HALLOWEEN, BIRTHDAY ALWAYS MADE OCTOBER A SPECIAL MONTH

October has always been a special time for me -- both good and bad.

First of all, I'm an October baby. In fact, I'm an Oct. 17 baby -- one that turns a crusty, creaky old 37 today. Of course birthdays aren't always the best day of the year. As a kid it seemed like I always got sick on my birthday, for some reason. I don't know if there was some deep psychological reason for this, or if it just worked out that way.

Of course there are some pleasant birthday memories, too. As a senior in high school, I was an office worker for one of the counselors (Barb Bockenkamp, whom any Mineral Area College students during the last 15 years or so, will know). I was surprised to find one of my female co-workers remembered it and put a big "Happy Birthday, Mark" poster on the wall. Somewhere, despite a mid-80s roof replacement at home that left it smeared, I think I still have that poster.

I guess my most memorable came my junior year in college. Late that night I was "kidnapped" by a bunch of desperadoes (whom I know were my fraternity brothers and their girlfriends), driven around in circles (I could see through my blindfold.) and taken to the Windmill, in nearby Boonville (the only 24-hour establishment that side of Columbia back then). There I was treated to the infamous biscuits & gravy for which the greasy spoon was widely known.

I celebrated my 1987 birthday (Sorry, folks!) with a football victory over Jackson, at the peak of my Dexter days. (This was a great quarterback duel between Earl Wheeler and Jason Liley.) Another highlight was when the Three Rivers volleyball team sang (or ATTEMPTED to sing) "Happy Birthday" to me when I wound up covering a match on my day, a few years back.

Of course Halloween was also a reason October was special during my younger days. I guess, other than Christmas, it was my favorite holiday as a tyke. We always decorated the first week in October (and the first week in December for Christmas) and had the usual skeletons, witches, Jack-O-Lanters, etc., on the walls. I remember the Post-Dispatch having a really cool (or so it seemed at age 5) painting on the cover of its weekend magazine each Halloween during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Naturally we went Trick-or-Treating -- although only to folks we knew. It was probably safe in circa 1970 Bonne Terre to go house-to-house, but my folks were cautious even then.

My dad's death on Oct. 6, just 11 days before my 10th birthday, took some of the luster off of Halloween from then on. So did my allergies which started flaring up about a year before he died. Pneumonia and Bronchitis became yearly fall affairs from second through about 10th grade. Fortunately, the doctors were right; I eventually outgrew it.

Today, as a Southern Baptist youth worker, I have mixed emotions about the holiday. The debate may never end on whether Christians should celebrate this day of little goblins and ghouls, which originated from a quite pagan festival. Still, most of us seem to thrive on a little scare now and then. With satanists, witches and others coming out of the closet more and more, the cute costumes and decorations seem a tad less innocent in the nineties than they did in the late sixties. Still, it's hard not to look back fondly on the holiday I enjoyed so much as a tyke.

Have I completely abandoned it? Well, at the Daily Statesman in Dexter we used to dress for Halloween. In 1987 I actually won the community Halloween costume contest's "scary" division (pictured above) as a ghoulish zombie. This tradition at Dexter ended a couple of years later, when Halloween fell on a Tuesday, our busiest day.

Of course football and volleyball, Homecomings and other festivals and beautiful fall colors have continued to make October a special month. The temperatures begin to drop -- if they hadn't already -- and a nice crispness can be felt in the air.

Halloween is not as special as it once was and birthdays are rarely remembered by friends without shameless hinting. This year my duties no longer make sports coverage mandatory. The leaves aren't even quite as spectacular this year, thanks to the long summer drought. Yet there is still something almost magical about October. It remains one of my favorite months.