Everyone knows that it’s one of the infirmities of old age to be forever comparing the present to the past – and the past always comes off better. Entertainment was better when I was young… the clerks in stores were more polite and helpful… everyone dressed better… books and movies were better… etc.

Which is all true, undoubtedly. The People in Charge of Stuff Today don’t even deny it – they tell us the old ways were founded on oppression and exploitation. We should be happy to live in a smaller, meaner time now. We’ve got it coming to us.

Still, purely as an intellectual exercise, I can try to name some things I like better about the present.

• I like having the internet. It makes research a breeze. It’s endlessly entertaining.
• I like… actually, I can’t think of anything else. All the rest seems diminished and shabby.

Which brings me, in a meandering way, to tonight’s topic (such as it is). Something I’ve probably discussed before here.

At the Viking Festival in Green Bay, I had a conversation with a fellow Christian Viking, one of about my own age.

He talked about getting interested in Norse mythology as a kid. Reading the books, imagining the stories.

“But nowadays there are all these people around who actually worship Thor and Odin,” he says. “It makes it awkward.”

“They took the fun out of it,” I said. He agreed.

Thor was fun when nobody believed in him. Now he’s an object of active worship. Anything I do connected with Thor has become suspect from a Christian point of view. I’ve never worn a Mjolnir, a Thor’s hammer, because I don’t want to look like a practicing heathen. It could do injury to my neighbor’s soul.

Halloween is similar. If there were Christians warning against celebrating Halloween when I was a kid, I never heard of them. We kids dressed up, we Tricked and Treated (not me, living in the country, but I did attend Halloween celebrations at the schoolhouse in town), and it was innocent, because everybody knew witches didn’t exist.

Nowadays, there are lots of people running around calling themselves real-life witches.

It stopped being fun.

Let me be clear – I’ve said this many times – I don’t believe in witches as such. Not witches with magic powers. In terms of magic, I’m a thoroughgoing materialist.

But other people do believe. So it’s become an area where Christians probably ought not to trespass. Just to avoid the appearance of evil.

Thus, Halloween is taken from the children, and given over to adults, who’ve now made it a season of kink. (Or so I’m informed.)

For me, it’s pretty much all about candy now. Halloween means candy – not to give away to Trick or Treaters, but for myself.

At the grocery store yesterday, I found the Christmas candy was already out on the shelves. Including the little ones from Lindt – I can ration those out, just a couple a day, until spring (there’ll be Easter candy later).

Okay, that’s something good we have now that I didn’t have as a kid. Lindt chocolate.

Hey, when civilization is sliding into ruin, you enjoy what you can along the way.