Happy Halloween!

Here's a nostalgic Halloween photo for all you cat lovers, right out of the pages of the September 1955 issue of Ideals magazine.

Ideals was a terrific coffee-table magazine that came out several times a year for more than 50 years, filled with inspiring stories, essays. nostalgic articles and poems that coincided with the change of seasons. It also had great full-page photographs like the one above.

Unfortunately, it ceased publication a number of years ago. I guess its heyday had passed.

I have a couple of vintage issues from the 1950's, and they are a lot of fun to look at. Normally I'm not a big fan of poetry, but the short collection of verses in each issue (by both well-known and anonymous authors) are fun to read and really put me in the mood for whatever holiday that particular issue is celebrating.

Here's one of them from the September 1956 issue.

Hallowe'en
by Fretia Young Miller

While the owls screech
And the huge bats fly,
The old witch rides
Her broom thru the sky


And down in the valley
In the farmer's corn,
Stands the old scarecrow
With the goblin's horn.


And while he blows
There gathers 'round
The eerie ghosts
Of Cemetery Town.


There also are the
Green-eyed cats
That paw and yell
At the huge black bats.


And while I stand
And gaze at the sky,
The phantoms pass
Of days gone by.


All the ghosts
Both fat and lean
Gather together
For a gay Hallowe'en.

****

Speaking of nostalgic Halloweens, for the second year in a row the spouse and I have found ourselves down in Butler, Ohio right in the middle of their trick-or-treat night. It was a real time-warp – and one of the highlights of our weekend.

Let me explain.

Each year we try to head down to Mohican Lodge around the end of October to enjoy the fall colors in the park. On Saturday night we have dinner at Dutch Heritage restaurant, and on the way back to the Lodge, we have to pass through Butler on State Route 97.

Now according to its Wiki entry, Butler only had a population of 921 people at the time of the 2000 Census. And I think every one of them participates on trick-or-treat night, which for the second year in a row coincided with our drive through town after dinner.

The whole scene was old-fashioned and surreal. Friendly firemen had firetrucks parked at both ends of Ohio 97 at the entrances to the city, and were handing out candy and posing for pictures. Parents escorted their kids of all ages, attired in great homemade costumes, along the main street. People, some wearing costumes themselves, sat on the front porches of old houses holding huge bowls of candy to hand out, taking in the whole scene.

We saw no roving gangs of kids running around unescorted; no carloads of out-of-town trick-or-treaters horning in on the neighborhood fun.

I suppose this sounds very much like any other city's typical trick-or-treat night. But there was something heartwarming and nostalgic watching Halloween unfold against the hilly Central Ohio backdrop in the tiny village that dates back to the late 1840's.