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By Guest Columnist Toby Nix
My wife loves scary movies. The problem is she can rarely find one. I always tell her there’s no such thing as a scary movie. But that doesn’t stop her from scrolling through every horror movie available trying to find one.
It’s not that I don’t like scary movies. I just think the ones where everyone gets slashed up aren’t scary. I grew up with Jason, Freddie, Chuckie and Pinhead. I just don’t get those type of movies.
With that being said, I do remember when I was maybe 6 or 7 years old, running down Harris Street in Union City as fast as I have ever run in my life.
It was Halloween time and I was trying to get from a friend’s house up to the street to my house. It was about this time of year, and right at dusk.
Being the youngest of four, one of my older brothers put the Friday the 13th “ch-ch-ch...ah-ah-ah” in my head right as I was about to head home. I’ve never been too swift of foot, but the distance between those two houses never felt farther apart and I have never run so fast in my life.
That’s my childhood memory of Halloween.
We used to do our trick-or-treating in Shannon Mall. It was the easiest and quickest way to get copious amounts of candy in 1980s Union City.
I would wear that old-school plastic costume that everyone from my generation remembers. We would make a run through Shannon Mall then head home to our pending stomachaches.
As we had kids of our own, the Newnan town square became our Shannon Mall. We would park in front of Newnan High and walk up to the town square, then back to our car on the opposite side of the street.
The town square, and the surrounding area, get a lot of things right. Halloween may be at the top of that list.
Now that my children are out of that phase, I wish I had taken the time to really relish those moments walking up and down LaGrange Street with them.
But me wishing I had stopped to smell a rose or two seems to be a pretty common theme of my life these days.
My daughter asked me last night if she could spend the night with a friend of hers whose mother was going to take them to the haunted house in Newnan.
I don’t think she’s the type to enjoy a haunted house. I never did. I am 100 percent certain her older brother will be sure to put this generation’s “ch-ch-ch… ah-ah-ah” in her head, should she go.
After all, that’s what older brothers are for.
Toby Nix is a local writer, guitarist and investigator for the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office. He is the author of two books, “Columns I Wrote” and the newly released “A Book I Wrote.” He can be reached at tobynix@yahoo.com.