Them Ol' Halloween Blues
The Methodists got a strong hold on my Grandmama in my teen years. Not that she ever allowed me to participate in Halloween festivities anyway. “Is the devils birthday." She would spit through her dentures, cracking on a piece of pork skin. Rocking in her wooden rocker that sat below the old tapestry of an Anglo Christ that hung in the den. She used that tapestry as a blanket for her legs in the winter time while she read her Bible, listened to gospel music and ate too many ginger snaps. “Ain't nothing but a bold-faced declaration of witches and devil worshipers." Never mind she fixed up strange smelling potions in bowls put under my bed at night to bade my nightmares (it worked). Never mind her broom-spitting, non-pole splitting, ancestral-altar worshipping. "But grandmama, I just want to trick or treat with my friends. I'll even dress up as an angel," I'd promised her, begging on my knees at her lap. I only wanted to experience what had been impressed upon me my entire life, the single most thrilling, theatrical, and mesmerizing night of the year.