I loved Halloween when I was a kid. Late October in Texas is sometimes cool, but it was never too cool for tricks-or-treats. I don't remember that I ever had a costume. What I had was a Lone Ranger mask. I figured I was completely unidentifiable when I had it on. This was so long ago that our mothers didn't mind if we took a grocery sack (they were all paper in those days) and got together with a few friends to roam the town and see what kind of treats we could collect. No supervision. Nobody worried about that kind of thing in a small town long ago. Nobody worried about the treats that were put into the sack, either. We ate them all without thinking a thing of it.Even better than the trick-or-treating was the Halloween Carnival. For years it was held in the downtown area. We'd walk around and collect our treats and then walk downtown. Still unsupervised. It was kid heaven. A cake walk, a ducking booth, bingo, a fortune-teller, and all kinds of little games where you could win a prize by popping balloons with darts or catching a little plastic fish. One year it was colder than usual, and the carnival moved inside a big car dealership. After that it was held in the hallways of the elementary school.
There are still Halloween carnivals everywhere. We had them every year at the college when I taught there, and I worked in the beanbag booth for the Writers Club. They still have the carnival every year, but it's a "harvest festival" now. Believe it or not, there's a War on Halloween. I think kids still wear their costumes, but they don't get to wander around town without their parents hovering nearby. There's not much trick-or-treating because to make things safe for all, there's a community treats trail in one of the parks. I miss the old days.
13 comments:
Yeah, me too, Bill. We even have police in our schools today. We've really progressed, haven't we?
My brother and I and a friend of ours all went as Zorro, inspired by the Guy Williams series.
What they do now is, parents take the younger kids around after school. Most of the businesses on Third Avenue (the main shopping and restaurant street) have buckets of treats to hand out to the kids. Even the Chinese takeout places have them. Some parents also supervise their kids trick or treating around the neighborhood, although since we're in an apartment building they don't come in here unless they live here.
Later in the evening some older kids are around looking for trouble.
Jeff
Tom, the high school here has a bigger police force than my hometown had when I was a kid.
Jeff, we never got into trouble, of course.
I once got hit by an egg thrown by an older kid while on the way home from playing stickball in the schoolyard.
Jeff
Wednesday afternoon from 4PM - 6PM was downtown trick or treating. Our downtown has a park in the center and the children will hit all the businesses. Only a handful of locations do not participate.
My wife went to Costco and picked up four large bags of candy for the library. Last year we almost ran out of candy.
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Regular trick-or-treating is tonight. I heard a story that last year the son of a family friend decided he lived in a bad neighborhood for candy. So he trekked across town to a different neighborhood and then trekked back home. His sister's stayed in their neighborhood and when the son compared his proceeds to theirs he found out he had much less candy.
Our downtown trick-or-treating is tonight, so I probably won't have anybody come by here. For a while, people would drive to this neighborhood and let out carloads of kids. Not anymore, though.
That downtown thing is a new one to me, but I grew up pretty far out of town. We went door to door in the nearby neighborhoods, once we were deemed old enough by our parents. They would drop us off and my dad would hang out at some friend's house with the parents until we returned.
No Halloween carnival, either. There was a Spring one with cake walk and all that other stuff, but not at Halloween. When I got home I had to turn the bag over to my Mom who took out some and then doled out the rest on a daily basis, a little bit at a time.
Now we buy one bag of candy, have about a half dozen kids from our street and that's it, the rest we eat or it goes into the trash. I'm not supposed to eat candy so I get two fun sized bars, that's it.
I bought a bag of candy, but it was "just in case." Last year we didn't have a single trick-or-treater come by the house.
When we first moved here there were people with young kids in the building but they mostly aged out or - as their families expanded - moved to bigger quarters or bought houses. For years there were few kids but in the last few years I've noticed more and more kids, including two families on this floor. No trick or treaters came at all last year (or the few years before that), so I may have to eat the Kit-Kats myself if this year is the same.
By the way while we were out we saw a big house with a sign on the gate saying "Sorry No Candy." I'll be curious to see if they have repercussions.
Jeff
Last year we didn't have a single trick-or-treater come by the house.
They are afraid of getting too close to your lawn.
You're probably right, Gerard.
Jeff, there might not be repercussions for that sign, but there'll be talk. Or there would be around here.
We had two kids come by tonight, at separate times. One lives across the cul-de-sac and I don't know the other. There have been years in the past when no one came. When I was a kid we either trolled the neighborhood or apartment complex and got plenty of treats--or the occasional apple or popcorn ball. I even liked getting coins because there was so much you could get at Woolworth's for 20 cents or so. Yes, like Bill, I miss the old days.
I never got a coin, Cap'n. I got a popcorn ball once or twice, and my parents even let me eat them. It never occurred to anybody that it could be dangerous.
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