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It is easy enough to find information about Halloween on the Internet as I did. Some of the facts were new to me and most interesting. Although I know that Halloween is an annual celebration, I wonder just what is it actually a celebration of? Some claim it is a kind of demon worship and others think it is just a harmless vestige of some ancient pagan ritual. The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840’s by the Irish immigrants fleeing their country’s potato famine. The Jack-O-Lantern custom probably came from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree’s trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down from the tree. After Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer as he wandered through eternal darkness on the earth. The Irish used turnips as their “Jack’s lanterns” originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember. As the ghosts and goblins start their assent from the lower depths of scary places, Melrosians prepare to welcome them. The happy hand made Jack-O-Lanterns will ward off all the evil spirits this month. A makeshift bucket with fragrant flowers, a smiling face in a shoe or a full-blown Jack on the park bench, are just some of the happy faces. Mom and the kids line the stairs as daddy Jack displays a proud grin for all the neighbors to see. This sexy looking lantern comes with a pointed nose, cutaway eyelashes and eye brows. Happy faces abound with and without their tops on. Eyes of different shapes seem to light up the days of this fall season time. These scary faces with mouths chewed up or, wide open ready to chew will definitely terrify any oncoming ghoulish creatures. Be it a box converted or a traditional Jack-O-Lantern cutout, we in Melrose are prepared for the onslaught of any demon, goblin or ghost that comes our way this October. October 7, 2005
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