A Pope And Some Pizza

Growing up in a suburban area packed with row homes, apartments, and strip malls meant a windfall of candy every Halloween night.  Heavy pillowcases FILLED with the stuff.   

At the end of our night of begging for candy, we'd drop off our trick-or-treat bags and walk a couple of blocks to a strip mall with a pizza shop at the end of the long row of stores. Each Halloween they gave out free slices of pizza. That's a pretty cool thing to do (though they were about half the size of a standard pizza slice [I don't blame them as there was a perpetual line of local kids stretching out the door and winding around the building]). One year, as we got down there, my brother's Pope costume got the attention of some older kid dressed as a police officer. Gun pulled; he started yelling "IT'S THE POPE! LET HIM THROUGH!!!  LET HIM THROUGH!!!!"  My brother in his cardboard Mitre got an escort and a lot of attention.  Me, in my would-never-do-that-today costume, received no escort at all. Thankfully, I still got pizza.

Now this is the neat part.  As part of this ritual of dropping off our candy bags at home and getting free pizza, we would then head off to a neighborhood near that strip mall for what I can only describe as a Halloween variety show.  To this day I have no idea who organized the event (or who built the massive wooden stage in the center of a terrace).  But we all knew it was going to be there... when trick-or-treating was over.  When Halloween was ending.  

I recall lots of lip-synching routines, mostly from teens dressed as their favorite heavy metal bands or singers like Mick Jagger or Tina Turner.  I can recall a magician at one point and maybe a comedian.  We stood in the audience in that cold October 31st air clapping and cheering and laughing.  After it ended, the pack of friends with whom I trick-or-treated would head back to our homes on near-empty streets.  Walking past darkened porches and jack-o-'lanterns with dying flames, as each of us parted ways (to be reunited with our candy loot and to head off to bed).  Going to a Catholic School meant that the day after was a day without school... making the Halloweens of my youth even MORE glorious.  

I haven't thought of that Halloween concert in a long time.  I wonder who organized it... and who took it all down after. 

Here's a previously-posted photo of us on that incredible night of faux police escorts and wonderful Halloween pizza (just ignore my costume).