Trick or Treat

Funny how things change. We're aren't big on Halloween at our house. Not that I don't get a kick out of giant spiders on houses and spooky decorations - but I'll stick to passing out candy, thank you very much. Seems like stores were promoting Halloween back in August, skipped Thanksgiving and went straight to Christmas. Not complaining - just think it's odd. It's hard enough to live in the moment for some of us.

When I was a kid - back in the olden days - trick or treating was as much about tricks as treats. And the tricks we suffered sound a lot like vandalism, looking back on it. We lived in a little post-WWII house in the midwest, in the suburbs, with a board fence around the house. Kids threw kernels of seed corn at the fiberglass awning - which made a big racket. It was a stealth thing - it'd be dark outside, you'd be inside watching television, then the corn would hit and sound like an explosion. Fun if you were the thrower - not so much if you weren't.

It was also the time for soaping windows. The "trickers" used bar soap, and sometimes just "decorated" your windows - again, a steath thing. Not so innocent were soaped screens - it was difficult/impossible to remove the soap writing from screens.

Then there were burning paper sacks on the porch - kids would knock or ring the bell, the dad would go to the door, see the burning sack, stomp it out - and get dog poop all over his shoe.

Sometimes doorknobs would be greased. Sometimes car horns would be "stuck" - this was a time when cars were in the drive, not in the garage, and it didn't take much ingenuity to strategically place a wooden toothpick where the horn would blast.

And Halloween wasn't just on October 31st - it was the whole week prior.

It was also a day when kids who went to the door for "trick or treat" didn't have to worry about poison or razor blades.

This year, Steve set up the candy-passing-out-station around 5:30 - and by 6:30 we were about out of candy. (It wasn't even very good candy. When we have the good stuff, we eat it - and we don't need it.) Every single child - and most were in pretty clever costumes - was well mannered, said thank you, and if there was any "tricking," we haven't found evidence of it yet.