Those Who Know Best

Halloween has come and gone, and with it the frantic messages from Those Who Know Best about devil worship, paganism, impending planetary chaos, and general going-to-hell-in-a-hand-basket of those who celebrate and enjoy the holiday.

I think Halloween is fun. It used to be more fun when I was a kid, but that may have to do with the fact that I was a kid. I kind of think not, however. When I was a kid, the naysayers may have been around, but they didn’t have such a large presence in American life (except for Jo McCarthy, of course). At that time Halloween hadn’t eclipsed Christmas as a moneymaker for businesses and manufacturers of costumes and decorations.

We carved a pumpkin - without advice from Martha Stewart. Our jack-o’-lanterns were were crude, and they all had triangular teeth, but we had fun making them and throwing the slime at our little sisters, and we got to roast the seeds and eat them. Or not. We made our own costumes instead of buying them. Our parents helped us put them together, and frequently we used old clothes from a box pulled out of the attic. In those days, we had attics, too.

In the middle Fifties we went trick or treating for two nights - I was an elementary school student living in Albuquerque. We went out for hours. It was dark. People gave us popcorn balls and apples. And we ate them without incident - except for the sugar overload from all the candy (which was made with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. How did candy makers manage in those days?) We were gypsies or hobos or cowboys or old men (never President Eisenhower) and we bought rubber masks that we filled with sweat as soon as we put them on.

And no one told us how sinful we were. It was a time to let loose and be someone else, if only for a couple of hours.

What I find most irritating about Those Who Know Best about religion, is that they have lost track of the idea that in America we get to chose how we worship. And those who chose not to worship have that option too. No one in the United States is allowed to force their ideas onto anyone else. It's guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

I have learned that once we make up our minds, it’s pretty useless to try to change us. I have give up arguing about religion and politics because all it does is raise my blood pressure and alienate my friends. To my chagrin, I never change anyone’s mind.

Those Who Know Best don’t understand that. And they seem to have no concept of the doctrine of Free Will. You know, the one that says God isn’t the puppet master using us as marionettes to perform His (Hers? Its?) every whim.

I am going to believe what I believe whether anyone else likes it or not. I may pay the occasional lip service to other people’s ideas to get them off my back, but more likely I say that I have my own beliefs and they are entitled to theirs. As long as theirs don’t step on mine.

And that’s the way it is with Halloween. And Harry Potter books, and ghost stories. I can enjoy them without buying into whatever Those Who Know Best think is behind them. Like Christmas in America and Martin Luther King Day or Veterans' Day Mattress Sales, Halloween has taken on a life of its own and people of every stripe and feather celebrate it without regard to its origins.

And somehow, whether I like it or not - and even if Those Who Know Best don’t like it at all - that’s all right.

Please feel free to comment below (even, or perhaps especially, those of you who went Halloweening as Republicans wearing Sarah Palin - Jeb Bush 2012 tee shirts. Just because you’re entitled to your beliefs, doesn’t mean I don’t get to tease you occasionally).