Rant #1,772: Monster Bash

Today, October 28, is my half birthday.

I am 59 1/2 years old today.

Six more months for the magic 6-0.

Happy half birthday to me, happy half birthday to me, happy half birthday, dear Larry, happy half birthday to me.

Heck, we seem as a society to always be celebrating something, so why not a half birthday?

I mean, Monday is Halloween, yet starting tonight, we will be celebrating the holiday--if that is what you want to call it--throughout the weekend.

There will be parties, get togethers, and all sorts of events planned for this weekend, and I guess that just about all of them--less scary clowns--will be fun.

But just looking at Halloween, and what it has become, irks me.

Halloween was once a real kids' holiday, and nothing more, but it has morphed over the generations into a celebration that has been taken over by adults, and to me, that is just plain wrong.

I remember going from apartment to apartment in my old haunt, Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, New York, and I would get so much candy that even if I ate it, it would have taken me a year or more until the next Halloween or even beyond that to gobble it all up.

We dressed up, went around to all the apartments with our friends, and that was that.

Today, the holiday has been extended. Kids still go from dwelling to dwelling, but generally only go to houses that they know won't give them a trick.

Adults have taken over the holiday, and adults go to their own parties, but they don't trick or treat in the traditional sense, they just dress up and try to act as if they are nine years old again.

There is nothing like acting young, but I think Halloween bemoans the feeling that we should all grow up.

I am not going to knock Halloween as a money generator--it always has been, even when I was a kid, when our parents spent like $4 each year to buy our costumes, and spent probably the same amount on gobs of candy to give out to the kids--but today, it has gotten ridiculous.

Halloween is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year business, and that is why adults are now way too involved in it.

For me, we might get two or three groups of kids come to our door, but otherwise, we really don't get much of anything. People simply won't bring their kids to houses they don't know, and since there are no young kids in our house, we get bypassed. We have the decorations up, but it doesn't mean anything if people don't know who you are, even if you live in the same neighborhood.

There is that safety factor today, and communities, aware of this, have set up their own Halloween events, so as to keep the kids safe.

And again, we have that scary clowns nonsense this year, which yes, is kind of scary.

So personally, I would much rather wish myself a happy half birthday than to honor Halloween weekend, because the very essence of the holiday has been lost today.

And let me tell you, the kids don't know what they are missing.

They haven't a clue, and that really is a shame.

Speak to you again on Monday.