North Hills Flashback: Halloween, Perrysville Style

Shutting down a main corridor in a bustling suburban community in the year 2012 seems like an awfully strange idea. Urban areas and small towns occasionally have closures for various celebrations, but suburbia is a different ballgame, especially when the detours are tough due to dense residential areas surrounding the main corridor, which doesn’t have a clear backup roadway in some places. Most suburban celebrations take place at parks, recreation centers, or perhaps on some little cul-de-sac tucked a few blocks behind a major road.

Let’s go back to simpler times. Today, we’ll set the North Hills Flashback Time Machine for October 1988. Twenty four years ago, Route 19 in Perrysville was indeed closed for a few hours. It wasn’t for repairs, nor was it because of a disaster. Instead, it was reserved for the 1988 Perrysville Halloween Parade.

I was part of the parade that year. Proudly wearing a blue-ribbon winning costume designed by my mother, I led the “tots” age group. For a youngster who was just getting used to walking down the streets of Perrysville, the experience bordered on surreal. Every child in the parade appeared to be truly happy to be there. Onlookers gazed at the various costumes, searching for their favorite son, daughter, niece, or nephew, quick to point their special child out to the folks next to them as they marched down Route 19.

The story above almost sounds as though it was straight out of a tiny town in the 1950s. After all, where else do children march down a major highway in the middle of suburbia? However, this was Perrysville, one of the closest-knit small communities of its day. Even in 1988, the little village within Ross slowed down for its children and families to celebrate a holiday together, pausing the bustling traffic to let the youth enjoy every moment of the experience.

Sadly, 1988 was the end of an era. The following year, the parade moved to Grandview Avenue. Although Scharmyn Park did make for a good ending venue, the coolness factor for children and children at heart was gone. Anyone, of course, could have walked down the middle of Grandview Avenue at any time, but a stroll down the middle of Route 19 in full costume? Nothing quite beat the experience.

I’m not sure if the Halloween parade exists in 2012 in any capacity. However, in today’s fast-paced world, the memories of the 1988 parade remind us of simpler times. Perhaps we need to think about slowing down our fast-paced lives to take time for those who mean the most to us and our community. True, a Halloween party for children could take place at any park or venue in Ross (or anywhere), but it sure won’t pause the hustle and bustle for a world too consumed by the stress of everyday life. 

Sadly, these sort of events are nothing but a distant memory for most of us. Today, we need Route 19 open at all times so we can drive our three children between soccer practice, dance recitals, and various Halloween parties, all of which look more like something out of Hollywood than a simple stroll down a highway circa 1988. Whatever happened to the days of old? Why can’t we just slow down, relax, de-stress, make Halloween fun for the whole family again, and close down highways to let the children create memories they will wind up blogging about nearly a quarter century later?

If you were fortunate enough to have marched in one of the Halloween parades, feel free to leave a comment–especially if you remember what costume you wore!

NEXT TIME: Perrysville’s darkest moment occurred in 1934, bringing the little village into the national spotlight. The house at 103 Good Way became a house of horrors, just in time for Christmas. What happened? Find out next Sunday!