Halloween from Hell

I wrote this in October, 2002 as an email to some folks:


Last night we were much decorated for Halloween. We have gravestones, ghosts in the trees, hands coming from the ground, legs and shoes falling into the ground a witch slammed into our front window etc. It was fun. The girls and friends were out trick or treating and I did the candy.

Afterwards we went to a party with the kids hosted by our neighbor. The neighbors are from the US, and are part of an extreme right-wing Christian group, who do celebrate Halloween and drink beer, so they seemed OK. The group, many of who are my friends, is a bit spooky, not in a Halloween kind of way.

There is one guy with who I have never really had a conversation, who was always telling someone about his misspent youth as an atheist, and now he has found Jesus and his life has turned around.

I was talking to a minister, as so many of them are, about public speaking, and it was a normal conversation, on a sort of ministerial level. I was once a best man in a church wedding in Detroit, and standing with the groom on the alter I told the minister that my mother had warned me about going up on church alters and how I may get sucked into some vortex and never return. It didn’t happen.

The host and I discussed the death of the Colt’s Johnny Unitas and it’s implications for our generation. He was from Baltimore so we have some stuff in common. It’s just always a little bit weird. I keep thinking they really want me to come to God and I want to stay home.

I never returned to the fold after that night.