Rye, oats and Eggo

As Adam Sandler recently wrote and sang for the anniversary of Saturday Night Live — “50 years, oh my goodness, how can it possibly be 50 years...”

Friday, Oct. 31, 1975 — Halloween — was a beautiful fall day in Storm Lake. Sunny and unseasonably mild with no wind.

There being no official hours of trick or treating in those years, my close friends, Ryan Rohlk and Matt Oatman as well as myself, began intensely trick or treating around 3:30 p.m. as we were walking home after school from West Elementary. Ryan and Matt were then age 11 and in fifth grade, living right across from each other on Pleasantview. And I was age 10 and in fourth grade living on Highview.

We were buddies. We were pals. From meeting up nearly every summer morning to visit the hospital gift shop to drink cherry juice and eat donuts, playing wiffleball in Ryan’s backyard or what would be by today’s standards brutal tackle football in an adjacent lot belonging to the Perry family, followed in the afternoon by watching “Lost in Space” (“danger!, Will Robinson, danger!”) or “Land of the Giants,” we were inseparable, the best of friends.

We each came from big families. Ryan had an older brother and two older sisters. Matt had both an older and a younger brother as well as four sisters. I had two older brothers and a younger sister. Our neighborhood in the northwest part of Storm Lake bespoke and echoed of children. We all felt perfectly comfortable outside and our parents never would have even thought for a second about our safety or wellbeing. In our ensuing more than seven hours of marathon trick or treating, no adult accompanied nor shadowed us. We did not of course have any iPhones or smartwatches with us, I don’t think any of us even wore a watch. The only way my parents knew all was right with me (not that they were worried) was that I accumulated so much candy that I had to go home several times during the evening to get a new bag for my newly collected and ever growing loot and treasure — Snickers, Marathons, Milky Ways, Mounds, Three Musketeers, Mars, Baby Ruths, Nibs, Tootsie Rolls, Blow Pops, Hubba Bubba gum, you name it — a child’s (me who then used to get $1 per week for my allowance each Saturday morning from my dad which I would promptly spend on candy bought from Melody Lanes) — DREAM!

And in treat or tricking (it was after all serious business), for our ages, we were incredibly determined and even systematic and methodical. Starting from Barton Street and moving west, with the exception of Emerald Park (we ran out of time, alas, in the late evening to get there), we hit every house between the lake, West Milwaukee and the corn field which now houses the middle school and grade school.

Try as I might, I can’t remember what we each wore for our Halloween costumes. But what I do remember is that Ryan and Matt were both tall for their ages. And Ryan was just physically big. I to the contrary was short and little. So when we went up to a door, we often received a mixed reaction (humorous to think about now) — something like — “oh, such a cute little boy, but aren’t you two a little big to be trick or treating?!” So I usually emerged from each house with the most candy and even words of praise from the homeowners. So perhaps that’s why Ryan and Matt let me trick or treat with them despite my being a little fourth grader, as my shortness gave them plausible deniability and cover that they were still trick or treating as each could have easily passed for age 13 or 14. What I would have given to be tall like them.

Hour after hour we persisted, door after door, going further and further west within Storm Lake — West Fourth, West Fifth, West Sixth, Larchwood, Swallum, Gran, Lochedem, Hyland, Northwestern, Pinecrest, Vista, Renshaw … with the distance between the houses becoming more and more, ever greater and greater … but we never tired nor took a break. Reaching Angier, I remember we had fun talking with Dr. Duethman at the door who was well known that each Halloween rather than giving out candy, he would give out toothbrushes and toothpaste. Since he was a dentist, we decided to let this slide, we shyly told him which produced a big smile and laugh from him.

And in making my final trip back to my family’s house to get another bag for candy (I would say based on what was on the radio it must have been around 9:30 p.m.), my dad was listening to the familiar and endearing voice of Chuck Ney on KAYL with the post-game interview with Storm Lake Head Varsity Football Coach John Swanson. The varsity team had just lost a tough non-Lakes conference game at Le Mars to finish the season at 6-3. Since even a 7-2 finish would not have gotten them in the Class 3A playoffs, which were very difficult to make in those years (almost requiring an undefeated season), and even though my oldest brother Kevin as a junior was an offensive guard, we as a family never really gave it a thought to going and attending. That is how strong the pull of Halloween was as trick or treating in those days reigned supreme over everything else.

Finally, our long night of trick or treating ended around 10:45 p.m. inside the Wilshire Arms Apartments as indeed it was getting late. We could hear the popular introductory refrain from the Tonight Show of “Here’s Johnny” reverberating through the doors of the apartments and from the first doors, we started to get complaints that “you boys are at this too late” and/or “all our candy is gone.”

So reluctantly we decided to call it a night. But our haul was pretty unreal. For weeks afterward I had a stash of candy in my family’s fridge, but also in our downstairs deep freeze (somehow chocolate, especially Snickers, tastes better if frozen). And also at my locker at West School. I did not eat the last of my candy until well into January 1976.

What a memorable night it was. And I am proud that seven years later, Ryan, Matt and myself constituted 3/5ths of the starters on the 1982-1983 Storm Lake High School varsity boys basketball team which came within a whisper of making State, being the only team in the Lakes to beat conference champ Sibley (in double overtime no less) and also with lots of gas in our tank was really peaking at the end of the year beating in our home finale an excellent Spencer team and then blowing out to ranked Carroll in the district semi before narrowly losing by two points to (also ranked) Denison on their home floor in the District final with what would have been then a winnable Substate game. Ryan was named First Team All-Conference as our center and I believe Matt was honorable mention All-Conference as a forward and Matt was likely the best overall male athlete in the Storm Lake High School class of 1983.

Ryan and Matt were and forever remain my friends. The other Halloweens of my childhood all kind of run together but Oct. 31, 1975, still stands out 50 years, oh my goodness, how can it possibly be 50 years...

Kregg Halstead’s family lived in Storm Lake from 1972-1986, and he graduated from Storm Lake High School in 1984.