HALLOWEEN, THEN...

I remember the year it all changed. 1978. When rumors of razor blades and straight pins turned my favorite holiday into a police state of parental intervention. Anyone who handed out a homemade or unwrapped treat was immediately a suspect. Nevermind that no one in my town actually knew of any incidents, the threat was real and dammit my parents were sure that the old greek woman down the street -- the one who dropped orange dyed popcorn balls into our pillowcases for the last eight years-- was just biding her time. This was the Halloween she would plant the razor blades that would turn our mouths into raw hamburger. The dentist up on Montauk Highway even offered to x-ray our overflowing bags of candy... just in case heroine tipped needles were buried inside our Tootsie Rolls.

To my 10 year old mind, this was just another case of my parents ruining a perfectly good time. Halloween was hands down my absolute favorite holiday. I would trade Christmas, Channukah and Easter for just one extra day of trick or treating.

And it wasn't the candy. Not really. It was the total embrace of all things terrifying and macabre. 364 days a year I was the gangly geek who showed an unhealthy interest in monster movies and horror novels. But on Halloween I was the master.

I made cool, unabashedly horrifying costumes, turned my garage into a haunted house for my friends and broadcast scary sounds --recorded on my Realistic tape recorder-- out my bedroom window. Peeled grapes became eyeballs, cold spaghetti with vegetable oil became a bowl full of tapeworms and a pail full of cherry jello mixed with sour cream and Crisco became a bucket o' guts.

The evening before I would hide a walkie-talkie in the box spring of my sister Stacey's bed and start hissing, whispering and growling at the stroke of midnight. She'd wake up screaming and my parents, convinced I was to blame, would spend half an hour trying to figure out what it was I had done. Never once did they find the walkie talkie.

The local TV News put an end to my fun.Pointed woman with brittle hair dos warned of the insidious ways treats could become traumas. "Beware! Your neighbors plan to maim little Suzie." Only pristine store bought sweets --preferably hard candy-- were safe... and then, only after careful inspection.

The effect was immediate. Lame Halloween parties replaced door-to-door canvassing. Kids were encouraged to go trick or treating at the Mall. The Mall! Under fluorescent lights with 'The Girl From Ipanema' tinkling in the background.

My parents, always looking for an excuse to save a few bucks and minimize their social obligations, used the panic as an excuse to hand out nickels instead of candy. "We're just being safe, Jeffrey."

For those that still braved the trick or treat gauntlet my house became the lamest destination on the block.

How did this happen?

Halloween was created as a way to confront our fears of the unknown. For one wonderful day we got to dress up; become the vampires, demons, witches and ghosts that frightened us all year long. It was a way to steal ourselves against the cruel uncertainties of the world.

How sad that the most terrifying creature our parents could imagine was the neighbor they didn't quite know. And as we changed into wigs and masks, the monsters put on costumes of their own and became the thing we feared most: ourselves.