First, a little history of the holiday (and name) Halloween. (Or would you rather I go right into the dirt-bag stuff? Yeah, that's what I thought you would say.) But you know what? For once, your ol' Pope Guy is going to show some taste and do this whole Halloween presentation properly, and with class. (If the Pumpkin Lady up at the top of the page turns around, she'll be showing some serious, umm, class also.)
The word Halloween is a Scottish variant of the words All Hallow's Even, which translates into modern English as All Hallowed Evening, or in other words, the night before November 1st, which is All Saints Day on the Roman Catholic calendar. The jack o' lanterns, which were originally carved to commemorate the souls in Purgatory, as well as the witches and goblins and Rick Perrys and all that other scary stuff came from various similar pagan rituals and old country traditions that all refined down to the celebration of Halloween that we have today, complete with the elements of magic, witchcraft, hauntings, the dead rising, cats and dogs sleeping together (thanks, Billy M.) and so many other of our more quaint Halloween traditions.
For example, the tradition of "dressing up" for Halloween came from Irish and Scottish festivals that celebrated the end of summer and the beginning of what was referred to as "O'Freak Time", when people would make themselves up in various scary motifs, to amuse friends and scare the living bejeezus out of all the kids in the neighborhood. Here's an example of a 16th century "o'shamus" or "goofball", as they were known then.
This tradition was eventually refined down to "trick-or-treating", where village children would dress in fanciful costumes (see the Cowboy Pope costume below) and go door to door in the village, mockingly threatening to pull a "Trick" on the individual villager if they weren't given a "Treat".
(My grandfather, Pope Howard The Humble, tells the story of how the villagers in his time stopped the annoying tradition of trick-or-treating; gramps lived in Hell...Hell MI...
...and of course, since it was Hell, they had the gates thereto, right outside of town. So one Halloween, when Gramps and all the neighbors had had enough window soaping, and outhouse tipping, and wargle flogging (ever had your wargle flogged? well I should say) and newspaper in the trees (hey, it was the Depression, nobody could afford toilet paper) and so forth, the neighbors all got together, rounded up all the village kids, blindfolded them and took them out to...
...the Gates Of Hell, and told the little miscreants that any further mischief in the town on Halloween would result in ALL the children being "banished to the Gates Of Hell", or at least to Cleveland, for the rest of their natural lives.
The following Halloween, there were no incidents of vandalism or wanton foolishness, other than the "Bobbing For Alligators" down at the VFW's "Haunted House".
Other types of Halloween...damn (phone rings in background).
"PJTT...hey, Mike, happy Halloween...yeah, thanks, what's up?...they want us to go WHERE?...Zimbabwe? What the hell is in Zimbabwe, except the ebert?...oh, yeah, you're right, that is LOWER Zimbabwe for the ebert...he did what?...ooohh, that's sick...so why are we being sent there?...they really think this guy can be saved?...oh...oh...(large sigh of resignation here)...okay, when do we leave?...THIS AFTERNOON?!? Geez, thanks for the advance warning...okay, get the guys in back to fire up the Kidding, get her fitted out and loaded, and we'll leave as soon as they're ready. Have you reached Art yet?...yeah, okay, lemme' know."
That was my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan (no, not the one that plays golf with Charles Barkley); he informed me that the Bored Of Elders needs myself, the Harley Dog, Mike, and Captain Art Senscrafts, the pilot of my atomic powered rocket ship, the Royal Unionship Kidding, or RU Kidding for short, to be off on an emergency missionary trip to Zimbabwe, to spread the message of the soothing balm of Johnism, because if the reports on AOL.com are accurate, there's some folks down there that REALLY need some help. Maybe all they can get.
I'll give you a full report when we return.
(...several days later...)
Wow. Boy, there was a guy who was in SERIOUS need of the soothing balm of Johnism, amongst a few other things, like serious psychiatric help as an example.
Or maybe it was Halloween magic...ooohhoooohhoooohh.
Okay, it seems "a 28-year old Zimbabwe man who was arrested for allegedly having sex with a donkey tied to a tree had a simple explanation for his actions: the donkey was actually a prostitute who had, well, made an ass of herself."
"According to the newspaper New Zimbabwe, Sunday Moyo, the 28-year-old, told the court he paid $20 for a prostitute he met at a nightclub. Somewhere in the time between meeting her and when he was arrested, the prostitute transformed from a woman into a donkey."
"'Your worship, I only came to know that I was being intimate with a donkey when I got arrested,'" he told the court. Mr. Moyo went on to say that, "'I do not know what happened when I left the bar, but I am seriously in love with (the) donkey.'" Love Potion #9, maybe?
According to local police, "Moyo was charged with bestiality and ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation."
And the Bored wanted us to do what to help this guy? HE WAS MAKING IT WITH A DONKEY, YOU NIMRODS, WHAT THE HELL WERE WE SUPPOSED TO DO FOR HIM? FIX HIM UP WITH A ZEBRA NEXT? GEEZ.
Okay, so we spread the good word of the soothing balm of Johnism all over the Zimbabweanian countryside, checked out some really excellent Old Lion Ale, had a few laughs and headed home. Maybe there was Halloween magic in this incident, but I sure didn't see it. But we did enjoy our first time in Africa, land of headshrinkers (2nd only to Beverly Hills) and Lower Zimbabweanian eberts, and magic donkeys (?).
Do you guys remember the ebert? It's a small, furry two-headed mammal with an enormous sex-organ from Lower Zimbabwe. (The ebert is from Lower Zimbabwe, not it's sex-organ.)
You know, I just can't think of a way to end this story...a donkey. Yeeooooowah.
If I really knew any Halloween magic, I think I'd make Mr. Moyo disappear.
Love and bubbling cauldrons,
PJTT
Copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.
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