The Halloween That Almost Wasn't

When I was young growing up in the 'burbs of Chicago, we had a season called "fall" that many of you here in Texas are probably unfamiliar with. The highlight of "fall", or "autumn" if you will, was of course Halloween, when we'd all go trick or treating, unaccompanied by an adult, from the moment school let out until about 8 or 8:30. My friends and I would cover at least ten blocks, easily, sometimes making a pit stop at home in order to unladen ourselves of a full bag of loot and grabbing an empty one, then quickly continuing our autumnal journey into the quickly approaching night.

Every year there'd be at least one house, usually inhabited by an elderly couple with a strange ethnic accent of some sort, that would provide a stumbling block for our candy-grabbing sojourn. First of all, these people would give out something like apples, or a shiny penny, or worse yet, some home-made thing involving raisins, nuts, and what appeared to be lint. When the old lady handed out the "treat", moreover, she'd invariably insist on placing it in our hand, rather than tossing it in the bag, which was creepy enough, but then she'd smile a (mostly) toothless grin while patting us on our shoulder with her boney fingers.

*tap-tap-tap* "There's a good boy. Now run along!" (toothless grin).

I'd take her advice and quickly go down the front stairs, feeling her rheumy eyes burning a hole into the back of my vampire costume as I found sanctuary in the company of my friends on the sidewalk.

That was the best-case scenario.

However, every other year or so, this old couple would not be content with freaking us out with bruised fruit or questionable home-made "things"; no, sometimes they'd want us to come into their "front room" for a second. They'd have cookies there, or so they'd claim, and we simply had to come in, since we reminded them of "our Henry" or something. So of course we'd go in, since none of us wanted to appear to be scared of a harmless old lady in front of the others. We'd go into the front room and be forced to sit upon a "davenport" covered in dark red faded worn velvet that smelled of a mixture of mildew, cigarettes, and Ben-Gay while the old lady passed around a tray of "cookies" sitting on an ancient tattered lace doily while her cat meowed constantly in the kitchen.

I'd keep one eye on the old lady and one eye on the front door while I pretended to eat a "cookie", shoving it under one of the understuffed sofa cushions when the old lady would turn to yell at her cat or something.

"Would you boys like some milk?"

We drew the line at drinking stuff in the front rooms of strange old ladies on Halloween, so we'd tell the lady we had to be going and start heading for the door. Somehow, this frail old lady would suddenly possess the speed and agility of a world-class sprinter and beat us to the door. She'd have something in her hand that she'd place in our hands forcibly and then forcibly close our fingers into a fist so we couldn't see what it was.

"Stop by again. Our Henry would have simply loved to have met you!"

We'd finally get the courage to open our fists to see what was inside when we were approaching the next house, invariably finding a questionable after-dinner mint or something inside.

Yeah, I don't see how the title of this blog post applies, either.