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Halloweenies -- The ghouls of political correctness take the fun out of being a kid
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Saturday, November 01, 2003 | Francine E. Rose

Posted on 11/01/2003 12:12:30 PM PST by Willie Green

Edited on 04/13/2004 2:35:23 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

Halloween is over, but I can still see beaming ghosts and goblins, witches and sorcerers, monsters and hip-hop stars parading around outside my local elementary school yesterday. They were the lucky kids; many schools offered only "harvest celebrations" yesterday.

The harvest celebrators saw Halloween as someone else's holiday. When my children were in preschool, both Jewish and Christian schools objected to Halloween. The Jewish preschool teachers explained to me, a Christian, that Halloween celebrated a Christian holiday, All Saint's Day. Though I grew up Catholic, this was news to me, but OK, no Halloween party in Jewish preschool. One year later, in a Christian preschool: no Halloween party because Halloween was a devil-worshipping, Satanic holiday.


(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: halloween; pc
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To: nmh
Georgia was a ROMAN CATHOLIC founded colony. They were English Catholics and did NOT celebrate Halloween, as the English, Catholic or Anglican, or Puritin, didn't continue many of the earlier practices of the Celts. Yes, they bobbed for apples, had certain games, which were playacting " divination ", but many of the same kinds of games were also performed at Christmas time.

The Puritans, and all other English colonists, didn't celebrate Christmas, as we do today either. The reason for that is very simple, our oresent day Christmas celebrations weren't in practice until after the Christmas of 1843 and Charles Dickens' publication of " THE C HRISTMAS CAROL "! Oliver Cromewell, had just about done away with every kind of Christmas celebration, when he took power and they were NEVER restored, in England, to their former " glory "; much of which was pretty wild, ribald, and pagan!

If you'de read more articles, books, etc., which offer more than just YOUR perspective, you just might not post such foolish posts here.

Oh, and FYI, the Druids NEVER believed that they were placating " tormented souls " of the dead. Samhain was one of their high holy days and commemorates the death of one of their gods ( as many of their Sabbats do, which,BTW, was an alligorical representation of the changing seasons ! )and also a time when there was a " crack " opened between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

What you don't know,about Halloween, would fill up untold reams of paper/space, and waste bandwidth. I suggest that you do further research, or just stop posting about things you know little about.

101 posted on 11/01/2003 11:42:22 PM PST by nopardons
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To: Salman
I'm Jewish and we never did Halloween when I was a kid.

I'm Jewish and we did......and it was fun. As elementary school kids we'd dress up in various costumes and go trick-or-treating. As jr. high kids my friends and I were pranksters, although harmless. And in high school we'd go to Halloween parties, where the opposite sex was our primary concern.

It's unfortanate that this is all such an "issue" now. ......Too many folks way too uptight about too many things.

102 posted on 11/01/2003 11:43:53 PM PST by Mr. Mojo
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To: nopardons
Samhain became a melting pot of a few different traditions with the souls of the dead. It was there new Year, mostly, but you have to realise that some of the african and medditeraenean (my spelling is tired, sorry), traditions sneaked in. So he/she is actually not wrong.
103 posted on 11/01/2003 11:47:45 PM PST by sfRummygirl (SAVE TERRI SHINDLER SCHIAVO...www.terrisfight.org)
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To: Willie Green
Only 33 kids to my door this year, I counted.

145-count Snickers large economy-style mixed bag of candy, minus FlyVet's 5-share that he slopped down before the doorbell started ringing = 140, ended up with 107. And now I'm slopping down more Starbursts. I had 40-some kids last year, and this is a young, mini-boom neighborhood.

104 posted on 11/01/2003 11:48:54 PM PST by FlyVet
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To: sfRummygirl
Oh I know all about Samhain and Wicca.I read quite a lot and long ago, even had to translate, from the original Latin, Julius Caesar's take on it LOL

Don't worry about spelling ... mine isn't all that good ( dyslexia ) and besides,I can tell what you mean. :-)

It's really only in the last 30 years or so, that Halloween has become such an overboard celebration in the USA. Halloween trees ? Sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh ! And a lot of peculiar stuff has been incorporated into it.

Were you Gardnerian, Fairyfey, Dianic, or just the local hodge-podge of California Wicca ?

105 posted on 11/01/2003 11:56:47 PM PST by nopardons
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To: nmh
Actually, I think there are some facts that you might have gotten wrong. I'm too tired now, I may have skipped over a few things.....I don't think Samhain was ever the actual name of one of the Gods.
Please excuse me, I wasn't ever a practising Druid....but the basic idea that halloween doesn't have any connections to Paganism is the main point I'm making here. It is something that should be addressed, and each family should decide how they want to deal with it. Because ignoring the overtones are not always a good idea.
106 posted on 11/02/2003 12:01:27 AM PST by sfRummygirl (SAVE TERRI SHINDLER SCHIAVO...www.terrisfight.org)
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To: nopardons
I'm not sure I could get into what I was specifically, without blowing my cover. But I will say, that I was technically 'fam trad', and then trained in a specific branch of a very popular bay area traditon....
(I'm not trying to be criptic!)
107 posted on 11/02/2003 12:04:54 AM PST by sfRummygirl (SAVE TERRI SHINDLER SCHIAVO...www.terrisfight.org)
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To: sfRummygirl
You aren't " cryptic " at all and I actually understand EXACTLY what you've written. :-)
108 posted on 11/02/2003 12:10:24 AM PST by nopardons
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To: nopardons
I see.
You have freep mail...;-)
109 posted on 11/02/2003 12:24:53 AM PST by sfRummygirl (SAVE TERRI SHINDLER SCHIAVO...www.terrisfight.org)
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To: nopardons
I see.
You have freep mail...;-)
110 posted on 11/02/2003 12:25:49 AM PST by sfRummygirl (SAVE TERRI SHINDLER SCHIAVO...www.terrisfight.org)
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To: sfRummygirl
Sorry, double post...
111 posted on 11/02/2003 12:26:27 AM PST by sfRummygirl (SAVE TERRI SHINDLER SCHIAVO...www.terrisfight.org)
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To: sfRummygirl
You too. :-)
112 posted on 11/02/2003 12:42:16 AM PST by nopardons
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To: nmh
I think Halloween/Samhain/etc. is one of the four "midsolstice" festivals, held at the halfway point between two solstices. All of those festivals, if I remember correctly, are traditional pagan festivals and are also claimed by the Satanists and other similar monocellular life forms. For some reason the latter seem particularly enamored of the midsolstice festivals. But by their cosmology, my guess is that if "Satan" has a "birthday", it's almost certainly not Halloween, but Mayday/Walpurgisnacht/Beltane. (I would personally expect so, since Communism celebrates Mayday as its global holiday).

Isn't "Witchcraft" titillating and fun, though? I see some cute people on here teasing each other with leading comments about it. Have fun, kiddies. You don't "choose" to be a "witch", and then get "trained" in it - it chooses you, and God help you if it does. I personally watched a professing, churchgoing Christian woman kill her own sister, my former lover, by witchcraft, without even knowing that that was what she was doing. (No, I will not discuss it). I'm sure you don't think that's possible, but trust me, you know nothing - *nothing* - and be thankful for that, and hope for your own sakes that you stay ignorant.

113 posted on 11/02/2003 1:33:30 AM PST by fire_eye (Don't kill liberals - Just make them wish you would.)
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To: Willie Green
Little League and midget football were the only sports. Parents never went to practices and weren't expected at games. We had to come in when it got dark and frankly, our parents preferred we didn't come in before that.

Those sentences sum up my childhood in a nutshell. I was growing up during the late 1960s and early 1970s and it was exactly like that. A typical summer vacation morning, I'd get up just after sunrise, grab a bowl of cold cereal and would be out the door before my mother could find me something to do around the house. Yes, if a kid hung around the house in those days, he was likely to have a broom shoved into his hands and put to work.

I'd hang out with my friends all day at the playground, the ballpark, the marshlands down the street or if it was particularly hot, we'd just sit in somebody's shaded backyard picnic table playing an all-day game of Risk or Monopoly with a portable transistor radio blaring out Top40 songs while mothers handed sandwiches and cold drinks out the window (so we wouldn't come inside and mess up the house with our dirty shoes). Finally the streetlights would come on and it would be time to go home where we would get a plate of cold chicken heated up for us and maybe get an hour or two in front of the TV to see the "Partridge Family" or "Brady Bunch" before heading off to bed, maybe even a Godzilla movie on one of those UHF stations - our only TV of the day.

I miss those carefree days. And kids of today never got to experience them. Instead, everyting, and I do mean everything, is heavily supervised. Parents not only drive their children to soccer or Little League practice (even if it is just down the street) but they insist on lugging their lawn chairs to every single minute of every single practice and/or game. Parents even go into the movie theatres to watch "kid" movies with their kids. My parents would never consider that - they'd give me a few dollars and I'd walk the 30 blocks with my friends (or maybe my little brother) to see "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" or whatever kid's movie was showing at the time. And if my mother did tag along, I'd feel...uncomfortable.

Is it any wonder that kids of today are still living with their parents into their 20s and 30s?

114 posted on 11/02/2003 2:43:33 AM PST by SamAdams76 (202.4 (-97.6) Homestretch to 200)
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To: sfRummygirl
Not really. I'm more of an eclectic pagan. : )

J
115 posted on 11/02/2003 6:04:45 AM PST by jedwardtremlett ((Dubai, UAE))
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To: SamAdams76
We grew up near the beach in Los Angeles County (mid '70s) - so summers after age 10 meant one thing: "Junior Lifeguards"

In this program, we showed up every day at the beach at 7:30 am for rounds of PT, swim races (in the surf), surf-mat and paddleboard races, distance runs, etc. - all inflicted by the real LA County lifeguards that ran the program. Fridays meant travel to another beach city for competitions in the above activities, as well as in "musical flags" (like musical chairs but with sprints through the sand to dive for segments of old garden hose). About once a year, the real lifeguards would pile us into their patrol boat (yes, it's called the "Bay Watch") get up to speed about a half mile off shore, and tell us to dive off the back and swim in. There were also trips to Catalina Island and elsewhere for snorkeling.

Never saw a parent anywhere near the program. Discipline was meted out with additional pushups and sit-ups, and for problem children - the real lifeguards would organize "sand crawls" (you got wet and then crawled through the sand while fellow JGs pelted you with more sand), "bulldozers" (you pushed sand with your head), or "spanking machines" (crawl through legs of 50 or so JGs each whack you as you go through).

It was a great program then - Don't know about its current state.

116 posted on 11/02/2003 6:59:56 AM PST by dagnabbit
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To: sfRummygirl
Ha-hah-haaa....Oh, honey, let me tell you how wrong you are.....

Why? Are you into Catholic-bashing as well?

It really is quite understandable why some go to extremes to misconstrue and misrepresent Catholic veneration of saints. Afterall, many were martyred for their faith rather than submit to the edicts and decrees of civil authority. Can't have role models who earned their reputations by defying the commands of kings and emporers, don't you know!

BTW, in keeping with longstanding tradition, the Church STILL severely frowns on beheading one's wife simply because she failed to produce a male heir. You can't do that, it's a sin.

But maybe your motivation for Catholic bashing arises from a different source. So go ahead, spit it out where we can all take a good look at it.

117 posted on 11/02/2003 8:33:53 AM PST by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: Willie Green
I've never kept an exact count, but I'd guess that I'm more accustomed to maybe 50~75. Especially considering that sometimes you get 5 or 6 in one group. Last night was really dismally disappointing.

Out here near the airport here in Moon Township, I didn't keep an exact count either but I think we were lucky to get 35 kids this year. I remember when I trick or treated in the 1970's (I'm 37) we got like 120+ kids then. Well, I guess more suckers and funsized candy for me to quench my depression during the next Steeler game. B-P
118 posted on 11/02/2003 8:38:54 AM PST by Nowhere Man ("Laws are the spider webs through which the big bugs fly past and the little ones get caught.")
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To: Willie Green
I remember Halloween in the '60s, we had so much fun and got so much candy. A few years ago anti-Halloween people were rife in our town but it's turning around. I'm glad that my grandkids got to trick or treat and go to more than one Halloween carnival and play games. So many Christians seem to think evil dwells in every corner and enjoyment of life is sinful.
119 posted on 11/02/2003 8:47:07 AM PST by tiki
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To: mountaineer
I'll admit, we never stay home to hand out candy, but it didn't look very busy as we were heading out the door. Of course, now we live in a tiny little W.Va. town with not that many children. Back in my Upper St. Clair childhood, we hit what seemed like hundreds of houses on Halloween. Everyone in my subdivision wanted to know what Terry Hanratty was handing out. There was one house where the folks had the kids come in for cider. I tried it once, but it seemed unnaturally fizzy for a non-alcoholic drink - maybe they were trying to poison us! Yikes! (Who wants cider anyway - give me some of those Zagnuts!).

Hmmm, another "Pittsburgh Yunzer," cool! Zagnuts, I haven't heard of them in years, my grandmother gave out Clark Bars. She gave us Clark Bars, Zagnuts, and so on all the time, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc., because she worked at the Clark Bar plant on the North Side for so many years. The way the Steelers are playing now, I wish we had Terry Hanratty back although when I really started paying a lot of attention, Terry Bradshaw was quarterback although I do remember Joe Gillam.
120 posted on 11/02/2003 8:49:26 AM PST by Nowhere Man ("Laws are the spider webs through which the big bugs fly past and the little ones get caught.")
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