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I’ll trick-or-treat as costumed Jewry

By Ed Goldman

Halloween is today and tonight but, as always, it’s already engulfed us for weeks. I’m afraid this alleged “holiday,” if you can call it that —even though federal, state and city employees don’t get the day off (the sure sign of reverence in our country)— holds no magic for me.

I was an actor in my youth, which allowed me to play dress-up, do funny voices and make-believe I was someone else.

Since it’s supposed to be an event for kids, I’m still a little surprised each year to get invited to costume parties by people in my general chronological ballpark (which, because of my arthritis, I’ve dubbed The Inflammation Age).

And I’m still not used to walking into banks, law offices, medical clinics or supermarkets and encountering people costumed as superheroes, politicians or Smurfs. It’s not that I expect excessive dignity in those places but I do think it’s off-putting to sit down with, and have your thumb printed by, a notary public posing as Aquaman.

To my knowledge, you won’t find officials at a mortuary or a coroner’s office observing Halloween, even though their work lends itself to gothicism. Also, if I board a plane, I’d rather not be greeted by a pilot disguised as Freddy Krueger and the flight attendants as the flying monkeys from “The Wizard of Oz.”

Same goes for nurses done up as Cruella de Vil, an Uber driver made up and costumed as Count Dracula, or a UPS delivery person marching up to my front door as a zombie rocking brown Bermuda shorts.

While I’m at it, I just don’t get it when members of the clergy dress as Mafia hitmen, psychologists don gorilla suits or the Fed’s board of directors deck themselves out as The Andrews Sisters.

This is a nation in which a majority of adults claim to suffer from imposter syndrome—that pernicious condition that makes you think you really don’t know what you’re doing at that very prestigious job you landed. As an aside, you’ll note that auto mechanics, machinists, electricians and other blue-collar workers don’t fall prey to these doubts. Does this mean that only highly educated people are dumb enough to think maybe they’re not highly educated? (This question will definitely be on your final exam.)

So why do so many people, already skeptical of their personas, take the yearly opportunity to dress as someone else they’re not qualified to be? It’s as if every October 31 is a national Come As You Only Wish You Were party?

As a little kid, my costumes didn’t vary or cost much. I was a cowboy when I was five and a frontier scout when I was six. All I had to do was change from a Stetson hat to a faux-coonskin cap. I went as the Lone Ranger one year because I already had blue pajamas, my mom made me a mask out of a pair of my dad’s black socks and I still had that Stetson hat. I don’t know where he got it but my dad gave me what looked like a genuine silver bullet, even though it strongly resembled a salt shaker I hadn’t seen on the table all week.

But by the time I was in sixth grade and had been living in the bedroom community of Lakewood, California a few years, I felt embarrassed going from house to house in our neighborhood dressed as a cowboy, scout or the Lone Ranger. First of all, all my parents’ friends all knew me and didn’t even try to get into the spirit of my embodiment. Then there was a man I’ll call Hal, who lived across the street from us and who, in my parents’ words, “Really enjoyed his beers.” Hal, whom his wife had told my parents could be a nasty drunk, saw me come up his walk as The Lone Ranger and bellowed, “Hey, here comes Zorro now!”  Since this made the other kids around me laugh, Hal, who needed little in the way of encouragement, said, “Are ya gonna carve a ‘z’ in my butt, Zorro?”

As he started to stand, wobbly but menacingly, a deep bass voice suddenly boomed from behind me: “I will if he won’t, Hal.”