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| First Captain Underpants book |
Three of my grandchildren – boys ranging in age from 3 to 5
– are getting geared up for Halloween, it should go without saying. It’s a
great observance for that age group, when ghosts really do exist, and goblins…well…I’m
not really sure what goblins are myself. But they go with ghosts, that’s for
sure.
The older two of these three children, twins, are in
kindergarten now, where the real world outside their own home exists with all
of its variety. Accordingly, they are learning through their new friends
certain Halloween sayings that have not been part of their own Halloween
upbringing.
Thus, they have adopted, or at least mentioned, a new phrase
for begging for candy on Halloween night: “Trick or treat, smell my feet.” They
have taught this to their younger brother, of course, one of the benefits, or
liabilities, of being the youngest.
Really, what is the world coming to? “Trick or treat, smell
my feet.” Is nothing held sacred these days?
Their parents have admonished them for such a vulgar
utterance, and we – their paternal grandparents – have warned them that their
neighbors might not give out the goodies if the boys beg with that slogan, but
to not-much avail.
“Trick or treat, smell my feet” apparently tickles the
children’s funny bone, the way Captain Underpants captured the imaginations of
children long ago – around 2004, before these boys were born, certainly – but
yesterday in the minds of horror-stricken grandparents of that ancient era.
Speaking of which (ancient eras, not Captain Underpants), I
had my day in the harvest moon of past Halloweens, trick or treating through my
childhood neighborhood. But we were GOOD children. No smell my feet. Certainly
no Captain Underpants, or, if you will, the Bionic Booger Boy. Good, you won’t.
We were enamored of Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy,
and his ilk, and look how well we ran the country once we grew up.
Our saying at the doors we called on for candy way back in
my childhood was not marginally vulgar like today’s, but rather only mildly
threatening to donors’ homes (actually non-donors’ homes). We shrieked, “Trick
or treat (OK, so far), soap or eats.” Yes, “Trick or treat, soap or eats.”
Just think how clean cut we were in those days. Begging for
soap on Halloween. Unfortunately, the soap was not for personal hygiene (we
weren’t THAT goody two shoes). It was a threat that if they didn’t dish out the
candy, we would soap their windows. Smearing dry soap on windows is an
irritant, forcing the resident to wash those windows sometime before the hard
freeze or Christmas, whichever comes first.
It was an empty threat, though. We didn’t even carry soap,
except for one year when we targeted the home of a really nasty neighbor who
wouldn’t even answer the door on Halloween and chased us out of his yard on
every other day if we trespassed.
He would not forgive us our trespasses, just as we did not
forgive his, come Halloween. So we soaped him. But it might surprise some to
learn that a bar of dry soap, say 99 and 44 one hundredths percent pure Ivory,
doesn’t really make very good marks on windows at all. We should have used Fels
Naptha.
Growing up, I longed for the old days of Halloween pranks
described by my parents, the most prominently mentioned being the tipping over
of outhouses. There were plenty of outhouses in Duluth in the 1920s and, I’m
sure, ‘30s. I have it on very good authority that there were still 900
outhouses in Washington, D.C., in 1939, the year I as born, and adopting the
role of Major Diaper.
By the time I aged a bit and made it to the Halloween
rounds, though, there were no outhouses in our neighborhood to tip over, so we
made do with soap, which we used only that once. I’m a Halloween prankster
failure, looking back on it.
Back in the future, I look forward to seeing these three
grandsons on Halloween, and hope their parents have persuaded them to beg with
something other than “Trick or treat, smell my feet.” Or if they do, I hope
their neighbors will forgive them their trespasses, just as we forgive those
who trespass against us. Well, almost always. On Sundays at least. And All
Saints’ Eve.
