Correcting The Unfairness Of Holidays

Living in West Virginia for a year did some damage, it's true. For one thing, it was such an awful place to live (& really, I just lived in Huntington, so I will freely admit that I can't say anything about any other town in West Virginia except I'm certain it's probably better) that it makes every other place look wonderful by comparison. I mean, after living in Huntington for about ten months, I visited Dallas & thought to myself, "I'd prefer living here." Dallas. Dallas, Texas. How awful must a town be to make Dallas look attractive?

One thing that happened around this time last year - & one of the neighbors scolded me for this lack of knowledge, as I didn't read the paper or watch the news - is that the town simply rescheduled Halloween. Halloween, you may recall, fell on a Saturday last year - a perfectly respectful day of the week for a perfectly respectable holiday. But the Thursday before, kids knocked on our doors tricking & treating. Why? Because the city decided Thursday was a better day for Halloween. Thursday!

I did wait for the rogue child, possessed of independent thought & an anarchic spirit, to come on Saturday, but no luck. I suppose they knew the rest of the city had given all its candy away on Thursday. Thursday! The kids had to sit at home on Saturday knowing full well the entire rest of the country was out trick-or-treating that night. Absurd.

It was burned into my Texan brain that that must be the case in Lexington, too. After all, it's just a hundred miles to the west. Of course, it's also two decades into the future here - so I was fooled. Someone told me - I don't remember who - or even if it were some delusion fostered by a thought-stunting year in the backwards world of Huntington - that Halloween would be on Saturday in Lexington.

The wife & I took the dogs for a late walk last night & I made her bring candy along with us to give to the trick-or-treaters I knew we'd meet out & about.

Of course there were none. Halloween is tomorrow. Lexington exists in the real world. I need to get used to that.