Halloween here at Wabash really emphasizes how great the holiday is overall. Obviously, there are the parties, which Wabash does extremely well. But there are also many traditions I didn’t expect to see this year: costumes, trick or treating, and gathering around unhealthy food to watch movies. Seeing as we were putting on a Halloween party, the pledges had to find costumes, but what surprised me was the number of people who showed up to class in costume. In the classes I had Friday, I participated in a philosophical discussion with Bumble-Bee from Transformers, took a Basic Skills Exam in Calculus with a pimp, and later, I had dinner with Mario. Ahh, the variety of people you meet at Wabash.

 

Continuing with the holiday festivities, there were a couple trick or treating events for younger children around campus. Thursday, the College Mentors brought their groups of kindergarteners to the campus for their weekly visit in costumes and took them around to the different fraternities and buildings to get candy. Their smiling faces and good humor brightened up the campus and made me nostalgic for the days in which it was socially acceptable for me to beg strangers for candy. Nowadays, those requests are met with scorn and disgust, but 100lbs, 2 ft, and 10 years ago, they were met with compliments on how cute I looked or feigned fright at my “scary” costume…growing older sucks!

 

Obviously there was candy, but the sheer volume was overwhelming. Had I been 6 again, it would have filled 4 pillow cases and I would have finished it all in one night…but metabolisms get slower and times change. We decided to have a campout in the courtyard last night involving fire, hot dogs and smores, warm cider, and movies. At this time, we decimated the remaining candy and we were set to have a candy corn eating contest. I don’t know how it was universally, but when I went trick or treating, candy corn was always the thing I wanted to trade for warheads or suckers. The idea of a contest to see who could eat an entire, 5 lb bag the fastest made me sick just to think about. Eventually, I went to sleep before the festivities finished…wonder how it went?

 

Bottom line: growing up sucks, but Halloween at Wabash shows that you don’t have to do it all at once.