Having successfully slain a few dragons – not all by any means – Cecil Poole is now able to continue with his look at Halloween in the US.

Halloween House

Previously  we looked at the ‘Trunk and Treat’ held mid afternoon at the local child care, lets see what else happens.  There are in this town two aspects to the day, the local neighbourhood ‘Trick or Treat’ for the kids, generally pre-teenagers, then there is the party on Main Street where dress up costumes, laughter and noise rule.

In our neighbourhood nearly all of the houses are decorated with cobwebs, spiders, ghosts, pumpkins, witches and tombstones.

The neighbours all agree to a start and finish time – usually starting at dusk, finishing two hours later.  At this time the children, often accompanied by even more eager (or is the odd case a reluctant) parent – usually the female partner –  trick or treat as many houses as possible.  These children and parents are dressed up as part of the trick.  At the various houses the fathers, grandfathers, uncles and other hangers-on sit, sipping beer and distributing treats after being suitably ‘scared’.  

This arrangement, with skeletons, tombstones and other child deterrents allows the home owner to place the treats in the top of the chute (white storm water pipe) and slide them down to a bucket at pavement level.  Thus the home owner is undisturbed on his porch.  Our next door neighbour, the one with the ‘Cotton-Candy’ (Fairy Floss) machine set it up right out on the footpath.  The queue was ten or more deep all night.

Costumes – well, see for yourself from this small sample

CREEPY OLD MAN

And the Creepiest of all:

Recently Cockburn wrote of the influence of Halloween on Australian society in this blog – See Holloween.  In todays report Cecil Poole looks briefly at the halloween experience in middle America and finds it brimming with creativity and social cohesion.  The commercialisation of this day is apparent, yet minor.

I’ve experienced two halloweens in the US, one in 2011 and now 2014.

3 Y.O. “THOR”

This year my 3 year old grandson and six year old granddaughter dressed in costumes, the former as Thor replete with hammer, and the latter as a bat in a costume resurrected by her and her Mom!  There was growing excitement in the days leading up to Halloween, with ‘Happy Halloween’ being a typical greeting.

During the afternoon of Halloween the Childcare parents lead with a “Trunk and Treat” event, where many parents dressed up and decorated the trunks of their cars and handed out treats – sweets, stickers, badges, masks and the like.

Oh dear, my grandchildren need my help slaying dragons, so I will have to finish this tomorrow.

Cheers

Sonnet 18 by William Sheakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Comments by Ira Maine, Poetry Editor

By Quentin Cockburn

Dear readers we present this unique opportunity to examine the influence of Halloween in suburban Australia, and shortly give a comparative commentary from our North American correspondent Dr Cecil Poole who is involved in field work related to the very same matter.

In Australia, Halloween is a recent phenomenon.  We used to have Guy Fawkes.

Guy Fawkes Bonfire

As kiddies, we’d mark off the days in rapt anticipation for November the 5th, and then, converge at the local footy oval and watch as the bonfire was lit, and stand in awe as atop the pyre a newspaper stuffed hand me down garbed ‘Guy’ was burnt to a crisp.  Them was golden days and you’d be in your highly flammable Onkaparinga or brothers worn chords, and run about with your own pile of crackers, blowing things up and chucking them hither and thither.  The Queen was similarly lauded as Queens Birthday offered another opportunity.  Two weeks in the year, to do stuff, earn some change and get crackers.  And of course the currency of choice, not sparklers nor flower pots and roman candles.  Crackers to make cracker guns, blow up milk bottles and annoy the crabby old duck down the road, by regular letter box and drain pipe immersion.

What did Macauley say about the Puritans and bear baiting?  I’ve quoted this ad nauseam. I paraphrase; “that they disapproved, not because of the cruelty to the bears but the entertainment it gave to the public’.  Puritans hate fun.  Inevitably, as the seventies morphed into the eighties, the do-gooders banned fireworks.  Progressively a black veil has been drawn over this country as once Canberra, and now the Northern Territory stands alone as the last place where kids can buy crackers.  And what has it done to us?  Another notch in the infantilisation of Australia.  They don’t ban them anywhere else other than in Australia. I t’s the cultural equivalent of six o clock closing.  Australia is not easygoing, that is myth.  We are insecure, suburban and risk averse.  Our kids are dying of obesity and boredom as a consequence.

So, shock horror, it has been replaced by Halloween, and Halloween’s good for business.  I suppose those same companies who used to export fireworks from China have diversified into shitty plastic Halloween costumes.  In this country there was no tradition of Halloween.  Not so now!  It’s commercial, ‘safe’, and promotes at a sub level the ethos of commercial transaction.  I think the receiving is higher on the list.  And though we cringe in fear at stranger danger we now send, (in the nicer suburbs) the kiddies with a parent in lieu door to door to trick or treat.  I don’t know if there’s much more than that.

You see, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament.  We get that.  Though contemporary Australia would not condone such a thing, even in jest.  But the Halloween thing has got me beat.  Why?…I think I know why.  In this country it is more banal than Fathers Day.  100% ersatz.  It is 100 percent commercial.  We don’t gather round the bonfire anymore or roll newspapers to sell to the butchers to get money for crackers.  And everything else that we use to do for fun, has been banned.  In the vacuum left by Guy Fawkes, Halloween has inserted itself.  It is 100 percent consumer oriented, and it is to my thinking, rightly or wrongly 100% American.  We do Anzac big here, but for a place without a soul anything grafted is infinitely better than celebrating something about ourselves, and shared traditions with the mother country.  And in particular the replacement of the Stuarts with the constitutional monarchy and a truly representative parliament.  The tradition of habeas corpus and a fair trial.  And what happened with the star chamber in light of the anti terror legislation is best forgot.

by Quentin Cockburn

What is it about old people?  What happens to make some of them so bloody angry, anti social and life denying.  The coalition gets there thanks to this ossified, encrusted detritus.  And I want to know why?

The kids have an annual fun run around the lake in Bendigo, they raise money for charity. Ten laps and you’d raise a small fortune.  Everyone, (allegedly) loved it!  There was fun and laughter and the ducks and swans rejoiced in the spirit of sharing and giving!  Quacking and trumpeting this spirit of togetherness and harmony across the lake.

But sadly there were those that did not laugh.  I see them every day.  They are the ones who do walking.  Not as a way of seeking communion with nature but rather as a ritual to be observed.  And out they go, depleted of happiness for their walk.  They wear fluoro vests, because as we all know walking can be ‘unsafe’.  That’s why they’ve installed signs to caution, “Dangerous Trees”.  They walk because it is healthy, and healthiness is what we as a nation strive for.  But I think, like the serious cyclists, they don their vest as uniform.  To indicate their solidarity as serious walkers, and for those without vests, Sneetches-like, they are the great unwashed.

But in all that dedication and seriousness, the safety and the resoluteness of walking in file – teeth gritted, and determined to demonstrate the collective, “this is doing us good,” they must have been shaken as children, (primary school children) wheeled about on scooters, tricycles, and trainer wheeled bikes.  And for those who eschewed the more conventional mode, roller blades, skates and boards.  Surrounded by all this laughter, the gaiety and exuberance of youth, what could the walkers do?  This invasion of their private space.  In a public place?

There was only one thing their stiffened resolution required, to band together and write a vitriolic note to the school principal and proclaim,  (I paraphrase) ‘Parks are not for children to gambol in.  Even fund raising children must be restrained.  Their fun is an affront to our earnest healthish-ness.  And besides if a skateboarder, laughing, uncorrected, errant,  should have an accident, or god forbid a collision, with one of us, there’ll be hell to pay’.

Mark my word.  So the circumnavigation of the lake ceased.  Now the children must walk, seriously in proper gym shoes, and perform their task for community in soulless coercion.  The killjoys won.  It reminded me of a time less than recently when an elderly person, in passing conversation pointed to the kids in the Bendigo Secondary Senior, whose university-like campus adjoins the park, proclaiming, ‘its spoilt’!! I looked around expecting to see rubbish and trampled beds, but all I saw was the flower of Australias youth, laughing, some kissing, and others kicking the footy in their public space.

What is it with these old people, or are these a specific type of old person?  The ones I know, and I’m seriously getting old myself are engaged with life and love children.  Half of them are still children themselves.  But I think it goes deeper.  It’s about outlook.  Conservative governments are all about telling the public what they can’t do.  Left leaning governments are all about inspiring people, the public at large, with what their potential is.  And what can be achieved though sharing, mutual respect and imagination.  Kevin Rudd was not left wing.  Somewhere in there, (we are in a conservative era now and it shows no sign of ending), lies the answer.

Today we have Roberta Connor’s conclusion to her thoughts on the Lewis and Clark expedition of the early 1800’s

Our tribal history is as ancient as our bond to the place the Creator gave us in which to live.  One of the recent modern chapters in our long history begins with the arrival of the army expedition led by Lewis and Clark into our homeland.  American history in the interior Pacific Northwest commences with their arrival.  Comparatively speaking, Americans are still the new kids on the block.  American Indians were largely exempt from the American ideals of democracy, justice, domestic tranquillity, common defines, and general welfare for most of the past two centuries.  The “Great White Father” could not provide what his voting citizenry did not require, and usually did not deliver on promises past presidents and congress made to Indians.  However the land and cultural teachings sustained us.

This history was, is, and always will be a story about our land.  The passage of time does not separate the story from the land, and our people have refused to be separated from this land.  By now, it must be clear we are not going to go away, or become extinct.  The immense and powerful United States needs to acknowledge tribal contributions to its development.  Our lands, knowledge, customs, sacred foods, and medicines have all been subject to unwelcome harvests by unethical parties.  And yet, tribes continue to try to inform and protect this still-young nation because this is our home.  The United States is a powerful nation that must do what it has promised.

We have been patient, we are not leaving.  But the land and the species that the Creator placed here with us need our help.  The way we all live has consequences for water and air quality and affects all the species with which we share this home.  Our tribes have undertaken natural and cultural management compacts and plans and implemented a host of projects to restore and protect many parts of the ecosystem.  There are many publicly owned lands in our homeland, and we are active participants in their future wherever possible.  Also, with the revenue our tribal enterprises provide, we have begun buying back the land, sometimes at seemingly rapacious rates, from the grandchildren of emigrant families.  Our imperative is constant; our tribes must protect our home and all the gifts from the Creator.

My grandfather’s great-grandfathers were little boys when Lewis and Clark expedition came into our homeland.  They would grow up and represent our people a the Walla Walla Treaty Council of 1855.  In their lifetimes, the hospitality, sincerity, and honesty of their parents would not save them from the travesty and tragedy of the unsettling of the West.  Their tribes went from being superior host to Lewis and Clark to being forced to cede almost all of their lands in their lifetime.

“Our people’s devotion to this land is stronger than any piece of paper,” my grandfather told my mother, when explaining his World War 1 tour of duty in France with the US Navy well before Indians had the right to vote.  That’s why he went to war when the United States had conflict with other countries.  That devotion is deeper than our mistrust.  It is more important than our wounds from past injustices.  It is tougher than hatred.  We continue to be inextricable from our homeland.  However modern tools and wars become, our bond to the place the Creator gave us is immovable since time immemorial.

From ‘Our People have always been here’ by Roberta Connor, in ‘Lewis and Clark through Indian eyes’ ed Alvin M Josephy, Jr.  2006 Random House.  Roberta Connor – Sisaawipam – is Cayuse, Umatilla and Nez Perce in heritage and a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

by Quentin Cockburn

Highest ranking on the WTF index, was Nova Peris and her leaked emails, much more salacious than the Barry Spurr emails, but less puerile, The upshot of it is that for Rupert and his stable Nova’s emails were of the public interest.  Really?  And we learnt that she had an affair fourteen years ago and though this has nothing to do with her life as M.P., it just goes to show that another high profile indigenous australian can be tarnished by Rupert’s cheerleaders, Bolts and all.  No such pangs for Rupert, Sir Rupert has many courtiers, and their plan to diminish us all is their daily reward.

The climate action now legislation was passed in parliament, no one can explain what it is, cept to surmise that the big polluters can help themselves to more of the public purse for not changing any of their bad habits, and an offshoot, the green army is set to work for team Australia.  No word on the isis front, cept to say there has  been a rumour that the only woman on the DLP front bench Julie Bishop is rumoured to be PM material….Victoria grinds to an election in which tweedle dee is set to replace tweedle dum, and Big road projects aren’t what’s promised, but I’m sure just like last time it’s what the public knows they will get.  Trucking companies, have more sway with politicians, well, better access to corporate boxes at the footy and cricket anyway.

On the Essendon football saga, no one, least of all James Hird, seems to have understood that it’s time to move on, and the Chinese have confirmed what everyone already knew that the document tendered by Clive Palmer as evidence that funds weren’t channelled to bankroll his electoral campaign was written this year and back dated to July last year.  Not since Ian Sinclair’s handwriting practice has such brilliantly executed transcripts provided amusement to the pubic at large. Coal being good for humanity, the climate commission is not to be wound down, presumably to look to clean coal.

Finally there’s good news for investors, the property bubble shows no sign of bursting yet, the late surge in Chinese investors is good for the real estate agents, and consequently there’ll be no significant inquiry of its impact on the next generation of younger Australians by current  members of the DLP.

Mr Stern, (close friends call him Lord) recently suggested that at current levels of CO’2 emissions, and disincentives for renewables puts Australia at the head of the pack for climate change deniers, to which the PM is justifiable proud.  His mantra ‘climate change is crap’ was well received by Cardinal Pell and Gerard Henderson alike.  There is a horse race this week in which the nation stops, though there’s no stopping the G20 who will be encouraged in spite of Lord Sterns pronouncements to not mention Climate one little bit. Richard Branson’s’, intergalactic spacecraft broke up upon re-entry and tragically an astronaut perished. Thousands died in West Africa, and the slaughter continues in Iraq and Syria.  For us in Team Australia, new legislation has been passed to make it very difficult for people to “leak”, say nasty things, about anyone, except those like Adam Goodes or Nova Peris; that’s a national pastime, and like Coal is un-stoppable.

A poem by Ogden Nash and dedicated to one of the great golfing predicaments, followed by comments from Ira Maine, Poetry Editor

SLOW DOWN, MR GANDERDONK, YOU’RE LATE.

Do you know Mr Ganderdonk, he is no Einstein, he has no theories of Time and Space,
But he is the only man I know can be both hare and tortoise in the same race.
Mr Ganderdonk’s proclivity
Is divoty Relativity.
Put him behind you in a twosome or a foursome,
His speed is awesome.
His relationship to your rear
Is that of a catamount to a deer,
And while you’re still reaching for your putter
He is standing on the edge of the green going mutter mutter,
But once through you in his foursome or twosome,
His torpor is gruesome.
He is a golfer that the thought of other golfers simply hasn’t occurred to;
He has three swings for every shot, the one he hopes to use, the one he does use, and finally the one he would have preferred to.
His world from tee to cup
Consists of those behind him pressing him and those in front holding him up,
Wherefore the rest of the world is his foe
Because the rest of the world is too fast or too slow.
For Mr Gandergook there is only one correct pace and that is his,
Whatever it is.

END

The glorious thing about Mr Nash is you either get it or you don’t, and half the fun is his assumption that;
Just so long as the words at the end of a line rhyme,
Everything’s fine.
And it is also de rigueur and Ogden Nash’s sacred wont
To ensure that they don’t
Get out of line
And for various reasons best known to fate,
Discover too late
That they have failed utterly and comprehensively to produce a nice shiny rhyme.

EPILOGUE

Oh was I foolish, was I rash?
To attempt to rhyme like Ogden Nash
If imitation’s the sincerest form of flattery
I’ll be trounced with literary assault and battery
And be accused of bats in the belfry
Because, what do I know?  I have never played golfery
Of masheying and slasheying and driving and putting
I know nothing.
So next time don’t listen, don’t give ear to my crewill rot
Gut,
Just say that my golf is something up with which y’will not
Putt.
P.S.
So, should he take to the golf links, pray, down to earth hunker,
Lest Ganderdonk blast a ball right up your bunker.

Or with greater erudition: