Halloween Classic

The Charlie Brown Halloween Special is on TV every year and I like to re-share the post about my strangest Halloween night. Both are traditions.  Here goes:

I was 14 and too old to trick or treat, but too young to stay in. So after helping my grandma close her store, I headed for the nearby sub-division to meet up with friends. It was a quarter-mile walk in the pitch black on a country road. Perfect for a spooky night.

When I neared the subdivision, I heard a commotion near one of the houses. As I rounded the corner and stepped into the front yard I saw a man in his 30’s pointing a shiny handgun at four boys--who were huddled together. I was out in the open and he pointed the gun at me.

Without thinking about it, I walked towards him, gestured towards the kids and asked, “What did they do?“, as if I was not a kid myself. He turned the gun back towards them. As I stood next to him, he explained his mother’s house had been egged—and he was tired of her being harassed. I introduced myself as the grandson of the woman who ran the little store (everyone knew her) and told him I’d talked with his mom many times.  Then I turned to the only one of the accused I knew:

Me: Andy, did you and your friends throw the eggs?
Andy: No.
Me: Do you know who did?
Andy: We saw guys running that way just before we got here.
Me: Okay, you two go look for the other guys and try to get names. You two help Mr. Wilson clean the egg off his mom’s house.

Mr. Wilson put his gun away, apologized to me for losing his temper, and then they all did what I told them to do. Whew!!! That’s when I realized if you act confident and that you are doing what you're supposed to, people will cooperate. It all happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to get nervous. But I did feel shaky as I went in search of my friends. That’s when I encountered the girl.

She and I had recently been talking on the bus and at school. I had just started this new thing where I actually talked with people. It was a conscious decision to change my behavior. I’d been VERY reserved up until then. That night we walked with the group, talked, and looked out for the little ones. When it was time to head home, she wanted to tell me something. We walked off to get some privacy. She said her family was moving out of state that weekend and she wanted to kiss me good-bye. It was quite an experience—my first real kiss. I didn’t have anything to compare it to, but it was nice. My opinion on that would change.

Soon, I wasn’t feeling great. By Thanksgiving I had pneumonia, which led to the discovery I also had mononucleosis and an enlarged spleen. One of the flapper’s friends confirmed she had mono when she kissed me—she’d snuck out of her house that night. I was VERY sick. Our doctor wanted to put me in the hospital, but my parents were frugal regarding health care (you did not want to be one of our pets). I missed school the entire month of December and there were rumors I'd died, so my first week back was a little strange. 

Some might think it sweet she slipped out of her house to kiss me goodbye.  Since I got so sick, I decided it was thoughtless she exposed me to mono.  Oh well, at least it was a memorable first kiss.

I ended the original post by wondering who would have guessed the girl would end up being more dangerous than the gun. At the time, it never occurred to me a girl could be that dangerous. What a naive boy. LOL!