For as long as I can remember, Halloween has been my third favorite holiday behind Christmas and the Red Sox home opener.
This year, I dressed up as a 1970s basketball player from Salem St. with shorts that would look small on a newborn. Not only did I not get my ass kicked, but I was applauded for the amount of townie skin I was showing ... what a holiday.
And let's be serious, Halloween is a key night in Medford because there's no need to steal candy when you can get it for free. With all that in mind, I want to share with you some reasons why I think it's awesome to be a townie on Halloween.
Unfortunately, trick-or-treating is not a socially acceptable activity for a 22-year-old townie, which is unfortunate, because I think one can never be too old to take advantage of free Milky Ways and Skittles. Although, it would look a little creepy to see an unshaven college senior walking house-to-house collecting tasty treats in an empty Natty Light thirty-rack dressed as a half-naked point guard, but I digress.
Side-note: If you're an adult reading this and you give out healthy things like raisins or apples or something like that, don't ever do that again. It's basically sacrilegious and your house will most likely be showered with shaving cream and jumbo eggs. Is it really too much to ask for some chocolate or sweets on the one night where candy is the main form of currency? No, it isn't.
Speaking of Halloween vandalism, when I was a young townie, throwing eggs at houses was all the rage. I never really caught onto this fad because I can't picture a more depressing sight than watching someone clean stinky egg yolks off of aluminum siding. The funny thing is, even if I wanted to egg houses, I would need to prepare weeks in advance because all the local grocery stores wouldn't sell eggs to anyone under the age of 16 within a week of Halloween. I'm not even kidding; you had to be accompanied by a parent just to buy a carton of eggs. How can you not respect Medford when they have to put an embargo on underage egg distribution?
This year, my roommates were having some difficulty coming up with costume ideas so I had the perfect solution: they should all dress up as townies. It was a huge success. Luckily for them, I still had all my sweet baseball and hockey jerseys from my youth and my father has been a townie all his life, so my basement was chock full of sick sportswear and Medford apparel from the sixties and seventies.
Half my house went out with blowout haircuts and Medford Mad Dogs baseball jerseys (my summer team for about ten years ... we were nasty) and the other half went out as retro townies, rocking championship jackets from my father's glory days in the intercity baseball league. Needless to say, all the shirts were tighter than spandex and the house looked like a group of athletic, retro ex-cons. The ironic aspect of the night is the fact that when we got to the house party, real high-school townies were already there causing a ruckus, taking a lot of the fire out of the townie costumes we had put together.
It's very difficult to compete with a real townie when they walk around the party talking about how they just got out of jail all while wearing a Kangol hat, no shirt and the name "Sully" tattooed on their neck ... and Sully, if you can read and you're reading this, I'm sorry.
The real scary part about this Halloween wasn't a particular costume or movie. It was the fact that this is my last year in college and I might have to face the reality that this could be my last really fun Halloween. I mean, I'm still going to get decked out and go to parties in Halloweens to come, but it most likely won't be at a house party but rather at some dumb, trendy bar with $10 drinks and people who think an ironic costume like a deviled egg is actually clever and funny.
I'm definitely going to miss the thrill of getting Sour Patch Kids and the anger of getting a toothbrush (that's right, someone actually gave out toothbrushes one year, talk about fun police). It shouldn't be too bad though, because I plan on spending at least one more Halloween in Medford after I graduate, with my parents as my roommates.
Pete McKeown is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached at peter.mckeown@tufts.edu.
