Postcards from the Rogue Valley

In the 1950’s, when I was growing up in New Jersey, Halloween was not a family affair. I couldn’t imagine my father dressing up as Captain America or my mother as a poodle-skirted Dream Girl and getting in on the action—nor, I’m sure, could they. 

What I remember, actually, was the night before Halloween, called Mischief Night, when my friends and I (then pre-teens) roamed the neighborhood putting trick before treat. 

Mid twentieth‑century New Jersey, I’ve since learned, was an epicenter for Mischief Night, although cities like Detroit had their own version with setting fires a favorite choice. We were a timid bunch, though, living in a college town, and our mischief was tame: knocking on doors and then hiding, toppling garbage cans, and, on occasion, soaping car windows. Our parents (at least mine) seemed to look the other way. 

The potential for Halloween to get rowdy, though, had been around for a long time.  In 1920, Anoka, Minnesota (pop. 17,000) reportedly became the first city in the United States to put on a Halloween celebration to divert its youngsters from Halloween pranks. 

“When Anokans awoke to find their cows roaming Main Street, windows soaped and outhouses tipped over, they decided something had to be done,” the town website says. ”A costume parade and block party seemed like the perfect trick!”

Thursday’s Halloween Parade down Ashland’s main street (here, every holiday deserves a parade) was a decidedly 21^st century affair. Phantasmagoric characters—like a 6’5″ Frankenstein flanked by two middle-aged maidens covered in ruffles—and social statements—a misshapen GMO pumpkin, a zombie tethered to its iPad—shared the runway with young families dressed as a team, from cowboys to creatures.

Technically called the Children’s Halloween Celebration and sponsored by the Ashland Chamber of Commerce, the parade was originally intended for the 12 and under set. Adults soon joined the fun—first parents marching alongside their kids, expanding to include adults marching childless (that is, without the beneficial supervision of kids or grandkids).

The insertion of unsupervised adults has been a bone of contention. A few weeks shy of the 2011 parade, the local Mail Tribune announced “THERE WILL BE NO OFFICIAL CARAVAN of goblins, ghouls and every other costume imaginable this Halloween in Ashland,” under the headline, “Ashland cancels popular Halloween parade.” 

According to the Chamber of Commerce, rowdy adult participants caused the cancellation. “The type of feedback that the Chamber was getting from parents was that their kids weren’t having any fun in the parade … that children felt intimidated,” explained the organization’s marketing director.

Although the parade rules were clear—participants’ costumes could not include any nudity, profanity, lewdness, illegal drugs, violence, obscenity, racism or offensive content—too many of the costumes were not “appropriate for a family audience,” the Chamber said.

A week later, the Chamber declared that it would reinstate the parade after being bombarded with letters and phone calls from sad or angry parents and children.

“We were surprised to find out how many people loved the parade, especially how many children loved it,” the Chamber’s Executive director said. 

The parade would have a hierarchy, everyone agreed: kids and parents would go first, followed by unsupervised adults.

When this year’s parade kicked off, however, it looked as though the adults were in the lead. Gaily costumed and feathered adults of all ages swirled around a marching band, sometimes sweeping into onlookers. Spirits were sky high, though the toddlers seated next to me seemed a bit stunned.

Minutes before, I had chatted up some of the participants.

“Can you imagine your parents dressing up and joining you in a Halloween parade when you were young?” I asked Leah and Tim, dressed as black cats with their kitten, Alex, looking up from his stroller.

“Egads!” said Leah. “My mom is agoraphobic and the opposite of flamboyant. My father, he’d sooner die.”

When I asked thirty-something Anna and her partner the same question—they were elegantly sheathed in black with their sequined 3-years-old Sonia and a new baby—Anna’s mother (and Sonia’s grandmother) chimed in. “The answer is no!” she said. “But here I am now, better late than never. I flew in from Denver. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” She, too, wore a black gown.

The GMO pumpkin and I had already crossed paths. “What brings you here?” I asked.  “The chance to mix protest and whimsy,” he explained.

I ran into my seventy-something friend, Sophia, dressed as a deer and accompanied by three women of the same age, dressed as pansies. “I’m not allowed to eat them,” Sophia said.

I encountered a family of four dressed as pizza slices. I asked the dad, “So do you guys love pizza?” “I used to own a pizza shop,” he answered. When I asked his 7-year-old son how he liked wearing a 3-foot pizza slice hanging from his neck, he told me: “I’d rather be a superhero.” (Later I noticed a mother dressed up as Super Mom with a black cape and a red bathing suit surrounded by her three kids, all sporting superhero costumes.)

We have come a long way from Halloween’s origins in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts, when the line between the living and dead became blurred, when the end of summer and the harvest gave way to a dark and cold winter. 

Along the way, like a snowball, Halloween has picked up cultural artifacts of the time—from the 17^th century masks of Italy’s Commedia dell’Arte to the rainbow crinoline slip I wore trick or treating in 1950’s New Jersey to today’s Spider-Man and inflatable dinosaurs.

Most of all, Halloween has become a public party for all ages and for the ages.

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