Mutants, Creeps, and Monsters!

 At first glance, you may think this Halloween day column is about the White House and the current administration, but it is not.  It’s not for one reason and one reason only – although there is a direct correlation, it wouldn’t be fun.  Accurate yes, fun no.

There’s nothing funny about what is coming out of Washington, not that I can tell.

Way back in 1965 when I was 13 wonderful years old, there were two genres of movies very active on the television set.  Spies and monsters.  Of course there were westerns and family shows, but these two lines of thought were emerging and possibly peaking all within a space of about 5 years.  I Spy, Get Smart, The Avengers, Mission Impossible, The Saint, Danger Man, T.H.E. Cat and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. were hugely successful and in the dark shadows of the heinous Commies, everyone wanted our spies to outsmart their spies.

Boy has that changed.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, the good ol’ USA is now an open tome for every spy agency on earth, especially those who want to destroy our country.  My friend who retired from the Air Force’s secret intel organization, with tenure in the NSA and CIA told me what Snowden did was akin to blatant treason, hurting and crippling our country irreparably.  I guess that would brand Snowden as an extreme Hollywood creep.  Maybe we could talk Jane Fonda into playing his alter ego Chelsea Manning in his life story?  Now that is funny!  I told you this week’s column would be humorous.

When I was 13, I would watch those many monster movies, shivering in my dark room, scared senseless and love/hate every second of it.  Frankenstein’s monster, the werewolf, Dracula, The creature from the black lagoon, and the Mummy to name a few.

One in particular took place in snow country where a woman scientist was taking injections of wasp venom to preserve her youth and as a 13 year old; I never saw it coming when she disappeared only to attack people looking for her, mutated as a human-size waspish insect.  Horrors!

Today’s equivalent of a real life monster  is when you have your taxes did and realize you owe $1100 or that mutant sprinkler head in your yard jumped your water bill to $452.79!  Aside from real criminals and deviants, life’s hardships are the real monsters we face.  Of course they are and like the wasp woman I experienced as a 13 year old, we never saw them coming.

Life’s hardships are the opposite of fun, funny, or anything involving a smile, unless it is Joe Biden’s glorious mug.  Old Joe can light up a dark room like a jack-o'-lantern!  His grin brings me Halloween hope in fact.

My siblings and I on Halloween night would venture out into the neighborhoods - unchaperoned mind you - carrying doubled brown paper grocery sacks, or a pillowcase and return within an hour to dump out our full sacks of ghoulish candy, only to rush out for a second go.  There were no cars on the streets because people knew kids would be dashing back and forth and back then, common sense ruled.  The real danger wasn’t pedophiles, it was cars and it still is today.

We wore homemade costumes using whatever we could come up with and it was the happiest of times.  We were monsters, mutants, creeps, pirates – or maybe a combination of all of them and ate every bit of candy we were given without parent intervention or second thought.  Sugar was cheap and many people handed out candy bars or whole handfuls of sweet deliciousness.

In today’s world of creepy ultra-phobias, it is a much wiser choice to take your kids to your local church or friends only houses for their safe Halloween fun, then run the risk of them being ran over by someone in their car worrying a pedophile is going to get their kids.  There are so many cars parked on neighborhood streets at night that they are reduced to one lane of traffic only and with kids darting back and forth, it’s a recipe for a disaster.

I would love to return to that one day in time I anxiously waited for, beat out only by Christmas, but that time has come and went.  Back then the mutants, creeps, and monsters were portrayed by Vincent Price and Bela Lugosi.  Now all I have to do is watch the news.  Happy Halloween folks and this year get out and walk with your kids.  It will do you both good.