The air turning crisp and leaves changing color means only one thing: Fall is here and with it, one of the oldest holidays, Halloween. Though many are too old for trick-or-treating, Cal State Long Beach and its students are still finding ways to have fun.
Students met yesterday afternoon for a Zombie Walk. Organized by residential assistant Nicole Peterson, students were covered in blood and makeup, then set loose on the campus putting the fear of the undead into students.
“I’m a huge zombie fan,” said blood covered Peterson, a sophomore mathematics major. “I’m hoping for more people next year; it was fun being leader of the pack.”
About a dozen students from the dorms participated in the Zombie Walk for a variety of reasons.
“I love Halloween,” said Zachary Rodriguez, a junior creative writing major. “It was really cool to see people’s reactions. It was cool coming up with any joke, any weird way, any opportunity to scare people.”
Other students enjoyed the idea of being a zombie.
“I’ve always had a fascination with zombies. I’ve always wanted to live that life. When this came up, I was in,” said Davy Ferchow, a senior English and creative writing major. “I walked slow, made noises, growled and messed with my hands.”
Other zombies took a calculating approach to frightening unsuspecting students.
“I like to find metal objects and slam them down,” said David Moore, an undeclared student from El Camino. “This is pure an utter ecstasy. The adrenaline rush kicks in and once you start you really enjoy it.”
William Ramirez-Watson, a sophomore marine biology major, takes a more subtle approach to terrorizing students.
“I like to stare them down and then break into a full run or quietly sneak up on someone and growl,” Ramirez-Watson said. “I was actually jogging last night down a dark alley and somehow thought that zombies were following me. I sprinted the rest of the way home, all four miles.”
Students and passersby had their own thoughts about the wandering dead on campus.
“It’s awesome,” said Noor Salem, a senior political science major. “It’s definitely the time of year to get scared.”
“I think it’s cool,” said applied statistics graduate student Monica Yoo. “It’s something different and it looks more fun than studying your ass off.”
Zombie fun aside, Halloween has come a long way since its origins in Ireland.
“Originally it was called Samhain (pronounced sow-in or sau-an) and was a Celtic festival,” said Wendy Griffin, professor emeritus and chair of the women’s gender and sexuality studies department. “The Celts believed that fairies would come out of burial mounts and play tricks on humans. These were not your Disney-style fairies.”
Fortunately, the Celts devised a method of keeping the fairies at bay and convincing them to leave the humans alone.
“People would dress up as fairies themselves to trick the fairies and they would leave a bowl of milk outside for them,” Griffin said. “Samhain was a time to access your animal flock before the winter came. The ones that wouldn’t make it were separated out and slaughtered. It’s a time of death and celebration.”
In the United States, Halloween wasn’t formalized until the 1930s and finally hit popular culture when Disney produced the cartoon “Trick or Treat” in 1952.
Since then, the holiday has been growing with 47 million adults and 58 million children planning to dress up for Halloween this year, according to a study done by the National Retail Federation. The NRF also released the top three costumes for adults this Halloween season: witches came in first, vampires second and pirates third. Overall, adults in the U.S. will spend $4.75 billion on costumes, down from last year’s sales of $5.77 billion.
Even during this economic downturn, CSULB students are still finding ways to make the holiday special.
“I like going to the ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ Halloween special in San Pedro at the Warner Grand Theatre,” said junior theater major Courtney Knight, whose past favorite costume was Xena.
Senior film major Michelle Prebich, who is partial to a Harley Quinn costume, takes a slightly different approach to the holiday.
“My whole family goes to the Ghostwalk in Riverside to raise money for the arts,” Prebich said. “Halloween is bigger than Christmas at my house.”
Some students will, unfortunately, have to spend their Halloween preparing for midterms, but that doesn’t prevent them from reflecting on Halloween’s past.
“My friends and I used to dress like ghosts and hide under this bridge,” said bio-chemistry senior Mike Phu, a kindred fan of Freddy Kruger. “When people would come by, we’d jump out and scare them.”
Those lucky enough to enjoy the night will go with the age-old tradition of the Halloween party.
Lexie Hood, a senior English education major, sums up her feelings about Halloween: “Drunken revelry and costumes, what could be more fun?”