Halloween Haiku and A Halloween Memory

Originally Written Between 2013-2015

Seven little ghosts

Sitting on a wobbly fence

Fall onto the ground.

 

Up, up in the sky

Flutter flutter little bat

Please don’t land on me!

 

Trick or Treat says I

Believing I will get some

But no one was home.

 

I am in the dark

Real monsters walk around me

But my eyes are closed.

 

This Halloween night

Many creatures walk around

Yelling “Trick or Treat.”

 

Oh my sweet pumpkin

You are such a funny sight

With only one tooth!

 

Oh, Jack O Lantern,

You were a sturdy pumpkin

Growing on a vine.

Writing about Halloween Haikus reminded me of a “Trick or Treat” story from when I was about eight years’ old.  My sister, Joanne, and I were in my grandparent’s neighborhood “making the rounds” as they say…. since our own neighborhood consisted of two houses – ours and the Amundson’s home. 

Anyway, we were getting quite a haul of candy when we came to Mr. Pelowsky’s home.  He was a very old man who, in an eight year old’s mind, was very scary – especially on a Halloween evening.  

We knocked on the door and when he answered, we said, “Trick or Treat!”  To which Mr. Pelowsky replied, “Okay, show me a trick.”  Well, you can believe that this was the first time I ever heard that!  Joanne simply looked at me like I was supposed to know what to do.  I had just started taking piano lessons and noticed that he had a piano in his living room.  So, I said that my trick would be playing a song for him on the piano.  I played “Three Blind Mice.”  And, then quickly grabbed my sister and ran to the next house – completely forgetting to get our candy from Mr. Pelowsky.

Times certainly have changed from forty or fifty years ago, haven’t they?  First of all, my parent’s did not accompany us on our trick or treating route.  We were not afraid to enter a stranger’s home (a single old man, yet!).  Our candy supply consisted of apples or oranges, popcorn balls, caramel pieces, candy corn, and maybe, if we were lucky….. a large tootsie roll (the kind that cost 5 cents).   Our costumes were always homemade.  We used real candles in our pumpkins and we couldn’t see where we were going since the little holes in our masks were too tiny to actually see through.

And so, I’d like to close with this Halloween Haiku:

“Little did I know

That Mr. Pelowsky’s trick

Was for him, not me!”