become my aunt by marrying Uncle Carl, were out looking for something to do. There was a party being held but they had not been invited. Apparently the hostess was a girl they were feuding right then. Mom couldn’t remember why, but all of their friends were there and they had been excluded.

Based on what I know of the personalities of my Mom and my Aunt Vida I have to assume the next part of their evening was Vida’s idea... but maybe not.

The two of them went to the house where the party was being held and soaped the windshields of every car there. Mom said they were thorough. No one was going to be able to see to drive home without a lot of clean up.

They got away with it. No one ever confronted them. If they were suspected no one ever let on.

I have never participated in this level of vandalism in my life. At 95 Mom giggled gleefully while telling this story that I had never heard before. Maybe she doesn’t dislike Halloween as much as she thinks she does.