Why, you ask, would they have Halloween in August? Because this campground is cool. It does thematic weekend events for kiddos all summer long. For example, they held Thanksgiving in July where children were separated into groups of Pilgrims, who wore the traditional L.L. Bean limited edition black and white garb we've all come to associate with Pilgrims (all covered in the company's lifetime return policy of course); and Wampanoags, who wore buckskins recovered from a deer that a drunken camper ran over the week before with his golf cart. The Wampanoag children served the Pilgrims a hearty gluten-free turkey dinner and the Pilgrims gave the Natives smallpox. Just like the good old days when America wasn't yet overrun by all those pesky immigrants from, you know, Ireland. And Africa.
Speaking of Ireland. They say we get our Halloween traditions from the Irish and their festival of Samhain. Which is pronounced sah-win, for those among you who just happened to have attended a high school that offered Gaelic but have forgotten all you learned, or who are pathetically nerdy enough to give a shit about the Gaelic pronunciation of a word you will never use in conversation. Even when you're drunk, horny and trying to pick up a girl in a Southie baah.
Good old Samhain, to whom all parents in modern-day America can raise the middle finger for justifying the celebration of the dead, the dying, the undead, the tortured-to-death and the disemboweled, all in the name of Ju-Ju-Bes, candy corn and Tootsie Rolls. They say they practiced Samhain to celebrate the end of the harvest and the end of the year, a time when the crossover to the dark days of winter presented a thin veil that allowed for spirits of the dead to pass through and return to their homes. Samhain appeased those spirits with fires and celebrations in order to maintain stability for the coming long months of winter. It was a form of exorcism.
Bailey, who is Irish; as well as Gabrielle and Griffin, who are a quarter Irish; and Maren, who is part Native American, won the weekend's prize for "closest blood relative to heathen enemies of the Church." They were given crucifixes and made to feel guilty for 10 minutes of every year alive.
Corrine, who is in charge of everything, dressed our little Pagans in costumes and materials found in our home. Because we are cheap and do not believe in giving them hope. We believe that someday they will come to appreciate poverty as much as we do and that they will embrace it with open arms and empty wallets. For example, we have them each drive our soon-to-be repossessed car around to the back of the house where the tow truck cannot see it. In this small way they learn that it's ok when things go badly and you need to say "Fuck You" to the man...or to people to whom money is owed and who are just doing their jobs.
Bailey was dressed as Iron Man, the same suit he has worn since we adopted him. We call him "High-water Iron Man", a joke lost on him. What? He's Irish. He doesn't fucking care so long as he gets his Guinness. And cabbage.
Gabrielle was dressed as Medusa, a character she requested to be.
Medusa.
My 8-year-old knows who Medusa is. I love her.
And Griffin decided to be a boxer. He had a six-pack, a boxer's robe, and his knuckles were taped in white gauze, just like a very short Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. We called him Raging Hobbit and he punched every tree he came up against. The kid is a contender.
Trick or Treating began at around dusk, just like it does for other Satan worshipers on October 31. The kids set out from their grandparent's campsite, treat bags in hand, costumes secured with glue gun and tape. And, like normal Halloween, what started as a slow stroll together as loving siblings turned into a verbally abusive, sprinting, blood-letting free-for-all. How quickly they turned on one another. How quickly we, as parents, came to hate them.
"Griffin, don't walk through people's gardens," we said.
"Gabrielle, don't slap Griffin's ass because he deserves it," we said.
"Bailey, don't point and shout 'How you like me now?!?' to perfect strangers. It scares them and makes us want to send you back to Jesus," we said.
I understand their excitement. I was a kid once, too. I went out with my sister every year to the homes that line Pleasant Street, Norway, wearing costumes thrown together in 10 minutes by mom, carrying our pillow cases as candy receptacles. It was a heavenly time. Dad driving the Plymouth station wagon, stopping in front of houses every two yards to the screeching strains of brake calipers on the verge of collapse, the snow forming ice on the windshield too heavy for the wipers to disperse, because back before global warming it snowed starting on Labor Day. Alison and I were not allowed to bicker. Not like kids today. Nor were we allowed to eat the spoils of our plunder when we got home. We argued with Mom later when Dad was upstairs.
"Just one piece!" we demanded of her.
"No!" she said.
"We won't ask for any more ALL MONTH!" we hoped she didn't realize that a new month started at midnight. Yes, we were once retarded. Just like you.
"If you ask me again I'll get your father."
We of course shut up then, whimpering bitterly, and went to bed without candy. Or pillow cases, now that I recall.
In 2014, in a campground in Maine at the end of August, kids are allowed to eat all the shit they want. I'm not sure if that's an indication of the degradation of parenting, or the recognition by our generation that kids eating candy right after trick or treating is not going to expedite the disintegration of tooth enamel. Like waiting 30 minutes to go swimming after eating, the candy rule seems a bit mythological and fascist to me.
We finished our rounds, hitting every campsite in the campground, and egging those who were shuttered (Corrine's idea. She had a bitter childhood).
At 8, on the nose, we sauntered up to the campground store where we stood in line to await the hayride. An ingenious idea, when you consider it properly: sitting on hay bales, one of the least stable and most uncomfortable platforms for one's ass, on a wagon pulled by a pick up truck, in the dark woods among seizure-inducing strobe lights and screaming adults.
The line for the wait was, itself, horror-filled. At least for Corrine and I. The kids were tired. Their bedtime, 7:30, long abandoned. They had dark circles under dark circles. Bailey, when not medicated and in bed by then, becomes an asshole. That's the psychological term. I don't know the layman's expression.
Griffin and Gabrielle, meanwhile, become slap-happy and whiny, respectively. And the Turner triumvirate, together, as if angels from Hell, exposed to the world their true natures, erasing all the platitudes they'd received from the ignorant, the blind, and their grandparents.
"Griffin, stop throwing rocks at your sister's ass," we said.
"Gabrielle, stop telling people you have fart bubbles," we said.
"Bailey, stop. Licking. Your. Fucking. Friends."
We said.
Our turn on the hayride came third. Sometime near 1 a.m., I think, when even the goddamn vampires fled from fear of the vile natures of our children. Gabrielle insisted on sitting next to me. Griffin, next to her, but next to Corrine on his other side. Bailey sat somewhere down wind, near the back, chewing the ear off a teenage girl who, I felt, deserved to feel uncomfortable. She looked like the kind of teenage girl who rejected me in high school. Bitch.
"You wanna see my sah-win?" I heard him ask at one point. That kid rocks. When he isn't sniffing his own toe jam.
I'll spare you the details of the ride itself. It was well-done. Loud, gory, and with just enough scare in it to make Gabi and Griffin cry, which in turn made Corrine and I laugh with crazy-person glee. The kind of tension-releasing laugh that comes rarely. Usually at the end of a trying day, the end of a difficult stretch, the end of a period of time when it just seems everything the children do is a purposeful test of our resolve and sanity.
Sometimes, you just need a Samhain, a sah-win, a festival that appeases the demons, if only in your soul. A hardy laugh at the expense of children can do that. Exorcise the mischievousness from them. Put into perspective that they, after all, are sometimes under the influence of something otherworldly, but cherubs at heart nonetheless.
Corrine, who is in charge of everything, dressed our little Pagans in costumes and materials found in our home. Because we are cheap and do not believe in giving them hope. We believe that someday they will come to appreciate poverty as much as we do and that they will embrace it with open arms and empty wallets. For example, we have them each drive our soon-to-be repossessed car around to the back of the house where the tow truck cannot see it. In this small way they learn that it's ok when things go badly and you need to say "Fuck You" to the man...or to people to whom money is owed and who are just doing their jobs.
Bailey was dressed as Iron Man, the same suit he has worn since we adopted him. We call him "High-water Iron Man", a joke lost on him. What? He's Irish. He doesn't fucking care so long as he gets his Guinness. And cabbage.
Gabrielle was dressed as Medusa, a character she requested to be.
Medusa.
My 8-year-old knows who Medusa is. I love her.
And Griffin decided to be a boxer. He had a six-pack, a boxer's robe, and his knuckles were taped in white gauze, just like a very short Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. We called him Raging Hobbit and he punched every tree he came up against. The kid is a contender.
Trick or Treating began at around dusk, just like it does for other Satan worshipers on October 31. The kids set out from their grandparent's campsite, treat bags in hand, costumes secured with glue gun and tape. And, like normal Halloween, what started as a slow stroll together as loving siblings turned into a verbally abusive, sprinting, blood-letting free-for-all. How quickly they turned on one another. How quickly we, as parents, came to hate them.
"Griffin, don't walk through people's gardens," we said.
"Gabrielle, don't slap Griffin's ass because he deserves it," we said.
"Bailey, don't point and shout 'How you like me now?!?' to perfect strangers. It scares them and makes us want to send you back to Jesus," we said.
I understand their excitement. I was a kid once, too. I went out with my sister every year to the homes that line Pleasant Street, Norway, wearing costumes thrown together in 10 minutes by mom, carrying our pillow cases as candy receptacles. It was a heavenly time. Dad driving the Plymouth station wagon, stopping in front of houses every two yards to the screeching strains of brake calipers on the verge of collapse, the snow forming ice on the windshield too heavy for the wipers to disperse, because back before global warming it snowed starting on Labor Day. Alison and I were not allowed to bicker. Not like kids today. Nor were we allowed to eat the spoils of our plunder when we got home. We argued with Mom later when Dad was upstairs.
"Just one piece!" we demanded of her.
"No!" she said.
"We won't ask for any more ALL MONTH!" we hoped she didn't realize that a new month started at midnight. Yes, we were once retarded. Just like you.
"If you ask me again I'll get your father."
We of course shut up then, whimpering bitterly, and went to bed without candy. Or pillow cases, now that I recall.
In 2014, in a campground in Maine at the end of August, kids are allowed to eat all the shit they want. I'm not sure if that's an indication of the degradation of parenting, or the recognition by our generation that kids eating candy right after trick or treating is not going to expedite the disintegration of tooth enamel. Like waiting 30 minutes to go swimming after eating, the candy rule seems a bit mythological and fascist to me.
We finished our rounds, hitting every campsite in the campground, and egging those who were shuttered (Corrine's idea. She had a bitter childhood).
At 8, on the nose, we sauntered up to the campground store where we stood in line to await the hayride. An ingenious idea, when you consider it properly: sitting on hay bales, one of the least stable and most uncomfortable platforms for one's ass, on a wagon pulled by a pick up truck, in the dark woods among seizure-inducing strobe lights and screaming adults.
The line for the wait was, itself, horror-filled. At least for Corrine and I. The kids were tired. Their bedtime, 7:30, long abandoned. They had dark circles under dark circles. Bailey, when not medicated and in bed by then, becomes an asshole. That's the psychological term. I don't know the layman's expression.
Griffin and Gabrielle, meanwhile, become slap-happy and whiny, respectively. And the Turner triumvirate, together, as if angels from Hell, exposed to the world their true natures, erasing all the platitudes they'd received from the ignorant, the blind, and their grandparents.
"Griffin, stop throwing rocks at your sister's ass," we said.
"Gabrielle, stop telling people you have fart bubbles," we said.
"Bailey, stop. Licking. Your. Fucking. Friends."
We said.
Our turn on the hayride came third. Sometime near 1 a.m., I think, when even the goddamn vampires fled from fear of the vile natures of our children. Gabrielle insisted on sitting next to me. Griffin, next to her, but next to Corrine on his other side. Bailey sat somewhere down wind, near the back, chewing the ear off a teenage girl who, I felt, deserved to feel uncomfortable. She looked like the kind of teenage girl who rejected me in high school. Bitch.
"You wanna see my sah-win?" I heard him ask at one point. That kid rocks. When he isn't sniffing his own toe jam.
I'll spare you the details of the ride itself. It was well-done. Loud, gory, and with just enough scare in it to make Gabi and Griffin cry, which in turn made Corrine and I laugh with crazy-person glee. The kind of tension-releasing laugh that comes rarely. Usually at the end of a trying day, the end of a difficult stretch, the end of a period of time when it just seems everything the children do is a purposeful test of our resolve and sanity.
Sometimes, you just need a Samhain, a sah-win, a festival that appeases the demons, if only in your soul. A hardy laugh at the expense of children can do that. Exorcise the mischievousness from them. Put into perspective that they, after all, are sometimes under the influence of something otherworldly, but cherubs at heart nonetheless.
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