The boo crew

Halloween is being celebrated tonight in Sewickley and some adjoining communities from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. A parade will be held in the village on Saturday morning.

Why my adopted home town isn't having the whole celebration on Saturday, which is the actual date, I haven't figured out. Whatever the official explanation may be - too much traffic in the village perhaps? - I just don't believe it. I think the ancient undead of Sewickley simply do not want to disturb the Saturday evening cocktail hour with kids coming to the door. Here! Here! Somebody has got to uphold community standards.

Of all the American holidays, Halloween is the most puzzling to me. It is not celebrated in Australia, where I grew up. I never encountered it when I lived in England, although All Saints Day is a cultural memory. The Mexicans have their Day of the Dead, which is their version of the Halloween, but I can't think of another culture that does anything similar.

Not that I have any objections to this. I am for fun in many forms, especially if it involves candy.

Up the road from me, at the corner of Beaver and Academy avenues, is the spooky house to end all spooky houses. The private family that lives there have an industrial strength Halloween every year, so much so that one of their cars has "Boo Crew" as its vanity licence plate.

A week ago, I saw the man of the house busy in the yard planting corpses and grave markers. The whole house is decked top to bottom with faux ghoulish effects - cobwebs, chains, zombies etc. Tonight, eerie organ music will come from the house as will the sound of clanking chains. Fog will envelop the steps. Hundreds of kids, drawn from miles around, will descend on the house for treats and terror.

I know the occupants of the house - well, the living ones, anyway - and they are exceptionally nice people (so much so, that I do not feel comfortable using their names in this blog without their permission). This is their hobby, their annual extravaganza. Some people collect stamps, others terrify children at Halloween.

And I think this is a wonderful thing - as long as it doesn't disturb the cocktail hour. After all, some things are sacred.

 

Posted Oct 29 2009, 03:51 PM by Reg Henry
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Comments

ciejai wrote re: The boo crew
on Thu, Oct 29 2009 5:11 PM

Reg, I know the house well-- we live only a few blocks away-- and the "Boo Crew" does indeed do a mean Halloween.  We had nothing like it when I was a sprout but we had truly terrifying old houses populated with crotchety old kid haters.  The defunct farm next door to the house I grew up in was Dr Mulder's and you weren't anybody in the neighborhood until you had snuck into Doc's orchard to steal apples.  Rumor was he'd shoot first and ask questions later.  

Costumes were different back then-- mostly homemade.  One year I got dressed up as a mummy all wrapped and rolled into an old white sheet.  Then my mother slathered my face with her chalky facial mud pack.  I'm sure I looked quite ghoulish until it started pelting down rain.  That was a frequent problem with Halloween in Michigan.  It was likely to be 38 degrees and rainy.  Boo.

kevin morris wrote re: The boo crew
on Thu, Oct 29 2009 5:31 PM

Here in Des Moines they celebrate "Beggar's Night." It is held the night before Halloween (the night we used to call Devil's Night) and it is when go out for candy. I've read two different versions of why it was started, but both have to do with getting kids to quit doing tricks if they don't get treats, and the tradition only began during the Second World War.

I intend to soap a few windows and go tick-tacking.  

ciejai wrote re: The boo crew
on Thu, Oct 29 2009 5:42 PM

Kevin, What's tick-tacking?  

And Reg, your explanation of the decision to switch Trick or Treating to Thursday makes a lot of sense.  At first I took a dim view of the change, but then realized the Penguins play Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday this week.  Now I'm okay with it.

kevin morris wrote re: The boo crew
on Thu, Oct 29 2009 7:06 PM

ceijai, tick-tacking is different things to different folks. In my neighborhood it was when a group of kids would knock on someone's door and then run and hide to watch them come to the door. True artists would try to get the same people to come out more than once, sometimes by setting up a circuit throughout the neighborhood. Or so I'm told.

In some parts of the state is is throwing hard, dry kernels of corn at people's houses, especially their storm doors.  

thescarletpumpernickel wrote re: The boo crew
on Thu, Oct 29 2009 8:58 PM

I'm going to push over an outhouse or two in Moon Run.

ciejai wrote re: The boo crew
on Fri, Oct 30 2009 8:17 AM

Kevin, our version of that was doorbell ringing.  When I was in third grade I got slugged in the stomach by a sixth grader for doing that with a group of neighborhood kids.  

kevin morris wrote re: The boo crew
on Fri, Oct 30 2009 9:18 AM

When we were 10 or 12 the police stopped me and few of my friends in an alley as we were out soaping windows on Devil's Night. I think I was doing a pretty good job of convincing the officers we were just innocent youngsters when my buddy Patrick dropped a piece of soap onto the ground. All of us just stood looking at it for a second, then we kids all ran like hell.

Another Devil's Night a couple of years later we were out doing pranks and having fun until one kid, Burt who was strong as a bull and almost as smart, got too excited and threw a birdbath through a home's picture window. That was my last active Devil's Night.  

barolin wrote re: The boo crew
on Sun, Nov 1 2009 1:28 PM

Reg, I lived for 8 years in the village and only had about 10 or 12 kids at my door on any halloween. It seems that the parents are afraid tolet their kids out today. what a shame. I used to love halloween growing up and stayed out until 11 oclock. Sewickely is a sidewalk communtiy and is a lovely town for kids to grow up. It is just ashame that our society and the news media publish only the bad things and do not mention the good things about our area. keep that in mind when you write your column.