The author, John Marek, is a writer and executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.
Like this year, Halloween of 1987 fell on a Saturday, and that’s why it was doubly disappointing to us that no trick-or-treaters knocked on our door.
My wife, Janet, and I, along with our brand new beagle puppy Jake, had moved into the farmhouse along a rural stretch of U.S. Hwy. 25 midway between Bowling Green and Perrysburg, Ohio, two weeks earlier and were excited to spend the first “holiday” in our new home.
We didn’t expect a massive turnout so far out in the country, but there were a dozen or so houses within a mile of ours, and we assumed at least a few of them had children. Sure, we were new to the area and hadn’t had the opportunity to meet anyone except the “older” (they were mid-50s, about the same age I am now) couple next door. Still, we assumed that people would gravitate to a house with a carved pumpkin and illuminated porch lights on Halloween.
Wanting to make a good impression, we stocked up on a selection of full-size candy bars and had a gallon of apple cider at the ready should any adults want to stop and chat for a minute.
At the first sign of dusk, about 6:30, we lit the candle in our meticulously carved jack o’ lantern and turned on the porch lights. Jake barked expectantly as we positioned ourselves on the sofa near the door and waited … and waited.
By 7:30, it was fully dark, and I walked the 30 yards out to the highway, wondering if maybe we should have put a sign or some decorations out by the mailbox. The neighbor’s house was completely dark. They were either out for the evening or had turned in VERY early. There were no cars filled with little ghosts, ghouls or witches stopped anywhere along the road, so far as I could see, in either direction.
Well, it was still early.
I returned to the house, poured myself a glass of cider and unwrapped a Clark bar. Jake had curled up on the sofa next to Janet, who was paging through an accounting journal.
“Let’s see if there are any Halloween shows on TV.”
By the mid-80s, more than 70 percent of the households in the U.S. had cable access, but ours was not one of them. Consequently, we had only four channels, not counting PBS … because, seriously, who counts PBS. Two of the channels were broadcasting the tail-ends of uninteresting college football games; the third was running some Lawrence Welk-esque variety show and the fourth a syndicated game show. Nothing very Halloween-ish. Where was the holiday spirit?
The Sunday before, NBC had broadcast a cheesy made-for-TV horror movie called “Bay Coven,” which we had watched with the undivided attention of a rural couple with no cable. Pamela Sue Martin and Tim Matheson played yuppies who moved from their Boston apartment to an isolated community off Massachusetts’ coast (I was starting to relate!), which was secretly inhabited by a coven of witches (I’ll bet THEY showed up on Halloween!).
Around 8:30, we finally gave up, turned off the porch light, blew out the candle and resigned ourselves to the fact that folks in that part of the county must not do Halloween. Of course, we woke up Sunday morning to find that wasn’t exactly true since someone had toilet-papered our apple tree and put Vaseline on the door handles of our cars.