Halloween Test (10-31-06)

Quiz time! Get out your number two lead pencils, your calculator and your thinking cap. No, I’m not talking about the A.C.T. examination; I’m talking about something a little less frightening: Halloween!

I think Halloween offers the ultimate test of community spirit. Thanksgiving and Christmas test our family loyalties, Valentine’s Day tests our personal relationships, and the Fourth of July tests our National pride.

But Halloween is all about community.

Think about it. On what other day of the year, do we let, (or actually encourage) our children to roam the streets after dark? What other holiday demands that our children approach perfect strangers and ask them for a handout? And how often are we asked to have give something to children we don’t even know?

Moreover, the celebration of this holiday can say a lot about an individual community. Some host costume contests and sponsored trick-or treating, while other towns may virtually shun the holiday all together. For good or for bad, no other holiday quite tests a community like All Hallows Eve.

Now, judging by all the community activities Hill City has planned, we are passing the Halloween Test with flying colors.

Just look at the list: a haunted house, built, operated, and attended BY THE COMMUNITY; a haunted film festival, a one-of-a-kind experience in Kansas that is run and attended BY THE COMMUNITY; a Sunday Night Halloween Party, again run and attended BY THE COMMUNITY. Then there is the PTO hot-dog-feed and the KAYS trick-or-treating tour, all run BY AND FOR THE COMMUNITY. If the Halloween Test was actually graded, I would give Hill City an A+!

But there is one other test: how our kids, (and sometimes our parents) behave on Halloween night. My family and I have personally witnessed the dark side of this holiday. In the past we have had our house attacked with eggs (which, incidentally, can ruin paint!), had the door handles of my car coated in Vaseline or Ben-Gay, had our Jack-O-Lanterns smashed, and had our yard desecrated with hedge apples and that good old standard, toilet paper.

And why? My family has always celebrated Halloween with plenty of decorations and an abundance of candy. But no matter how much we “treated”, we always seemed to be the victim of the “trick.”

At first I thought the abuse was payback for discipline I had given to disruptive students. But the vandalism continued for several years after I had finished teaching at the town school, I realized that we were simply one of many victims of a community that had failed the Halloween Test.

Every year, the local police would explain how parents not only allowed their children to terrorize the town, but often joined them. To these students and parents, Halloween was not seen as an opportunity to build up a community, but rather as a time in which to deface and destroy, all under the cover of darkness.

When we moved to Hill City, I was told that Halloween vandalism is not tolerated in this community. Hill City is better than that. In Hill City, Halloween is still a time of celebration, not a night of chaos.

By the time many of you read this column, it will be Wednesday, and Halloween will have come and gone. Still, it shouldn’t be too difficult to see the result of our Halloween Test in the trees and on the houses.

I believe that Hill City is a strong enough community to pass this test. My family and I are happy to be here, and we wish you all a very Happy Halloween.