It's a Charlie Brown Christmas: The Anchors of Our Youth

Every year around Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, the networks trot out the usual Charlie Brown specials: It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, It's a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, It's a Charlie Brown Christmas. Why do these simple cartoons tug at our heartstrings?

For many of us Gen X'ers, Lucy, Charlie Brown, Pigpen, Woodstock, Peppermint Patty, Linus and his ubiquitous blanket are the anchors of our youth. They bring us back to nights with three channels on the TV (unless a lucky neighbor had cable), no Internet, playing in the cul-de-sac until mom called us in for dinner...

Not exactly the 1950s, but a less complicated time without cell phones, Wii, Playstation, iPods, iPhones, and all the modern accoutrement that allegedly make our lives so much more convenient.

Life is captured in these timeless cartoons: Charlie Brown's angst, Patty's bossiness, Shroeder's piano talent, Pigpen's dirt and dust, Sally's pining, Snoopy's carefree dancing, and a whole cast of characters that remind us of our grade-school classmates, curfews, and holidays that were more about family and less about "getting stuff."

So as I sit and watch these pre-historic cartoons, I hearken back to a time when my life was just a little simpler and I'm glad the networks still air these timeless specials.

Halloween... or Attack of the Kandy-Kraving Kostumed Kids

Tonight my house was held up for candy by a "ghetto clown". This too-old-to-be-trick-or-treating dandy was dressed in a clown hat (tilted of course in true ghetto style), pants that sagged well down his waist, and his ensemble was completed by a surly attitude of entitlement.

When my wife (God bless her, she still watches Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin and hearkens back to the idealized days of her youthful Halloween activities) answered ghetto clown's banging on our screen door, she optimistically asked, "and what are you?" To which ghetto clown churlishly responded, "I'm a ghetto clown."

So naturally I said, "what's a ghetto clown?" I know a little about clowns, and I know a little about ghettos, but I have never heard of a ghetto clown. Alas, my inquisitiveness was rewarded only by the gaping maw of a huge pillowcase, bulging with candy. Ghetto clown was obviously not yet satisfied with his take for the evening and demanded more.

Here I must confess that I am not really into Halloween. Don't get me wrong: I like tricks and I like treats. I like costumes, pumpkins, haunted houses, and the chill in the air that seems to mark the beginning of fall and the rapidly approaching holiday season.

Here's what I don't like about Halloween: I don't like the way kids showed up and demanded candy. Many of these candy cravers didn't even bother with the traditional statement of trick or treat; they merely held out their bags and waited for the candy to be inserted. Some even had the audacity to reach into the candy bowl and remove overflowing handfuls.

Maybe I'm reading more into this than is warranted (and I am now stepping onto my soapbox), but it strikes me that these actions represent some of the truly offensive attitudes manifested by many of today's kids: A sense of entitlement, selfishness, lack of consideration for others, gluttony, poor manners. Most of these kids are overweight, so they certainly don't need more candy. They definitely don't need handfuls (now stepping off my soapbox)...

Thank goodness for their adult minders, who in most cases stood unobtrusively on the sidewalk, reminding their little ghosts, goblins, witches, princesses and Tom Bradys to say thank you.

I just wish ghetto clown had been escorted by an adult; perhaps then I wouldn't be closing my door on tonight's Halloween with a nagging sense of annoyance.