News Archive October 2011

KISS And Tears On Halloween
From: The Free Press
by Robb Murray
Posted: October 23, 2011

When I was a kid, roughly 8 or 9 years old, the only band that mattered was KISS.

The painted faces, the menacing glares, the straight-up, old-school rock 'n roll. They wanted to rock and roll all night and party every day. And so did we. Or, at least until our moms told us to go to bed.

KISS was hard not to love. And hard, for an 8- or 9-year-old, to not want to emulate. So we did. My best friend Kenny was Peter Criss. B.J. was Paul Stanley. Beasley was Ace Frehley. And I, of course, was Gene Simmons. Exactly how we all got to be the characters we got to be, I've long since forgotten. But I do remember Gene Simmons was the only guy I wanted to be.

Why?

A better question is why not.

The crazy hair, the obnoxious face paint, and - perhaps most importantly - the tongue. We'd heard a rumor (and where in 1979 a group of punks from the East Side would have heard a rumor like this, I have no idea) that Gene's oral organ was actually transplanted from a cow, and that's why it was so long.

So during the Halloween of 1978, Kenny and I decided to go as our respective KISS characters. I'm not sure where the other guys ended up, but it didn't really matter. He and I were pretty much inseparable by this time, and the other guys were kind of an afterthought.

Out we went, up Arlington Avenue, down Nevada Street, up Nebraska Avenue, down Hoyt Street.

At one point, we decided to double back to head over to the area near Prosperity Playground. We were heading past my alley when we came upon a group of thugs that would change my Halloween, heck, change my life, forever.

I'd sort of recognized them. Not by name. But I'd seen the guys around. They were older. They smoked. And they did things like hang around a dark alley on Halloween night. We walked by slowly, fearing the worst. As we passed them, I felt like we were safe.

And then it happened.

In a flash, two of them pushed us down while the other two swiped our candy. By the time I got back to my feet, they were gone. And I was pissed. We'd worked hard for that candy. Snickers, Milky Ways, Tootsie Rolls - they were all in there. I'd watched them fall into my pillow case, smiling inside at the thought of the wondrous, chocolate-fueled high I'd be in for that night.

For a 9-year-old, few nights match the anticipation of Halloween. You're out in the dark, you're traversing your neighborhood, you're collecting candy. All is right with the world. Until that night. And as my anger built, and I made the slow, shameful walk back to 1577 E. Arlington, the makeup on my face that my sisters painstakingly applied a few hours earlier had begun to drip down on the backs of my tears.

Kenny and I had parted ways at this point. Like two defeated warriors, we retreated to our respective homes. I walked in the back door and our dog Sadie greeted me as usual. That's when things got real emotional. I lost it. I sobbed. And sobbed. After explaining everything to my family, my sister came up with a solution: We'd go out again, together.

I didn't get as much candy, of course. And we tried to avoid houses I'd already been to, which was hard; Kenny and I had pretty much blitzed the entire neighborhood. But when I got home, I still had a nice collection of sugar to soothe my shattered ego and broken spirit. I have Shelley, my oldest sister, to thank for that, and for salvaging that Halloween for me.

This year, as I have every year since my kids arrived, I'll be out there escorting them in what has become the twilight of their trick-or-treating careers. Do they need me? Of course not. But it's become a fun night for us. We usually team up with our good friend Shandy, whose son Noah is my son's age. The Stevensons, Tim and Sue, often tagalong as well with their kids, Leah and Logan.

It's a very low-key affair, and we walk along the kid-filled streets of lower North Mankato watching our kids observe the annual rite of fall.

It all seems very safe. But just in case it's not, I've got my eye out. Any neighborhood thugs who plan on stealing some kid's candy will have to deal with me and my 30 years of pent up rage from a sad Halloween night in 1978.