Halloween isn't a season. The season is Autumn.

Halloween comes once a year, and everybody has had their fun. But I would like to say, it's a bit too much for me now. I always ask myself, why all the candy? My parents were rather enlightened, and I should think they would have expressed some disapproval. I do remember them referring to their childhood, where young people were more inclined to do pranks than they are now. My father would never admit to us that he did anything, but a friend of his from high school once bragged about transporting an outhouse, complete with the pit and its contents, to the front lawn of the school. I think my parents were  afraid that we might torment some old or eccentric person, often the casualty of these pranks.

What I have come to dislike the most is the commercialism of the festival. Where are all the fall decorations? I tried to find some unusual pumpkins at the local supermarkets, but last year there have been only the jack o'lantern type for sale. I like to carve them myself, but I just bought a plastic Micky Mouse one that lights up, and put it on my porch. That was my statement. What I really wanted to do was to decorate the porch with several beautiful unusual varieties. That would be a better statement, if you will call it that.

 I think I would prefer a spider festival. The spiders in this area proliferate at this time of year, and decorate the houses with a ghostly fluff. I used to joke to my children, encountering a single strand crossing a pathway, that they were trying to catch humans. Most people hate spiders. I myself would never keep one as a pet. What if I discovered that it was not in its cage? I would have to live in a motel until it was found. On television, I watched an Amazonian native catch one, transport it, alive, in a cage he made from a leaf, and roast it at home on a stick. The person producing the film tried it, and said that it tasted like crab. If we had a spider festival, at least we would be teaching children to understand what they are afraid of, instead of learning how to be afraid of what they don't understand.

I will leave with this story: a small child is returning home from his Halloween rounds with a full bag of candy. On the sidewalk, a mean-spirited teenager stops him, and takes the candy away. He waits, munching on a Butterfinger, expecting the kid to cry. "I hope you get a pimple on your butt," the kid says, and runs away.

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A Letter from William McKinley, from beyond the grave...