I am remembering Halloween.
In the 1950s I was a little kid dressed up in costume and knocking on neighborhood doors for candy. In the 60s, as a teen, I would watch mischief-makers tear up the town in age-old Sugar Grove tradition. In 1968, just one week before I was to report to USMC Boot Camp, my friends were in on some hell raising that brought the State Police to town. I was always more of an observer.
One Halloween, in 1977 when I was 27, I had been in the Penn State area rock climbing with friends who were students there. It was dark by the time I started my long drive back home, on country roads and through small towns. The only real Halloween activity I experienced along the way was when someone threw gravel at my car at some crossroad. Nearly home, I stopped by the neighboring town of Russell at midnight, and all I saw were some smashed pumpkins on the street. Then I arrived at Sugar Grove -- Complete and utter Anarchy!
Main Street was swarming with gangs of older kids who were throwing trash and just generally raising hell. I quickly turned around and parked my car safely at home, and then walked back to Main Street to watch the wild festivities. A gang of at least 20 kids were at the intersection where Jamestown Street meets Main, and a car pulled up to the stop sign. Someone must have slapped or hit it, because the driver, a young guy, was pissed off and got out to protest. I'll never forget the look on his face when he assessed the crazed mob facing him and immediately thought better of it. He jumped back in his car, backed up, turned around, and bypassed Main by taking a side Street. You could hear him going through the gears as he finally got to open road on the other side of town: "Getting the Hell out of Dodge!"
Another time, in the 70s when Halloween was on a Saturday night, Sugar Grove made the front page of the county newspaper's Monday edition. A photo from Sunday morning showed smoke still rising on Main Street at dawn. I still remember the lead sentence in the article, something like: Last Saturday night in Sugar Grove there occurred "a wave of organized vandalism, bordering on riot."
It's a weird holiday. And a crazy hometown!
-Zenwind.
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