It was a dark and scary night

My bosom childhood friend wrote me on my November birthday, reminiscing about fall days during school days. One Halloween my brother and I decided to have a party for our small circle of neighborhood friends. We went all out with spiderwebs gracing the cellar door entry to the basement (in those days they might have been real!), pumpkins carved and lit with sputtering candles and ghostly figures and goblins lurking in the shadows. Halloween was such a shivery departure from every other dark night - the possibility of lurking figures in costumes everywhere was so deliciously scary.

 And then there was the flinging of shelled corn on peoples' front porches. The frightening staccato noise probably scared us more than the comfortable people inside the lighted rooms! My mother drew the line at soaping windows on houses or cars, and reluctantly granted the corn as it could be swept away easily and eaten by God's creatures!

Why do we like to be scared, within certain boundaries and circumstances. I can still feel my heart pounding on those dark nights. We must have known instinctively there was a lovely circle of safety surrounding us.

Ah, how life has changed.