Halloween: Random Thoughts and Memories

• I use Halloween to illustrate the wide cultural gap between Lubbock and Montreal.  In the former, most of the ads focus on "Family Fun Festivals" that are usually Church-related efforts to distract and divert kids from satanic Halloween rituals (we did dress up young Jessica as a little devil!).  In the latter, the big ads are for the "exotic" shops selling sexy costumes.
  

• The trick or treating was lousy in Lubbock--the only two good events were a trick-or-treat along fraternity and sorority row which included a few haunted houses and the Science Spectrum's party.  
  

• I seem to remember only one Halloween party in grad school.  The folks at UCSD really did it up very, very well.  Two costumes stick out--John Carey's minimalist play on words--he dressed up with a cape and a baton--Super-Conductor; and Dave Auerwald's pirate (or gypsy) costume--very stylish.  I do remember dressing as a red pepper that year.  
  

• I have dressed in costume the last couple of times my big Intro to IR class coincided with Halloween.  The first time, the day was the same as my lecture on imperialism, so I dressed up as that noted thief of third world antiquities--Indiana Jones.  The second time was during my cold war lecture, so Che was the choice.  The latter was specifically part of a UNICEF effort to get students to give money in exchange for their profs wearing a costume on Halloween.  No such effort this year.
  

• Strangest Halloween Experience: my brother came back from college, majoring in religion and got me to join him to dress up as Buddhist monks and use begging bowls for trick or treating.  I had given up on trick or treating by then, but he was mighty persuasive.  
  

• Best Enduring Legacy of Lubbock Ultimate: We went to a distant tourney in Fort Collins in October and our team dressed up as either cows or milkmaids (and yes, most of the guys were the milk maids).  So, since then I have had a cow costume that I break out every year for one game around this time. And, yes, the udders are obscene but yet highly entertaining.