Today is Halloween and the Cancel Culture is hard at work. Disaffected people with nothing better to do hiding behind their PC screens in incognito mode believe that depriving kids of the joy of going out door to door in their neighborhood, screaming Trick or Treat to collect all sorts of candies, would bring them some sadistic satisfaction while they hate their miserable lives. All the while, affable neighbors play their own part, happily pretending to be scared to death while smiling at them and generously handing out all those sweet treats they bought at Costco a few days before.
For me, Halloween has no particular significance other than the fact that it throws me right back to when at 4 years of age, in kindergarten, the school had decided to throw a play for All Saints day. My then cute little cousin was dressed as a parsley leaf and I was a Canary. I will never forget that day. My mother proudly displayed me in the yellow costume she had made for the occasion. I was beyond humiliated and I believe since developed an acute self-consciousness.
On stage, I was supposed to flip my wings. I was so paralyzed by shame that my yellow-painted matchstick legs could not hold me and I fell flat on my ass. The crowd applauded in support I suppose but the laughter was louder, I think.
So, when on a Friday in 1964, I got my paycheck from the restaurant I worked at the World’s Fair in New York, I got my first $100, I couldn’t wait but to save it. I ran to a bank in Harlem where I lived to open a savings account. As soon as I entered the place, a spooky feeling sent a shiver down my spine. Black and White people in costumes, all sorts of costumes, spiders on cotton cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, witches on broomsticks, and rotted tooth ugly pumpkins all over the place with Roy Orbison singing “Pretty Woman” in the background. As I approached the counter, the teller, a black woman, her face painted white, wearing a Statue of Liberty crown, with a very kind voice asked me what I wanted to do with the check I was holding in my hands. I remember hesitating and thinking: “Is this a real bank?”
That was my introduction to American Halloween, a first for me.
Today, on Halloween, I fondly remember those little episodes. I still do not celebrate Halloween but millions enjoy it around the world. This festivity has spread in many parts of the world. Europe and even other countries in Africa enjoy it. Many parts of ‘Our’ American culture are worth cherishing and preserving.
So, all I can say to those sick, bitter people who enjoy spoiling life for others and who want to ‘Save” the world by destroying it. For one who does not care about Halloween, all I can say to those misfits is: “Get a life!”