My return to the Kenosha Pops Band tonight (after a three week absence) could not have been more festive, thanks to the Halloween theme chosen for the evening.  This has come to be one of the happiest new traditions of the band, with the vast majority of musicians decked out in some outrageous costumes. . . everything from Waldo (as in “Where’s Waldo”) to pastor (complete with clerical collar) to construction worker (complete with hard hat) to belly dancer.     As usual,  I bypassed the whole costume thing,  although I did wear a Batman tie.   (I told a member of the crowd that I forgot my mask, cape and utility belt at home.)  The music played tonight ranged all over the map, but a lot of it was scary or semi-scary in one way or another, with music from “Psycho,”  “Phantom of the Opera,”  “Beauty and the Beast” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King” among the highlights.

But the highlight of the night for a lot of people had to be the playing of “Dance of the Marionette” by Charles Gounod, which you might recognize as the theme music from the old Alfred Hitchcock television series.   That music accompanied a parade of young people from the audience who had come in halloween costumes of their own – with Craig Gall, the literal leader of the band,  leading the way.   It was absolutely charming, and every child looked great- but especially a certain blue-clad, wing-adorned princess named Lorelai who could not have been cuter.  (You can see her in the photo above,  bringing up the rear.  She was actually at the exact halfway point in the costume parade, but right behind her was a sort of homemade Chinese dragon featuring six young people, and they didn’t move very quickly-  hence a dramatic break in the parade lineup.)   The narration that Craig wrote mentioned that the tradition of wearing costumes on Halloween stemmed from the belief that wearing costumes might scare off some of the evil spirits that might otherwise come down to earth and do harm on All Hallow’s Eve.   Neither Kathy nor I have been all that big a fan of Halloween (a holiday often marred by smashed pumpkins and other vandalism, greedy kids shuttled in from other neighborhoods by their greedy parents, and a color scheme that features way too much orange) – but hearing a little about the reason behind costume-wearing made me smile.   The world has always been a scary place, and in some ways it’s getting even scarier-  and if a grown man feels a little better by dressing up as Where’s Waldo or a 5-year-old feels better by dressing up as a fairy princess, complete with magic wand,  why not?  Throw in some miniature Kit Kat bars and suddenly you have a holiday that doesn’t seem so bad!