Day 297: The Night Jason Voorhees Took Me Down

I’ve had some excellent Halloweens in my life. Of course, watching your kids trick and treat when they’re youngsters is beyond awesome, and there are few things that can beat that, but long before I had kids and long before we hit the night in search of candy, there were many incredible Halloweens that had nothing to do with being a parent. A lot of those nights would involve copious amounts of alcohol and various forms of debauchery, but a lot of them didn’t. Many were memorable for reasons that had nothing to do with howling at the moon, as it were.

Take the Halloween that I was in second grade, for example. Back in the day, kids were allowed to take their costumes to school, and better, in my school we paraded around the top floors of the school so the junior high kids could check us out (and ridicule us). That particular year I had a boss Frankenstein costume that I was majorly stoked about. Green and purple and wicked with black scars on the mask, that costume was bad-ass, and I couldn’t wait to show it off. Problem was that somewhere around mid-morning, I started to feel sick. I was determined to gut it out, though, because besides the Halloween parade, my school had Halloween parties, and that meant food and fun. But damn if I didn’t start to feel so poorly that I was sent off to the school nurse and then later packing my Frankenstein goods and headed home for the day. Depression set in, and it would only get worse. Not to get too graphic here, but what my seven-year-old brain had taken for a severe stomach ache turned out to be nothing that a trip to the bathroom wouldn't end up solving, if you know what I mean. Five minutes later, I was back in top form. My friends at school didn’t see me as Frank, but I still scored candy that night.

When I think of Halloween, though, I think about that damn bastard Jason Voorhees. On Halloween night the year I was 14 and in ninth grade, that ghoul-faced clown scared me so badly, the feeling went out of my legs. Literally. Prior to that little happening, though, the entire rest of the night was glorious. In addition to sharing my first kiss with my then girlfriend, my best friend and I tormented the mean streets of Ashland. Well, not really, but we thought we were. What freedom we had then. No worries of creeps doing us in. Nothing to watch over our backs for. Just fun. 

Eventually, that night we would make our way back to my house for a brief pit stop, during which I sat down near the television, which just so happened to be playing “Friday The 13^th” on HBO. Having never seen the flick before, I never saw what was coming. Sitting on the floor, legs crossed in full-on Yoga style, I watched Mr. Voorhees meet his apparent end. Only, the little crapper wasn’t done for. When he suddenly made his presence once again by popping out of the lake in that now infamous final shot, my legs locked in what was a massive cramping. The pain was unlike any I had ever endured, and I yelped and screamed as if I were walking on fire. It seemingly took hours before I could straighten my sticks out. 

To this day, even seeing a poster, commercial, or passing glimpse of that mute screwface makes my legs hurt. But it also makes me think of Halloween and how much fun those days so long ago were. What a different time. What a great time to grow up.