I was the kid who spent the four weeks of October decking out his porch in whatever spooky decorations he could get his hands on. I was the kid who spent hours putting together the perfect costume, and I was the one who went all out for the school’s haunted house. I was a Halloweenie.

While some may find one of those nice love-my-fellow-man holidays to be their favorite yearly celebration, I was always partial to running into the night in search of candy and unknown peril, armed only with a can of silly-string and a pillow case for my spoils. Who could resist the excitement of roaming the dark streets of your neighborhood when you know that the spirits of the dead have risen and are out there waiting for you?

I’m here writing this, so you can safely assume I made it through the 18 All Hallows Eves I spent in my hometown without coming across any flesh-eating zombies or soul-sucking ghosts (unless I’m writing this from beyond the grave… woooooooOOOOOOOoooooo). But after I got to college, Halloween started going down hill.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think that college Halloweens are all bad. There are plenty of opportunities to go out and get hammered, and it will be especially memorable because everyone will be doing it in full costume. The bars and house parties will be packed with sexy witches and drunken zombies (“Is he drunk or just trying to stay in character?”), slamming drinks between handfuls of candy corn. And with Halloween at the midpoint of the week this year, we can get away with two weekends of Halloween-themed drunken tom-foolery.

My issue lies with Halloween becoming only that: a reason to go out and get drunk. What happened to jack-o’-lanterns and haunted houses and all that cool shit we had when we were kids? I’d attribute the decline in enthusiasm to a lack of time, seeing as October takes your normally busy schedule and jams some midterms into it. Who has time to get scared about ghosts and goblins when you’re already terrified about that thermodynamics exam coming up? Or it may just come down to the whole Santa Claus/Easter Bunny, “I’m-too-old-for-this-shit” pattern. We don’t need to walk around in the dead of night to have our imagination play tricks on us anymore because a few drinks will do all the mind-altering most college kids want. The pursuit of the unknown has been replaced by the pursuit of tail.

I enjoy sex and beer as much as the next guy, but come on, that kid stuff used to be fun. It’s time for you drunken bastards to break out of the mid-semester lull and get into the spirit of the holiday. Spend a Saturday putting together the perfect costume (no, being a beer-box knight doesn’t count). Hit one of the many Buffalo-area haunted houses. The House of Horrors is the largest in the area, albeit probably the most expensive. The Great Pumpkin Farm in Clarence is a bit of a drive and may be a little too family-friendly for your tastes, but offers decently-priced pumpkins and local goods as well as plenty of amusement rides, fried fair food, a corn maze, and a haunted house.

If you’re strapped for cash, our features section details some of the eerie parts of Western New York. Load your friends into the Mystery Machine and check out one of these haunted places, or sneak through a graveyard at the dead of night, just to see if anything is there waiting for you. If you’re feeling less daring, rent some horror flicks (I recommend Army of Darkness or Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow).

Maybe Halloween doesn’t have quite the excitement that it did when we were a bunch of scamps running around as Ninja Turtles or Ghostbusters, but there’s still a good time to be had outside of getting plastered. Take some time out of your schedule to bring back old traditions, or to start some new ones. Have a good Halloween.

Andrew Godshalk,
Production Manager

P.S. For the love of God, don’t dress as Flavor Flav.