Halloween Memories

Katherine Hegemann (kbhegemann@msn.com)

Every year in late October, warm memories come back to me of Halloween celebrations at my elementary school. Folks didn’t have a lot of money, but when parents pooled resources, they were able to give us a night to remember and raise money for supplies the school needed.

The Halloween Spooktacular was scheduled the Saturday before October 31. After the cafeteria closed for the weekend on Friday, parents came in and decorated, created all kinds of booths in the classrooms and brought food. I suppose next to today’s kids’ expectations, what we had was pretty simple. There were multi-colored balloons, carved pumpkins and paper streamers hanging from the ceiling. A piñata hung in the center of the cafeteria. Naturally, all the kids came in their costumes.

The cafeteria floor had permanently marked squares with large dots in some of them. They were for the cakewalk. Each family brought a cake, which mostly the moms made. There were German chocolate, devil’s food, yellow, and angel food cakes. Each was a work of art and made with that ‘special’ recipe from Mom. The night of the Spooktacular, folks purchased numbered tickets. The numbers correlated with the number assigned to each cake. As music played, the people with tickets walked from square to square. Then the music stopped, and those who had landed on a square with a dot got a cake with the same number as their ticket. The folks left got another go round. This went on until all the holders of cakewalk tickets got a cake. Those families had a yummy dessert when they got home.

All during this time, kids were eating snacks provided by all the families. Some were healthy, but many were sweets like candied apples or popcorn balls. Someone always made S’mores for the kids too. There were hot dogs and hamburgers. Three of my favorite items were homemade chocolate covered peanuts, fudge and peanut brittle.

The fathers were mostly involved with the booths. There was one where you stuck your hand into a dark hole. The person running the booth said to grab a handful of whatever was in there. When you grabbed, the man would tell us they were eyeballs. Screeches of terror echoed throughout the school. The eyeballs were actually peeled grapes, but that didn’t make any difference. We all screeched anyway. Yucky stuff!

There were booths with a Punch & Judy puppet show and one with a clown blowing up balloons then twisting them into whatever shape you ordered. Well, most of the time kids got what they asked for, but it depended on the talent of the balloon clown. There was always a fortuneteller too. Of course, we were all going to grow up, get married, have a couple of wonderful kids, and live happily ever after. The last booth had witches and ghosts reciting Grimm’s Fairy Tales or other scary stories. Each storyteller used the spookiest voice and gestures possible to make sure kids got their shot of being scared.

The last event was breaking the piñata. Each kid drew a number out of a top hat. The kid who drew a zero was blindfolded and got to whack at the candy-filled, paper Mache pumpkin. The attempts to hit the piñata brought gales of laughter to everyone. Finally, the pumpkin was broken and the scramble began to grab up candy.

As the evening ended, each kid picked up a grab bag of goodies. The bags were full of school supplies, fruit, candy, and a surprise. The kids were psyched up, but I imagine the parents were exhausted. It didn’t matter because everyone had a grand time.

The kids still looked forward to trick or treating in our neighborhoods, but this was a night of great family fun with many fond family memories made at those Halloween Spooktaculars. I still chuckle at the time I was the one whacking at the piñata. My mouth waters at the memory of Mrs. Everett’s peanut brittle and Mrs. Payne’s fudge. My mom always brought a chocolate cake. Mom wasn’t a very good cook, but she did make a great cake. My dad even operated the eyeball booth for a few years. Not all of my childhood memories are so wonderful, but the Spooktacular sure is.