Halloween is a nice holiday where you can connect with your neighbors and see all the creativity in the costumes from both kids and adults, but Halloween reaches a new level when it is on a Friday. Friday Halloween’s are gateways to unlimited candy for kids and nights of debauchery for adults. Well in 2003, Halloween happened to fall on Friday and the night that followed will go down in Thomas-family lore for generations. Come with me on a trip back in the times of video game rental, tube televisions, and appreciating the little things that life has to offer...
2003 was not the most harmonious time for my family, but I don’t remember it like that. My parents were finalizing their divorce, and my brother and I used school and sports as coping mechanisms. My whole philosophy was just to keep my head down, not cause any trouble, and just do the best I can in whatever I do. At my dad’s house, things were pretty spare. Lots of home cooked meals (most were great, some not so much), watching sports, and playing video games with each other. Most weekends, we would take a trip to Movie Gallery and its GameZone section to see what would occupy our time. The year prior, we played a game called Hunter: The Reckoning, a multiplayer hack-and-slash dungeon-crawler with a supernatural twist. The sequel, Hunter: The Reckoning - Redeemer, released on October 28, 2003 and was available to rent from GameZone. We all voted unanimously in favor of Redeemer and rented it on the Thursday before Halloween.
Once we all got home on Friday, my dad asked if I was going to go trick-or-treating, but for whatever reason, I wasn’t feeling it. My brother, Bobby, seemed more surprised that I didn’t want to go since the initial plan was that we were going to go together. As the day turned toward the evening, the inevitable happened, and I found myself craving free candy. Bobby was a little annoyed by my sudden change of heart and his first question was, ”what’s your costume?”. The question was meant to squash any hope of going trick-or-treating because I never got a costume, but me being the quick thinker I am, I just grabbed my Tennessee Titans Eddie George jersey and a pair of cleats and proudly stated that I was going as a football player. Both my dad and my brother tried to dissuade me from wearing cleats while going from house to house, but 7–year-old me was all about authenticity. Bobby said he didn’t want to hear me complaining about my feet hurting because he gave me a chance to change my shoes. I told him I would not complain. So, we set off into the night with a black garbage bag in tow.
It only took an hour for my feet to begin to hurt, but I did not let it show until around the two hour mark. Bobby kept asking if I was ok, and I lied because I did not want to give him the satisfaction. Although he was a little annoyed by my 180-degree reversal about trick-or-treating, he was more committed than I was. After we covered about one-third of the neighborhood, I was ready to go home, but Bobby stressed that we had barely gotten any candy because we hadn’t even filled a quarter of the black garbage bag (which is still a good amount of candy). Bobby’s true reasoning was two-fold - he has quite the sweet tooth and he still wanted me to complain about my shoes. So I soldiered on in the quest for more candy.
Once we reached about three hours of trick-or-treating I broke down. I told my brother that my feet were hurting and he was right. Being the good big brother that he is, he didn’t give me a lot of crap about it and he noted that I lasted longer than he thought I would. Also, he brought along an additional pair of shoes in his drawstring backpack for me to wear. The relief was instant and we knew we could finish off every house. I remember one woman in particular who was so happy that we stopped by her house because she had gotten almost no trick-or-treaters and it was around 10:30 pm. She had a huge bowl full of candy and told us to take as much as we wanted. I immediately put my whole hand in the bowl and grabbed as much as possible before I paused when my brother said, “Alex, chill!”. My brother was being polite and did not want to come off as greedy, something I did not quite understand at the time. The woman was very cordial, laughing at my gluttonous reaction to her open invitation, but she still encouraged us to take as much as we wanted. After much deliberation, we took about half her bowl. As the clock neared 11:00 pm, we went back home with a black garbage bag about 60% filled with candy. We took turns carrying the bag, but it was probably 70/30 in favor of my brother.
"Holy s**t!" was my dad’s general reaction to our haul. My brother and I were sweaty and somewhat exhausted after being out in the humid Florida night for 3.5 hours. Nevertheless, we still had enough energy to dive into Hunter: The Reckoning - Redeemer. We cleaned ourselves up, ate a light dinner, and turned on the Xbox upstairs in the guest room. My brother and I sat on the couch while my dad was in the recliner. The massive bag of candy sat between my brother and my dad and we just picked from it throughout the night and early morning. Laughs ensued as we pulled Lays potato chips, mints, and pretzels from the bag. We stayed up until around four in the morning and got through most of Redeemer, fighting the undead as well as possessed teddy bears. I remember one part of the game where all of our characters were running across a long bridge. Dad had the slowest character which was this priest who wielded a crossbow while my brother and I had two more agile and fleet-footed female characters (I played as the titular Redeemer). Bobby and I were in a foot race at one end of the tube television screen while my dad was holding up the rear.
Halloween 2003 is a moment I’ll always remember because of the unbridled fun that I experienced that night. It wasn’t a trip to Disney, or a vacation to Ohio to see my relatives. It was just a Friday night playing video games with a couple family members, but it is also a mainstay in Thomas-family lore.
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