ACROSS THE MILES

HALLOWEEN

The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland,

One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.

Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.

The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.

The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven.

The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.

Looking back over the years, Halloween has always been a special day at our house. For weeks ahead, the children would be excited picking out what costumes they would wear, for the most part I made them costumes and there was always a pumpkin to carve. Sometimes even I would wear a costume and go out with the children Trick or treating. We would bring all the candy home, keep some and give the rest to the other children who would come by. J would stay home and pass the candy out. Sometimes he would just leave the basket of candy outside the door and hope that the kids would take only one each.

I remember when we first moved to California, I did not want the children eating so much of candy, so I decided to give out pencils instead, not the regular ones but the ones with cartoon characters on them. As the children stopped by I handed each a pencil, later on I heard that the kids were yelling " dont go to Maya's house, her mother is giving out pencils. So the next year it was candy for all.

Now the children are away at school, many of the children who grew up in this neighborhood have also gone away to school, so there are only a few little ones left. I love to see the children dressed up, carrying their bags and shouting "Trick or Treat." Sometimes I wish my children were little again and we can dress up and walk the streets shouting "Trick or Treat"