Column: This Side of The Fence
Halloween is a peculiar holiday. Everyone dresses up like superheroes, ghost and goblins or firemen and then prowl the neighborhood banging on doors and begging for food.
Of course, most college students have probably outgrown the trick-or-treating part of Halloween. Instead, they are content to find other ways to party, many of which require getting the kibbles scared out of them. They attend haunted houses, go to scary movies and the like all for the purpose of getting a good scare.
I’m not one to like being scared, but the ritual still amazes me. When I was younger, I worked in a haunted house playing a dead camper. It was astonishing how many people screamed in terror at my white face paint, ripped flannel coat and loud moaning.
It’s kind of funny, really, the things that scare people. There are thousands of phobias, not all of them strange, but some really are odd. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13. Aerophobia is fear of swallowing air. Pediophobia is fear of dolls, and it just keeps going.
Those are only the ones that have official names. There is another list entirely of phobias people claim to have that have not been named yet – like fear of gravity reversing itself and fear of being drowned by peacocks and no, I didn’t make that up. Recently, I met several individuals who are afraid of cooking raw chicken. They had to wear gloves and stand as far back from it as possible.
But it’s okay, because as college students, we like to be scared, right? You could save a ton of money on haunted houses and scary movies if you could just stay home and cook chicken all evening or plaster your walls with the number 13 and get your fear fix for the day.
I guess if none of those things work, you will just have to get scared the old fashioned way-you know, ghosts, goblins, witches, Dracula, the Wolfman – every town has its own set of ghost stories.
In Logan cemetery, there is the story of the crying lady that says there is a gravestone of a woman that cries at night. There is also the Nunnery up Logan Canyon where it’s rumored, among many things, that a little boy drowned and there have been ghostly sightings of him. In Green Canyon, there is supposedly a spot where animals won’t go, and as soon as you get there, an eerie feeling sweeps over you.
Of course, believe what you will. If those kinds of things get you, more power to you.
Halloween used to be a festival celebrating the changing of seasons from the growing season to the season of death. Supposedly, on the night of Oct. 31, all spirits roamed the earth seeking aide to get across the land of the dead from their living relatives. The living were supposed to dresses up in masks and other sorts of costumes to scare away the evil spirits that hindered their dead relatives from getting across.
When Christianity spread, these old Pagan traditions where combined with the Christian holiday of All Saint’s Day. Together, Halloween was created meaning both to honor and fear the dead. Add a little commercialism and you have our modern holiday, where candy companies make a fortune and we pay big bucks to scream.
So, now the haunting hours are upon us. Let us prepare to celebrate and remember, we have nothing to fear but fear itself … and the number 13, raw chicken, the reversal of gravity, dolls, ghosts, goblins … I think you get the point. Happy Halloween!
Mikaylie Kartchner is a junior in print journalism. Comments can be sent to mikayliek@cc.usu.edu.