Lary Bloom photo
I was astonished at the turnout. By this, I’m not referring to this week’s election.
As for the latter, New Haven’s citizens performed as customary, engaged in what has been, up to this point, a functioning if messy democracy.
Even so, the point I’d like to make here is about how this year’s Halloween relates to the voting and its consequences. It is, I hope, an uplifting message for the many city folk like us who were appalled by what happened around the nation.
This connection between voting and the latest dress-up night isn’t just because of the tactics I employed as our neighbors gathered on the front porch to distribute the evening’s chocolate prizes.
For I plead guilty of the following: Until I was booed by our adult gathering, I sometimes delayed the delivery of Tootsie Rolls or M&Ms to the little tykes until they answered this question: “Who are you voting for?”
Naturally, in doing this I was fearful that one or more of our visitors, perhaps the son or daughter of a Yale professor, would correct my grammar: “Mister, you should have asked, ‘For whom will you vote?’ ” Or, even, “None of your business, old man.” But that never happened.
And here’s the real crux: If democracy is untidy and so often disheartening, Halloween in New Haven is just the opposite.
By 7:30 p.m., when we ran out of more than 1,000 pieces of candy, we were left, in our exhausted states as greetings and deliverers of treats, in awe.
This was as a result of the courteous and thoughtful behaviors of the hoard of princesses, spiderkids, alligators, cowhands, monsters, apprentice cops and firefighters, and those who had singular impersonations, such as the young girl who came as Matilde, the central character in a children’s novel that become a musical, or the tiny Michael Jackson, or the little girl who told us she was an influencer.
Did she influence us? Of course she did. And so did so many of the 702 children – counted with the help of technology by a neighbor on the block – who arrived and sent our pooch, Lucca, into a perpetual frenzy.
Now, as I tend to my own astonishment and despair over the national election, in which violations of common courtesy were part of the game plan, I am thinking of the “thank yous,” and “Happy Halloweens” uttered by the little ones without being prompted by their hovering parents.
Moreover, our front steps can be daunting for the most minute celebrants. They were helped up by their loyal siblings who kept them safe.
This was old-fashioned fun, without a moment’s fear of perils in the night or in their collection bags, and with caring for each other, no matter their ethnicity, country of origin, or any other status that might vilify them.
They hadn’t yet grown up and been told by other influencers in dark, resonant tones that if the price of eggs goes up they should burn it all down.
It was if nothing could go wrong on such a magical night. Yes, the parents were on pins and needles about what was just ahead on the calendar, but the kids didn’t seem weighed down by any of it.
We often in our daily lives and at particularly at graduations (these days even from kindergarten) cite the hope that our children will do better than we did in terms of laying the groundwork for common decency, mutual support, empathy, forbearance, and everything else that we didn’t master to our capacities.
Oh, we have tried. But giving up comforts and safeties of our lives by sticking our necks out and inviting IRS audits strikes us as inconvenient.
I should add, though, that the morning after Halloween surprised me as well. As I took Lucca out for his early morning walk, I wondered if he would root through the debris – candies discarded on the sidewalk, chocolates that would sicken him. But I needn’t have worried.
The Army of 702 left not a speck on the ground. And there was no toilet paper wrapped around the branches of the little linden or cherry trees.