Entertainment
15 October, 2021
Wayne’s World: The night of the ‘grateful dead’
G’DAY Tropicairnsians,
A lot of people tell me that we should not celebrate Halloween because it is an American tradition not Australian.
You must be kidding. This is a chance to go nuts with whatever form of costume you can think up, because there are no rules with Halloween.
The thing about Halloween is that it seems to have originated in Ireland, about 1745, called the Festival of the Dead.
A night for the souls of the dead to revisit their homes seeking hospitality.
Places were set at the dinner table and by the fire to welcome them.
The belief that the souls of the dead return home on one night of the year and must be appeased, seems to have origins in many cultures throughout the world.
The concept of trick or treat is simple, if there are no treats for the dead to enjoy, they will play their ghoulish tricks on you.
When I lived in my house in White Rock, every year I would endeavor to have some Halloween set up for the neighborhood ghouls.
First year, this consisted of me making about 50 bags of lollies, that disappeared in 30 minutes flat, resulting in me turning off all the lights and hiding on the back patio.
The next year, was a bigger, better, faster set up, with about 100 large bags for the ghouls, and smaller bags for the non-ghouls, but the best part was, this time I got a little dressed up too.
I managed to survive for about an hour, before again running out of treats and hiding on the back patio.
Those neighbourhood kids must have discussed which houses had the best treats, and planned their attack from there.
As the years went by, I got better at decking out the front yard.
Bucket loads of sealed bags of treats and dressing up in some bloody scary costumes, and the kids learned that if they made the effort to dress up, they would get larger bags of treats than those who didn’t.
Overall, by the end of the night everyone had fun and I even managed to scare the crap out heaps of kids and adults.
After selling the house and moving into an apartment, sadly the days of that type of fun has gone.
Now I get dressed up and walk the streets with my grandkids, having heaps of fun, watching and joining the fun of trick or treating houses myself, with last year dressed up as Beetlejuice.
We started walking around Sugarworld area as a group of 4, but within 5 minutes there was about twenty-five of us walking together laughing, screeching, and collecting heaps of treats and there were even families setting up sausage sizzles for all the ghouls as well.
Come October 31 this year, this numbnuts is getting dressed and painted up to the hilt.
I may have to spend the day at the big green box, dressed as who the bloody hell knows what, but after 6pm its either off to do the scare the living daylights out of a neighborhood, walking with the grandkids or head into the city to stir up some laughs and get some free drinks.
Vincent Price, ya would be proud.
Wayne
