Halloween doesn’t seem to be as much fun as it was in days gone by. And it is not because I’m 60 years old either. I still enjoy a good spook — the giving and the receiving end. Especially the giving end.
Twenty-five years ago, we moved into a house located on a circle that was full of little children around the same age as our then four-year-old. Just as it was getting dark on Halloween night the doorbell would start ringing and the fun would begin. “Trick-or-treat,” I would snarl while dressed like a very old, scary man, complete with a life-like mask that looks something like Moses. The children would jump back as I reached out to drop some candy in their bags.
Those days are gone, I suppose. We haven’t had more than one, or two, trick-or-treaters at our door in years. Some years none at all. These days out in the country it is zero, nadda, zilch!
Shame, isn’t it?
Unfortunately it goes further back than that. There was a time, my friends, when it was safe to walk the streets on Halloween night, and safe to eat sweet, salty, chewy popcorn balls that some kind person spent hours making.
Some of us actually remember those times. In my youthful days (here he goes again) a bunch of us kids would gather together at one house or the other and get all dressed up and head out, on foot, through the streets of Newton.
We’d wander around well after dark and run into other groups of kids doing the very same thing. We’d compare candy notes and then some of us would head off to those better candy serving homes some of our friends had already called upon.
There were always those popcorn balls and a variety of homemade treats, as well as Snickers, and Paydays, and Baby Ruths, and the like. Some nice elderly lady would usually slip in some of her peppermint or hard rock candy. I figured she was making sure to buy something she’d like to munch on well after Halloween was gone.
And every year there was the town dentist who would drop a fresh new toothbrush into our loot bags and we’d more likely than not toss it to the side when we were back home.
When we got done with our Halloween night foot patrol mom and/or dad would then load us up in the car and we’d make special appearances at special people’s homes. Friends of the family you might say, who knew to hold on to a bag of this, or a box of that, for those of us that lived a little bit too far to walk.
When the pumpkins’ candles started to fade in the evening air, and that stench of burning pumpkin flesh began to drift away, we would spread out our stash on the living room floor pushing aside those hard candies and devouring some M&Ms, and Slo Pokes, and a bag or two of Sugar Babies would stick to our teeth. And, of course, we would also pack away a couple of the really good treats to haul to school the next morning. To show off, you know — and to get in trouble with too.
Then at some point there were rumors of kids getting candy laced with needles and razor blades and even poisons of one type or another. We never really knew who any of those kids were, but if mom said it had happened, and if Peggy, or Ruby, or just some random person walking the aisle of the A&P agreed, then it indeed had happened.
Before long no one ate popcorn balls, or cupcakes, or brownies anymore on Halloween night. Every time I bit into a Snicker Bar I waited for that hidden razor blade to slice between the gap in my two front teeth, or worse yet, cut off the end of my tongue. Of course that never happened. Somewhere, though, I’m sure it did and in no time at all trick-or-treaters no longer roamed the streets of small towns. We grew up, and generations passed, and at some point we started living our lives on the safe side.
Today, those kids from way back then are the old folks picking out the kind of candy we want to eat next week after Halloween is over if we only have one, or two, or perhaps no kids at all knock on our door this weekend.
It truly is a shame, but Happy Halloween anyway. And, rest assured, I will be ready just in case, just in case the bell rings this year...boo!
