'Tis the season of ghosts and goblins.
When his two kids were still in elementary school, my old coworker, Mike, took them out Trick or Treating one Halloween night. At a house that sat at the top of a hill, he sent them up to the door by themselves. As soon as they turned their backs, he ducked into the bushes at the base of the driveway. In the dark and hidden from view, he donned a full head mask and waited. His kids eventually returned and started looking for him. That's when he bounded out of the bushes just behind them and gave the loudest roar he could muster.
Both kids gave a satisfying scream, but Mike's mask restricted his view, and they disappeared from his field of vision. Ripping it off, he could just make out his daughter a good fifty yards away, sprinting knees to elbow, but his son was nowhere to be seen. Then he looked down. There he was, right where he dropped, curled up in a fetal position.
Mike nudged him with his foot. No response other than a whimper. "Dude. C'mon, man." With a sigh, he hoisted his boy up by his jacket and dusted him off. "Look. You're fine. Now let's go. We've got to track down your sister. She's probably in the next county by now."
When I was still in elementary school, Dad and I went to a haunted house that sprang up in downtown Gulfport one October. I'm not sure whose idea it was. Haunted houses didn't seem like Dad's scene. As for me, of all the activities Dad and I could have done, I can't imagine myself saying, "Let's go get scared." Not knowing what to expect, we waited in line for our turn to enter. All I remember after stepping through the doors was a continuous scratching sound, a couple of intermittent shrieks, and a lot of billowing smoke. As we wandered through the maze, I kept pressing closer and closer to Dad.
Because we were bringing up the rear in our group, I was constantly looking back behind us. My eyes were like saucer plates and my head was on a swivel, looking for the next threat in this crazy arena. Then, as I turned to check our back trail once more, I saw a clawed, bony hand emerging from behind a curtain, reaching out for me.
I lost it.
I let out a deafening scream. Scrambling backward, I crashed into Dad, clutching his arm. Obviously startled himself, he yelled something unintelligible.
At the end, I can't imagine us not enjoying the experience, because I remember us laughing. A lot. But for some reason, we never went to another haunted house.
Maybe I've gotten jaded as I enter my second half-century, but I don't scare easily like I did when I was a kid. After all, after five decades, I've done seen some sh*t. I'm just as likely to be the one to say, "Boo!" to any ghost or goblin that strays into my path.
This is not necessarily a good thing. What about other emotional aspects? I would hope that whatever dampened my fright mechanism didn't also retard my ability to be awed by a mountain vista or be moved by a favorite music passage. For what it's worth, I think the anger components are working just fine as my coworkers like to tune that apparatus on a daily basis.
Around the time Dad and I visited that haunted house, I remember having a Red Sovine 8-track at home. I enjoyed his style of telling a story set to music, and in a lot of those stories, truck drivers figured prominently. This particular one just happens to also be a ghost story.
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