Let's Make It a Real Holiday

Undoubtedly, you’ve heard people say that Halloween is their favorite holiday – which it isn’t. But let’s face it – Halloween just isn’t a normal business day.

Does anyone in your office dress up for Halloween? Does the management encourage it? I went to the dentist the other day, and they had scary decorations up. I told them, “Hey, this is a DENTAL OFFICE, you don’t need extra fear factors!” Do banks still have tellers wear costumes? Well, bamkers are portrayed as the real monsters these days, right?

I enjoy Halloween for a couple of reasons. I’ve always liked horror movies, but they rarely make them like they used to, with Karloff, Lugosi and Chaney. Knives and buckets of blood don’t do it for me, nor do vampires suffering from discrimination. But Halloween is the one day on which you get a free pass to take a vacation from yourself. Conventional wisdom has it that this is particularly true of women. I do remember some years ago in an office I worked in that a young woman – a rather religious one most of the time -- came to work in an anatomically correct flesh-colored angel’s costume. No, she didn’t wear it all day – she quickly resumed being herself – but she got the point across.

There are some parents who believe Halloween is wrong, but I think children relish the idea of taking on a different persona for at least part of one day a year, and that they shouldn’t be deprived of that experience. I envy actors, who get to do it for a living all the time.

Let’s just bite the bullet and make Halloween a national holiday. If you think you’re going to get something important done, well, best wait till All Saints Day.

The Cowboy and the Alien

Some of you have heard me quip that if Rick Perry is the cowboy among the Republican presidential candidates, then Mitt Romney must be the alien. OK, so you get the cowboy part, but why do I think Romney’s an alien?

Just to be clear about this -- a relative and I occasionally bestow this classification on certain people we run across. All of us have encountered at least one. They’re attractive, competent and sensible, but gosh darn it, there’s something missing. What it is, we don’t know – but we know it’s why the individual so designated has trouble connecting with us, or with others. I have no doubt that Mitt Romney is qualified to be President. So why does he make even Republicans uncomfortable? It’s that thing that isn’t there. With McCain they worried that his heart might give out at his age; with Romney, is there a reasonable fear that his batteries may die?

Romney’s a great backup in case nobody else works out for the GOP. But Republicans want desperately for someone else to work out. They’re attracted to Herman Cain. He’s decisive. He has plans to fix things. Some of them make a certain amount of sense. He makes them sound like they make sense. He’s the CEO of a successful company who knows what success is. He’s a leader. That’s what Republicans want. Heck, that’s what the country wants right now.

Just one problem. Cain’s a nut case. Off the scale on some things. Come on – do you really agree with him that Sharia law is going to take over our judicial system? What about his statement that he won’t have a Muslim in his cabinet, or appoint one to a federal judgeship?

Which brings us back to the alien. I’d have a really hard time voting for an alien, but as long as we’re in the sci-fi/horror genre, I’d easily vote for a zombie if his name were Teddy Roosevelt.

That’s what’s really missing.