Halloween

Chilton, the small Wisconsin farm town I grew up in, pretty much spoils you for Halloween. It was a town much like Sechelt and perhaps that is why I love the Sunshine Coast as much as I do. The fine people on the Sunshine Coast are so much like my Chilton neighbors. People with character and honor. People with a story to tell and the time to tell it. That was Chilton years ago and that’s Sechelt today.

I still cherish memories of Trick or Treating in a small town. Up Main Street and down Breed Street, the street my family lived on. My mother was always embarrassed whenever the sales clerk at Sears would ask for her home address. Breed street. As a child I didn’t get the joke. Halloween meant knocking on the doors of every neighbor, all the way down to Gravesville, the only part of town without sidewalks. None of the children ever had to worry about poisoned candy or razorblades in candy apples.

Lately I’ve been feeling nostalgic and started perusing the Chilton Times-Journal. I suspected that Chilton isn’t as innocent as it was when I lived there. The biggest headline announced that in the early hours a few weeks ago someone boosted a heifer calf that was 60% white and 40% black (Color not race.). Now that’s a photo that really belongs on a milk carton.

Chilton is a smaller town than Sechelt. Our biggest event was the day we got our first traffic light. A year later we got a Dairy Queen. Progress was rearing its head in Chilton. Until the Dairy Queen was built we had only the A&W, which was clear across town. All cheerleaders worked as car hops there. Some of my fondest high school memories were of Rosie Pfeffer on roller skates in her short A&W skirt.

Chilton Metal Products decided to tear down our house after my family moved to Appleton. I was in the Air Force at the time but I heard later a local minister actually salted the earth. Three of the four homes I grew up in have been razed. Is someone trying to tell me something? I loved living on top of Breed street. After all, May Kay Keuler lived across the street. I wonder what she looks like today. Probably better I not know.

One common trait most of us in L.A. share is a homesickness; especially around the holidays. Halloween is no different. While I always miss snow at Christmas time Halloween leaves me with cherished memories of hay rides through farmer’s fields looking for that perfect pumpkin. The air was cold and crisp and the candy apples the stuff fond memories are made of. It was almost as memorable as a Sechelt Halloween. I been in Sechelt for Halloween and I must say you people know how to celebrate it as well as anyone on the planet.

Hardly anybody goes Trick or Treating in L.A. without a bulletproof vest. Rather than walk the city streets with your kids parents go to the malls where the children walk from store to store never breathing the outdoor air. It’s Halloween, L.A. style. Los Angeles store owners post signs the day before Halloween expressly forbidding customers to enter their store on Halloween wearing a mask. Considering L.A. is the bank robbery capital of the world you can understand why a mask-wearing customer is rarely welcome.

A number of years ago on a Halloween afternoon, I was driving my retired police motorcycle (Safest bike to drive because people look for you) in Westwood Village, a couple of blocks from UCLA, when I noticed a man just down the street trying to crawl through the open passenger window of a slow-moving car. I thought at first the car had slipped into gear and taken off without him. As I finally pulled up next to the car I could see a driver behind the wheel. Suddenly there was the distinct crack of a handgun down the street. I looked to see a bank guard shooting into the back of the car I was now standing next to! That almost never happened to me in Chilton. Has that ever happened to you in Sechelt?

The driver started to speed away from me with the passenger’s legs still frantically dangling out the window. The guard, thinking I was a cop, asked me to pursue the car. I asked him if they had guns. When he nodded, "Yes" I decided it was probably not in my best interest and drove in the opposite direction. Weird things like this have always happened to me in L.A. Life here is a mental hospital without the padded walls. They say there’s nothing like Christmas with children around but I say the same goes for Halloween. The kids don’t even have to be your own. Just watching kids ecstatic to to get candy at every door is a thrill to me. My son, Tyson, grew up Trick or Treating in so many cities. Two Rivers, Manitowoc, Seattle, Los Angeles and Vancouver. Vancouver rain was cold that time of the year but at least it was safer than L.A. Especially out on the Endowment Lands by UBC.

Although I live in L.A. for now, I will always embrace small town Halloween memories. Sechelt Halloweens. The memories I cherish the most are of Halloween parties down at Cooper Park near Halfmoon Bay. The same fine people in all small towns but the scenery on the Sunshine Coast makes Chilton look like Calgary on a bad day.

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Tom Neuhoff

World Humour

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