Moving Halloween to the last Friday in October is the vision. This is a win-win for everyone. Kids can stay up late and watch scary movies. Parents and teachers don’t have to fight the sugar crash the next day. And the following Saturday is a big night out for the adults - the largest festival of the year. Costumes, artisans, dancers, music – everyone will love it. It will be a holiday to honor all caregivers, past and present.

You might think I have a big heart. I don’t. I was born and raised a hustler and grifter. I have gone through periods of reform only to fall off the wagon again. Here is my backstory.   

I was born the love child of the Wizard of Oz and the Wicked Witch of the West around 1870. Don’t know my exact birth date. Do know I have my mother’s complexion. I spent my youth either in Oz, my mother’s castle, or visiting cousins in Nebraska and Kansas. At a young age the flying monkeys taught me how to hustle at pool, poker, and other games. Around the age of 14, tired of all the drama that comes with growing up in celebrity households, I left to find my place in these worlds.

Worked as an honest man for a while. Helped electrify the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Then I fell off the wagon. A few years later on a Mississippi steam boat, a game of cards turned ugly. While swimming to shore I got shot in the keister. While pulling the lead out I had an epiphany. I was going to be a grifter that left each community I visited a better place. To do that I thought I would need a formal education.

Not soon after I crossed paths with a Reverend Joseph Parker in Wichita. He had just established a college for students without much money. A history degree seemed mundane. I decided to pursue a major in Séance Communications with a minor in Zeitgeist Studies.

I studied abroad in the spring of 1898. In Greece, with the help of some gypsies, I managed to communicate with the Goddess Bia. We hit it off. She crossed the portal. We did spring in Athens, summer in Rome, and autumn in Cairo on the Nile. She role played Marc Antony, and me Cleopatra. I learned almost as much from her as from the flying monkeys.

The next year we went our separate ways. I tell myself she couldn’t handle my big city style and country boy charm. Besides, I just wanted to party like it was 1899. Truth be told I was out of money. She said, “You are no gentleman, and never will be.” I said, “A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.” She stormed away. I was broke.

Confused, I went to Paris, and then elsewhere. Started grifting again. I studied further abroad, and another broad. Never got a degree, but I did receive a fizzing great education. I think Mata Hari was my favorite instructor. Later, during a reform phase, I decided I was going to be a gentleman wander, like Sir Lancelot, the Cowboy Shane, Darth Vader, or who ‘You Moderns’ refer to as Wolverine. Except for me I was going to do it without all the brooding.

After that a lot happened in my life; crossed the portal many times. Then during the Flu Pandemic of 1918 I lost several individuals that were close to me. Until now that is the last time I visited the Earthly Middle Kingdom.

Distraught, I wandered the Netherworld and Oz searching for purpose. Grifted, reformed, grifted, reformed. Spent time fighting as a mercenary with the flying monkeys. Then in 1935 I met up with Lady E Krebs. She is best known in the Earthly Middle Kingdom as the Mother of Modern Halloween. Our connection is that my cousins are the ones who destroyed her flower garden, and from that Trick-or-Treat was invented.

Lady E Krebs has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met. Her favorite line is “Share it forward”. She loves children. But there aren’t many children in the Netherworld. So she started helping misfits and vagabonds. Eventually they travelled from town to town, throwing festivals. Small at first, but they grew and grew. Lady E’s biggest strength is instilling a sense of duty and supplying a mission without all the motivational hype and marketing hugger-mugger.   

Every festival has a theme: Mysterious Ladies and Gallant Soldiers; Midnight Séance of the Seven Escape Artists and Twelve Angry Females; Fast Cars and Slow You Know (pause) Cooking, and my favorite, High Plains Drifters and Wandering Souls. There would be speakers, workshops, scientific demonstrations, artisans, craftsmen, dancers, street performers, plays, competitions, speed dating, political debates, Tarot readings, and often a good fist fight. Food is always excellent, and we always end the evening as friends with song and dance.

I ended up working for Lady E. She helped me reform. After several decades I became her head roadie and chief promoter. I have been on the wagon ever since. Part of the reason it took me so long to reform is I was slow to learn that there are two types of women in the Netherworld, those that become more beautiful the more you know them, and the opposite.

Turns out the Greek Gods and Goddesses don’t care much for Lady E. They want to be the center of attention. So they, Bia in particular, started making life difficult: charging fees, imposing taxes, creating complicated permits, regulations, licenses, and inventing more and more paperwork. I used my skills as a grifter to help navigate this ever changing landscape of the growing administrative state. I was tested many times but remained loyal to Lady E.

A legend started to build among the flying monkeys and munchkins that I was the greatest grifter of the Netherworld because I excel at turning lose-lose situations into win-win situations. I let that legend grow. With age you learn morality is doing what’s best for the community. That said the big question is “What community are we talking about?”

I got blindsided because I forgot Bia knows my weaknesses: females and rum. She set me up at the Carnival of Unexplained Happenings and Double Meanings. I don’t remember much that night. Something about if I could beat Bia in a dance off then she would leave Lady E alone.

I woke up covered in filth in Rochester, NY. There was a note. “Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs the Second, you are not allowed through the portal until you accomplish a list of 10 undisclosed menial tasks. Love, Marc Antony.” She’s such a Bia.

Sitting in an alley that first night back, I do what I always do when looking for guidance. I said a prayer then flipped over one card from the Tarot. It was the Death card, upright. For the uninitiated that represents death to an old way of thinking, and an opportunity to mature and grow. I just laughed. I’m too old to reinvent myself.

Two pandemics connect my leaving and returning to the Earthly Middle Kingdom. I spent the later pandemic sitting in an apartment, studying you moderns, studying your internets, and trying to reinvent myself. I’ve lived through many zeitgeists. I’ve concluded people are still the same: a few good, a few bad, most a little of both.

Moving forward, I’ve accepted that a man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him. I’m not going to brood. I’m going to open my mind, focus on the positive, and adopt a Technogeek Steampunk Disco attitude. I’m going to enjoy my time here. My connections, the flying monkeys Brass and Bobo, are working on uncovering Bia’s undisclosed menial tasks. I already know a few: find someone who can beat Bia in a dance off, turn the modern male beast into a gentleman, assist lesser known musicians with their careers, and help couples find true love. When life serves up flim-flam, why not make fiddle-faddle. I’ve set up a small bodega on Etsy to help fund this endeavor. My life is about to get interesting.