Tonight is Devil's Night...

[Samsa]

Well I'm just north of Detroit, which of course made Devil's Night rather notorious. Luckily these days it's known as Angel's Night, and there are hardly any fires being set. :eusa_clap

 

[deanglen]

Well I'm just north of Detroit, which of course made Devil's Night rather notorious. Luckily these days it's known as Angel's Night, and there are hardly any fires being set. :eusa_clap

I heard on WJR this morning that they had a few more than usual due to warmer weather. Those Devil's Night legends we heard when I was a kid about downstate were truly epics compared to the stuff that happened in TC.

dean

 

[Tommy Fedora]

We always called it Goose Night and I have no idea why.
We tossed eggs (usually at each other) and did the toilet paper tree thing.
Another thing we did was melt the tip of a shaving cream can around a small nail. After removing the nail the shaving cream then shoots out in a tight stream for a good distance. We had harmless fun.

 

[Lady Day]

This year I called it Tuesday.

LD

 

[RIOT]

hmm.. i wonder what kind of mischeif i could get myself in to tonight.. :whistling

 

[flat-top]

There were some creative kids in my old neighborhood back in the 70's;
they would make a pinholes in eggs, blow out the yolks and fill them with NAIR! They would of course aim for the head when they attacked.

 

[Ada Veen]

There were some creative kids in my old neighborhood back in the 70's;
they would make a pinholes in eggs, blow out the yolks and fill them with NAIR! They would of course aim for the head when they attacked.

Harsh indeed

 

[Miss Brill]

They just call it Halloween around here. No one does much of anything, sometimes they might vandalize a graveyard, but they don't start fires, or anything like that (yet).

The kids are super lazy here, they won't even walk to go trick-or-treating, you look out & all you see is cars dropping kids off in front of the houses with lights on. When I was little, getting out & walking from house to house was half the fun. You got cold, you got tired, it was time to go home. I don't know why they bother now. Oh yeah, free candy.

 

[Miss Brill]

There were some creative kids in my old neighborhood back in the 70's;
they would make a pinholes in eggs, blow out the yolks and fill them with NAIR! They would of course aim for the head when they attacked.

Oooh, yuck! That is awful! I never got egged, but when I was in the 1st grade, my best friend got egged--by her brother. We were walking home & all of a sudden she screamed & I looked at her and she had a egg smashed on her head. She was screaming "get it off!" and I wouldn't touch it.

 

[flat-top]

Oooh, yuck! That is awful! I never got egged, but when I was in the 1st grade, my best friend got egged--by her brother. We were walking home & all of a sudden she screamed & I looked at her and she had a egg smashed on her head. She was screaming "get it off!" and I wouldn't touch it.

I'll never forget the one Halloween when I was walking to a party that was around the block from my house. The streets were eerily empty. I heard footsteps behind me. A kid I'd never seen before appeared behind me with a carton of eggs. Walking fast turned into running and I got chased all the way to the door of the party house. As they opened the door and I leapt inside, eggs smashed against the wall right next to me.

 

[Miss Brill]

I'll never forget the one Halloween when I was walking to a party that was around the block from my house. The streets were eerily empty. I heard footsteps behind me. A kid I'd never seen before appeared behind me with a carton of eggs. Walking fast turned into running and I got chased all the way to the door of the party house. As they opened the door and I leapt inside, eggs smashed against the wall right next to me.

You didn't have any of the rocks you were always throwing with you that night?

 

[Flivver]

I had never heard of Devil's Night until I lived in the Detroit area for a few years back in the 1980s. At that time, the local radio stations would announce the Devil's Night "fire count" on Haloween morning:

"Only 326 fires were set in the Motor City last night...down from 355 last year".

It reminded me of the way the National Safety Council used to announce the death toll on American highways every holiday weekend when I was a kid.

 

[Edward]

Not one I'm familiar with at all.... Back in Ireland, it was all Halloween (which we invented, of course. ). There was occasionally someone from one of the churches would push the notion that Halloween was a "celebration of Satan", but for the most part those of us who grew up in God-fearing homes knew it was kjust a folk tradition, a bit of fun, a couple of days off school, and that was about the height of it. We were familiar with the English concept of Bonfire Night / Guy Fawkes, but that had no cultural resonance for us, and all our fireworks and bonfires were centred on Halloween.

Trick or Treat isn't quite what we had either.... what did go on was something which evolved out of the same roots - Halloween Rhyming. Kids would come to the door and say:

"Halloween is coming and the goose is getting fat,
Please put a penny in the old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do,
If you haven't got a penny, God bless you"

Or alternatively "God Bless you" might be replaced by "we'll chase you." Typically, it was a few pence were handed over (I guess the English equivalent would have been 'penny for the guy'); some folks handed out sweets, but that wasn't really the done thing much as we'd all been so heavily schooled into the "don't accept sweets/lifts from strangers / adults who aren't family" kind of campaigns. We were never allowed to participate in this - not out of any religious objections, but because my mother equated it with begging.

I'm sure there's a great phd thesis for someone in the sociology field to look at the evolution of the Halloween tradition. I'm intrigued by how it has changed - the move from the turnip to the pumpkin, as it were. I grew up with it as a folk tradition, and now living in England where it was, to my understanding, never all that big, I'm experiencing it as a commercial holiday sold back this direction from the US where it really is huge. In some ways I'd like it to be a touch less commercialised than it has become, but equally I do love that it is much more widely recognised now and something that is so familiar is so widely recognised in London now.

 

[Ada Veen]

Typically, it was a few pence were handed over (I guess the English equivalent would have been 'penny for the guy'); some folks handed out sweets, but that wasn't really the done thing much as we'd all been so heavily schooled into the "don't accept sweets/lifts from strangers / adults who aren't family" kind of campaigns. We were never allowed to participate in this - not out of any religious objections, but because my mother equated it with begging.

When kids said "penny for the guy" to my dad he used to give them a penny and take the guy!!!

(my mum always made him give it back, of course)

 

[flat-top]

BOO!

 

[K.D. Lightner]

I've lived on the East coast and the West coast, but Des Moines, Iowa is the only place where the kids go out to Trick or Treat on the night before Halloween. Not sure why they do that, but they did tonight.

Tonight here is called Beggar's Night or Beggar's Eve.

We put on our porch light; I sat out on the porch in a scary mask and handed out goodies to the kiddies who came to the door. Mostly wee ones with their parents. I saw a dinosaur, superman, a pirate, a Disney Princess (she said she was Belle), two tigers, a monkey, a skeleton, a football player, four ghosts, and various odd costumes, don't know what they were.

Mother enjoyed it immensely, she sat out on the porch with me. The weather was nice, in the 60's.

karol

 

[Bingles]

History of Halloween

Here is my mini-Halloween thesis from my blog:

I feel the need every year about this time to post something about the history of Halloween. Like most traditions and customs in the United States, people have forgotten the origins and meaning behind "our" annual observances.

The holiday has some roots in Celtic Ireland, with October 31st being the observance of Samhain, the Celtic New Year. It was also believed that on this day, the veil between the living and the dead was removed, and that spirits of the dead wandered the Earth bringing mischief to the living. It was customary for people to dress as "evil spirits" so that the ghosts of the dead would confuse them as one of their own, and leave them in peace. Also, they would hallow out and carve faces in turnips, and use these as lanterns to frighten off the spirits of the dead (pumpkins replacing turnips in the New World).

With the rise of Christianity in Ireland, Catholic customs and observances merged with existing practices. The Liturgical calendar of Church feast days and observances was re-arranged to include the feast of All Saints Day on November 1st, and the feast of All Souls (a time to pray for and remember the dead) to November 2nd.

The superstitions of evil spirits or mischievous ghosts still teased the imagination of early Christians, so these customs of jack-o-lanterns and dressing up on October 31st remained in tact. Because the night before a Holy Day included a Vigil Mass, October 31st was called All Hallows Eve (Hallows being an old English name for Saints), just as we have Christmas "Eve" in present day. Eventually, the name was shortened to "Hallow'een".

In England, in an attempt for Catholics to escape from the persecution of the crown, a members of an underground Catholic rebel group led by Guy Fawkes decided to blow up Parliament and put a Catholic back on the throne of England (known as the Gun Powder Plot). Guy Fawkes and his plan were discovered, and he was later sentenced to death. In November, to celebrate yet another Protestant victory over Catholics, English Protestants would bang on doors of Catholics demanding beer and cakes. Should the Catholic refuse to oblige, a prank or "trick" would be unleashed on the victim. In the New World, this custom of "trick or treating" was kept alive by Catholics as a way to remember the persecution they under went in their homeland.

In the United States (which I have been referring to as the "New World"), all these various traditions and customs blended as new immigrant groups began to settle here. The Irish custom of jack-o-lanters and dressing up (and also the French concept of the masquerade) merged with the Trick or Treating of Guy Fawkes day. The Catholic observance of All Saints and its remembrance of the dead on All Souls Day also merged into the modern catch-all holiday of Halloween.

The symbolism of ghosts, skulls and skeletons is significant because they are meant to remind us of our own mortality, and that life is transitory. This concept, as intensified by All Souls Day goes back to medieval times when people were obsessed with death and the need to prepare one's soul for Heaven. I find this aspect of the Halloween holiday to be exceptionally important and relevant in modern times since we now live in a society in which the here and now is all that matters. Our own comfort and material possessions are highest on our list, while we tend to forget the people and accomplishments that went before us. Halloween helps us to remember that all good things must end, and that "dust you are, and to dust you shall return". A sober reminder, and humbling thought.

Lastly, Halloween is a great time to look our fears in the face and laugh. Psychologically, it's good for use to face our fears once in a while.. especially in the controlled environment that Halloween presents us with. Dressing up as scary creatures or going to Haunted Houses for a good scream is a great way to at least temporally face our fears.

Sadly, Halloween is hotly contested by more radical or fundamental Christian groups who see it as an evil Pagan holiday. "They" tend to have very limited knowledge of the real practices of the actual Pagan holiday which Hallow'een replaced, which has no reference whatsoever to Satanic practices (Satan being a Judeo-Christian concept, not found in many Celtic or Pagan faiths).

 

[flat-top]

*gasp*

 

["Skeet" McD]

I grew up in the Hudson Valley in NY, born of parents who grew up in Providence RI, of Irish stock with admixtures at the grand-parent level from Quebec and Germany. Although always interested in history and folk customs—and loving Hallowe'en—I had never even HEARD of Devil's Night until I married my wife (a Michigander whose grandparents lived in Detroit). She, of course, assumed that EVERYONE knew about Devil's Night. And there you have it: a last, little bit of genuine regionality in American Folk Culture.

"Skeet"

 

[Tango Yankee]

Growing up in southern California I heard about Beggar's NIght, AKA Hobo's Night, but it wasn't really practiced except by teenagers who used it as an excuse to try to get candy from clueless adults the night before Hallowe'en. Growing up in the '60s and '70s I recall Hallowe'en as being a grand holiday which was celebrated with enthusiasm. Besides the trick-or-treating done by the kids (and which didn't start until dusk and went on until all the houses ran out of candy) the City of South Gate had all kinds of activities going on at the park, including an annual bonfire, battle of the bands, costume competitions, and a greased pole with a $100 bill on top--if you could get the bill, it was yours. The Allen Theater would show horror films.

As I recall, we children would go out trick-or-treating on our own (only the very young were accompanied by adults) while the parents stayed home to hand out candy. This being a suburb of Los Angeles and filled with Baby Boomer kids there were hoards of us running from house to house. It was a blast!

The only real negatives that I recall was when the local hospitals started offering to X-ray candy for worried parents due to fears of candy or treats with pins or needles stuck into them.

Nowadays you won't get home-made treats (or wouldn't be allowed to eat them if you did). Where I live now the county sherriff decrees when trick-or-treating will take place, and it WILL NOT be on Hallowe'en. It's always during the week, and always limited to a short window. I think this year it was between 5:30 and 7:00 PM. Where's the fun of trick-or-treating while it's still light out?

They say it's so they can concentrate police resources on dealing with vandalism on the actual Hallowe'en rather than be split between patrolling to protect trick-or-treaters and dealing with vandals.

The other odd thing to me as one who grew up in the suburbs is the situation rural kids are in. If they are to go trick-or-treating they have to be driven in to actual neighborhoods where they can go door to door.

Of course, growing up in southern California I usually didn't have to worry about having to be bundled up under a costume to stay warm while trick-or-treating!

Cheers,
Tom
Tom