Halloween was invented by Dentists

Halloween 1958 was a memorable one for me. My mother made a Superman costume out of a red towel and a Magic Marker. I loved it but discovered real quick that I could not jump off my Uncle Henry's porch and fly and that if Keith Hughes shot me in the chest with a Daisy B B gun it would indeed hurt. It was the Halloween that I remember going trick or treating for the first time. It was the time that I learned that you could ring a door bell and that people would give you candy. Thinking it might work everyday was taught by next door neighbor Cleo Arnold that it only worked on Halloween night and to not to expect candy if rang her doorbell on November 1st. I wrote on these pages last year around this time about ringing Willie Cook's doorbell on Kiker Street back in the day that he gave out Snickers bars the size of a brick. Some people gave away sticks of peppermint candy, you remember the chalky type or Brach's hard candy or perhaps Hershey Kisses also known as silver bells by people back then. I remember some of the older folks that were visited by ghosts and goblins on Halloween night gave away pecans in the shell. Some who had lived through the Great Depression gave away pennies. You could buy something for a penny in those days. Howard Bowman's store on Head Avenue had individually wrapped jawbreakers and fire balls for a penny back then. Bertha Dryden also had penny candy at Jackson's Grocery out in Old Town. What can you buy for a penny now? When I told my students about growing up in Tallapoosa and could buy a Hershey bar and a Coca-Cola for ten cents, they look at me as if I was a John McCain bumper sticker in southwest Atlanta. Who among you remember nickle Cokes and five cent Milky Way bars? I recall my mother telling me that back when she grew up in the 1930s a sack full of candy could be purchased for a dime. I can't think of anything off the top of my head you can buy for ten cents today. A visit to Costco the other day for Halloween candy cost a small fortune but I promised myself growing up that Willie Cook knew how do do Halloween. I never forgot his generosity to kids.
Tallapoosa will have a great Halloween celebration. I hope it is a safe one on Friday the 31st. Watch out for excited kids darting into traffic in search of treats. Moms and dads please give your kids flash lights, check their treats before they eat them and go with them Halloween night. 50 years ago parents didn't have to. Today is a different story.
Are you all ready for the election to get here? Are you ready for the negative campaign ads that have soaked our television screens with mud to be over with? I haven't seen this much mud slung since Mallard Albright got stuck in a ditch over in Cleburne County in his '64 Chevrolet Impala.

Rhubarb Jones is a Tallapoosa native and is a Distinguished Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Director of Special Projects in the Office of Development at Kennesaw State University. Comments are welcome at Rhubarbjones@aol.com or by writing P. O. Box 1001, Tallapoosa, Georgia, 30176.