From the East Wing Trick or Treating with the Toto Volunteers back in the day, The Cat & The Costume

Greetings to all and welcome new visitors to the East Wing.

Gingerbread, now that’s something special if there ever was something special. As a kid we didn’t get a lot of sweets. Gingerbread was special, rare but sooo special. Warm Gingerbread with apple butter and cold sweet milk. It don’t get any better than that. I don’t care who ya are, if ya don’t like Gingerbread, apple butter and sweet milk, ya just weren’t brought up right, or you aren’t a hillbilly.

Last weeks email brought a request from an old friend and one of the original members of the Toto Volunteers, asking if I still had a copy of last year’s Halloween Story from the East Wing. I did. And as such, please rewind Halloween 2009. It was a fun story to tell, and today I found it fun to reread.

The biggest holiday, hands down, in Downtown Toto when I was a kid was Halloween. Now ya had the other important stuff like Easter, 4th of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Jefferson Davis’s Birthday (some habits were hard to turn loose) but none of those holidays could compare with Halloween. It was a holiday built just for hillbilly boys in their middle tens and elevens.

It was the time that tried boys souls, a time to test the courage, to face the fears of the nighttime knowing things were out there and not knowing what or where. A time to see if the testosterone had started working yet. A time to be both horror-struck and happy all in the same heartbeat. A time to scare little sisters. A time to say boo, and mean it. A time to step into the shadow of the valley. A time to march, to prowl the darkness in the company of your band of brothers, we were the Toto Volunteers. We still are.

The Halloween Bounty seemed unlimited, so much so that we, the Toto Volunteers, never made any attempt to control its access. We could have, we chose not to. Toto could have become the model Trick or Treat Community for the National Standard of Trick or Treat, had we choose to make it so. We could have, we chose not to.

The reason for such actions on the part of the Volunteers is as valid today as when the War Council deliberated on that very issue. There was a fraction within the ranks who wanted to do to Halloween what we had been so successful in our summer campaign. Just the summer past, we had collected more pop bottles then most of the army thought existed in the world. We’d won the Pop Bottle Wars of Toto.

The issue of the Halloween Candy was brought to the War Council not by inexperienced people with no knowledge of war, but from people seasoned by fire on the front lines of the Pop Bottle Wars. People who were even as old as 11 and one even held the rank of sergeant.

Now in the Toto Volunteers we had a little different ranking system than the regular army. Ours was more simple. I got to be the General, there were two sergeants, and everybody else got to be a privates. That way we didn’t have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out who was in charge. Besides, we didn’t have different uniforms so it was a lot easier to just remember a few to salute, otherwise everybody would be saluting each other all day long for nothing.

The Halloween Options as they would become know to the Volunteers were quite simple, two different options. The first option being the Toto Volunteers go Trick or Treating the night before the real Halloween and then go again the next night, that way everybody gets twice as much stuff. The second option would be for the Volunteers to just charge everybody Trick or Treating in Toto, and not a member of the Volunteers, a nickel. It was just two weeks till Halloween and the council wanted to make a decision right there, but I told ‘em the decision was too important, it’d have to wait for a while. I had to think this one out.

One of the things I learned by being the General of the Toto Volunteers was when I didn’t know what to do, I could always ask my dad. I’d act like I was just a little kid asking a dumb question, not like the general seeking consultation on an issue of possible war. When I talked to my dad about such important matters we usually done our man to boy talks on the porch swing, even in late October man to boy talks worked better in the swing on Sunday Evenings just ‘bout dark.

As we sat swinging I said “Did ya ever go trick or treating?” My dad said “Yep” “Did ya ever go trick or treating the day before Halloween?” My dad said “Nope” I said “why not?” My dad said “Did ya ever have a birthday party a day before your birthday? Could ya have the 4th of July Picnic the day before? What would happen to Christmas if ya didn’t have the 25th of December, not the 24th but the 25th?” I was starting to see my dad’s point of view on this issue of trick or treating one day early as we swung together on the front porch in the crisp autumn air just nine days before Halloween.

I said “Ya think a person could make somebody pay to go trick or treating” My dad said “Not in Toto, cause everybody that tricks or treats in Toto don’t have any money to start with, and besides who would be dumb enough to even try to get somebody to pay to go trick or treating?” I didn’t say nothing. One of the good things about talking with my dad in that swing was he didn’t make me say anything if I didn’t want to, and right then I didn’t want to.

So there is was. Ya can’t go the night before ‘cause that’s dumb, and nobody’s got any money and if ya even ask someone to pay that’s dumb too. My dad imparted a great deal of wisdom from the confines of that swing on the front porch in Downtown Toto. He made my job of generaling a lot easier on more than one occasion.

Well, I had my answers now I only had to deal with the Toto Volunteers. I spent most of that night trying to figure out a way to get the War Council on my side. I knew what I had to do but wanted the them to tell me, not me tell them. Somewhere in the darkness, about the time today turned into tomorrow and became yesterday I finally figured a way to present my views to the Council. The next day I called an after school meeting of the War Council of the Toto Volunteers. We met on my front porch.

Now one of the downside products of victory on the battle field is the overwhelming desire to repeat the same feat over and over again. I was not about to let that happen to the Toto Volunteers. As soon as everybody was present I presented my plan. The plan was simple. I couldn’t choose which one I liked best so we would do ‘em both.

But for the trick or treat the night before Halloween we’d all have to have get our moms to sign a letter saying we could go out after dark just in case someone wanted to know why we were there at their house a night early for trick or treat, so we could tell ‘em our moms said we could come trick or treating early. Also everyone had to ask their mom if she thought it would be ok to charge people for trick or treating in Toto.

I had printed out a letter to give every volunteer. Because I ran the mimeograph machine at California Township School I ran off 14 copies of the letter. I had printed it on a stencil and it looked really professional, and most every word was spelled ok. As the volunteers read the letter, ya could still smell the mimeograph ink, it was that blue kind and it had its own smell, ya couldn’t describe it, ya could just smell it. I could tell by their looks that they were gona have a hard time getting their mom to sign that letter. I knew I sure wouldn’t ask my mom to sign the letter.

One kid said “my mom’ll kill me if she sees this letter, I’m not gona take it home”. He brought his letter back and reached it to me saying “let’s just go regular trick or treating”. Some of the others thought we could still do both options. My faith was in the letter.

The next morning at the bus stop not a single volunteer who took the letter home wanted to talk about it. One kid said “I might not even want to go trick or treating this year, I don’t know if I do or not. I’ll just have to wait till Halloween an see”. The plan was working. Two days later the War Council of the Toto Volunteers made a decision to do regular trick or treating in Toto and to make sure nobody would ever do anything except regular trick or treating in Toto forever in the future.

We, the Toto Volunteers, took a solemn oath to forever protect the unbridled right to trick or treat in Toto Indiana on Halloween without interference from anybody forever and ever. That right to trick or treat in Toto has been protected to this day.

And then came the politicians, regulating trick or treat hours. I think it was a republican thing first, probably too damn tight to buy candy for little kids. Then the democrats jumped on the band wagon, probably with a bribe of some sort from the republicans. A pox on both their houses, to even think ya can regulate Halloween.

Next thing ya gona hear is some smart ass in Washington will propose to make Halloween a federal holiday and place on the last Monday in October, in order to bring it in line with the other fake Monday Federal Holidays. It wouldn’t surprise me if Obama tries to move Easter to the day after. Easter Monday doesn’t have a good sound to it, but one less work day for the democrats.

Now towns announce the time to go trick or treating. Trick or treating at 3:00PM is like kissing your sister at high noon in a public park, it’s just not that much fun. The question that comes to mind is what ya gona do if some little monster tricks or treats before or after the set deadlines?

Now if ya shoot ‘em all ya get the guilty. I think we need a Halloween Czar. Hey Sophia!!! OH MY GOD ! Sophia’s dressed up like a democrat!

Now the fall season kicks in to high gear on this last Sunday of October, 2010, it’s Halloween. We have all enjoyed you company as usual. As the shades of nighttime are closing around us, goblins, large and small, are marching into the East Wing demanding stuff like Candy Corn, Milk Duds in those little yellow boxes, Pop Corn Balls rolled up in Saran Wrap, Jelly Beans and Milky Ways, not the regular ones, the little kind, ‘bout half the size of your index finger. Halloween, gota love it. Dressed up like a democrat!!!

Stay safe in Afghanistan

From the East Wing Trick or Treating with the Toto Volunteers back in the day, The Cat & The Costume
I wish you well,
BobbyRay