Anyone here know about Goosey Night?

[In_The_Wind]

1. WOW! I grew up down south so a lot of this is news to me.

http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2014/10/mischief_night_cabbage_night_goosey_night_what_does_it_all_mean.html





New Jerseyans are among the only people in America to call the night before Halloween "Mischief Night."

That is according to the very scientific Harvard Dialect Survey, conducted by professors Bert Vaux and Scott Golder.

Well, we took our own, very unscientific survey of New Jerseyans and confirmed that the term "Mischief Night" is, in fact, widely used throughout the state, from Warren to Williamstown. But in certain pockets, we found that people use two other terms for Oct. 30: Cabbage Night and Goosey Night.

Mischief Night is straightforward enough. Halloween and Mischief Night have their roots in both Samhain—the Celtic New Year—and the Christian All Souls Day. But what do the other terms mean?

Cabbage Night stems from an old Scottish tradition, according to "Framingham Legends," a history of the Massachusetts town. In Framingham, which apparently also calls it Cabbage Night, girls on Halloween Eve would closely examine cabbages pulled out of their neighbor's patches to divine the qualities of their future husbands.

"Once the cabbage had served its purpose, the only logical thing to do with it was throw it against the door and run really fast, thus beginning a long tradition of Halloween pranks," the book states.


Cabbage Night is especially prevalent in Paramus, which Kevin Wright, a historian with the Bergen County Historical Society, said likely had to do with the Dutch natives who settled and farmed the borough. The Dutch, inventors of cole slaw, are big cabbage fans, Wright said.

Today, Paramus kids carry on the tradition by calling it Cabbage Night, but Paramus Police Chief Kenneth Ehrenberg, who grew up in town, said he has never seen anyone employ cabbage in their pranks in his nearly three decades with the police department.

"It's eggs, shaving cream, toilet paper," he said. "We've never, ever, ever seen cabbage."

Goosey Night is more prevalent in western Bergen County and Passaic County, and the origins of the term are murkier. Wyckoff Police Chief Benjamin Fox used the term in a letter to parents urging them not to let their kids go out. Carol D'Alessandro of the Passaic County Historical Society said she remembers using the term growing in Pompton Lakes, but doesn't know where it came from.

"The Jews of Paterson," a history by David Wilson, calls Goosey Night a "Paterson Tradition," during which boys in the 1940s would soap up car and store windows, but also offers no explanation as to where the term came from.

Perhaps, Wright said, the simplest explanation is best.

"Goosey. It means flighty or unreliable," he said. "It's a night to act goosey. Or maybe get somebody to throw a cabbage at a house."