(HOST) As Halloween approaches, commentator Deborah Luskin is looking forward to another visit from the Green Mountain Mummers.
(LUSKIN) As a child, Halloween was my favorite holiday. I lived in a suburban neighborhood, and one of my brothers used to lead me door to door for five square blocks – a long way for a little kid to haul a pillowcase full of candy. Back home, my mother made us toss anything that wasn’t wrapped, and my father introduced us to the concept of taxation – he levied a chocolate bar from each of us. What was left was mine. I don’t remember eating it. At the time, hoarding it seemed to be the point.
As a teen, I lived in an exurb, where Halloween traditions were more about misrule. Under the pretense of trick-or-treating, we blackened our faces and prowled the countryside in packs divided by gender: gaggles of girls shrieking with delight when chased by a group of boys. Go figure.
With one notable exception, I didn’t celebrate Halloween for a long time. The exception was the year before my husband and I married, when we showed up at a party as Adam and Eve. All I can say is: we were much younger then.
My attitude toward the holiday changed again once I had children of trick-or-treat age. During those years, I loathed Halloween. At best, I thought it was a conspiracy between candy manufacturers and the American Dental Association, working together to rot my children’s teeth. So I tried to focus on costumes. Every October, I spent weeks feeding slippery fabrics through the sewing machine while the rest of the world slept. Happily, my husband is still a child at heart, so he’d dress up and take the kids out. I’d stay home and greet those who ventured to our door. Even without a costume, I was easily recognized as a witch.
My evil attitude toward the end of October came to an abrupt end a couple of years ago, when the Green Mountain Mummers came to town. I was walking to the Post Office when a dozen people with green paint on their faces climbed out of a van. Even in Williamsville, this is unusual, so I stuck around.
In short order, a small audience materialized, and the mummers performed a play that was part old English folktale, part biting political commentary – and all entertaining fun. As in most Mummer’s plays, this one involved a battle between good and evil, and a quack doctor with a magic potion, who brings the slain good guy back to life. True to its folkloric heritage, the play ended with a circle dance and song celebrating the end of the agricultural season and the promise of rebirth in the spring.
So now, I look forward to the Mummers return to reenact the spirit and superstitions of the old, agricultural ways. Turns out I have a pagan heart after all.