Halloween and Bags of Candy

Given that today is Halloween, I thought it appropriate to dedicate this Gotta Look Up podcast to the holiday and to the many bags of candy that will be taken home tonight.  This is an important date for kids, so I hope that you all have planned to be home in time from work to take them Trick Or Treating, or to a party.  It is important family time and makes for great memories.  Let me share a few of mine.

Halloween for me was always a fun day.  Aside from bags full of candy, and the fact that every year we tried to go to at least one more house than we did the previous year, the most memorable things were by far our costumes. My mom handmade most of our costumes and she did that for 3 boys, and then for another son and daughter 8 and 12 years apart from the three of us older boys.  For kindergarten, I of course was an elephant.  That costume won first place and what I thought was the biggest pumpkin ever.  It was a great memory!  That same costume went on to win again for my younger brother, and then again for my sister after my mom spruced it up and made it Dumbo.  It’s not official, but I believe that costume won more contests and Manuel De Vargas Elementary School than any other.  I still have it somewhere.  In 1973, I was the racehorse, Secretariat.  One year, I was a caveman and carried a Styrofoam T-Rex skull and a club.

But aside from the world champion elephant costume, my other favorite Halloween memory was when my younger brother was the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.  My mom again handmade the costume using blue furry material; large, round Styrofoam eyes, and a sheer black cloth that my brother could see through.  She also fashioned a large, chocolate chip cookie out of cardboard.  When her Cookie Monster costume was announced in the school courtyard over the megaphone as the “Best Store-Bought Costume,” I heard a yell of “I made that!” from the crowd.  It still makes me laugh to this day…and, how skilled was my mom that the judges thought her costume was store-bought?!

I want to transition over now to a different story about bags of candy and tell you about a new favorite hobby of mine.  I learned it many years ago from a co-worker named Marty Melville.  Unfortunately, Marty is no longer with us on this earth.  Marty stood by me and supported me during a very difficult time in my career.  Marty left us way too soon.

I believe that if people have inspired you or touched your lives in a positive way, whether you’ve met them or not, taking a positive attribute of theirs and applying it to your life can only improve the world.  In Marty’s case, I was traveling with him on a business trip and he made a bee-line for the gift shop in the airport.  He bought a couple of candy bars and another bag of treats and asked the cashier to put them in a bag.  I asked him half-jokingly how he planned to eat all of that on a one-hour flight.  “This isn’t for me,” he said.  “You’ll see.”

I followed Marty onto our flight.  While on the jetway and about to enter the plane, he pulled out the bag full of treats, handed them to the flight attendant at the door and said, “These are for you.”  She smiled very wide and thanked him profusely.  The joy on her face was palpable.  This small, thoughtful gesture had made her day. 

When Marty and I finally got to our aisle seats across from each other, I told him that it was really good thing that he did, and that he made that lady’s day.  He told me that flight attendants put up with a lot of crap and this was a small way to show appreciation for what they do and to help put smiles on their faces.  I found a new level of respect for Marty that day.  I also learned that the flight attendant offered him a free drink, which I’m guessing was a planned side benefit, if I know my friend Marty.

I’ve recently increased my business travel, and for some reason, this memory of Marty giving candy to the flight attendants rushed forward in my mind.  I decided that it would be fun to do this on every flight I could to keep Marty’s tradition going, and to bring smiles to the flight crews on all of my flights.  So far, so good!  It is a lot of fun to see the reactions!  And yes, I have been offered free drinks on pretty much every flight.  I am not a drinker though, so they usually default to an extra bag of snacks or cookies, which is good enough for me.  

I enjoy being the candy man.  And it always reminds me of the song  “The Candyman” written by Leslie Bricusse and Aubrey Woods and made famous by Sammy Davis Jr., as his first #1 record, and sung memorably by Anthony Newley in the original “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” movie. 

Again, I won’t sing this song unless people want to do a fundraising challenge for charity, but the words to the song are compelling on their own.  It goes like this:

LYRICS TO “THE CANDYMAN” SONG

Who can take a sunrise

Sprinkle it in dew

Cover it in chocolate and a miracle or two?

The candyman

The candyman can

The candyman can 'cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good

Who can take a rainbow

Wrap it in a sigh

Soak it in the sun and make a strawberry lemon pie?

The Candyman

The Candyman can

The Candyman can cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good

The Candyman makes

Everything he bakes

Satisfying and delicious

Talk about your childhood wishes

You can even eat the dishes

Who can make tomorrow 

Put it in a dream

Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream

The Candyman

The Candyman can

The Candyman can cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good

And the world tastes good because the Candyman thinks it should.

Look Up!   TRICK OR TREAT!  Let’s go cover the world with chocolate and a miracle or two!