VISIONS OF HALLOWEENS PAST

Well Halloween came and went. I think we had three Trick or Treaters. I was in bed with the flu and mom was manning the door. We packed it in about eight and turned out the lights. The cute little kids are all home taking stock of their stash by then anyway. There’s a small church down the street and they did a Halloween party. I’m guessing that’s where some of the kids ended up. And it was raining. It’s hard to look like a prince when your frog costume is soaking wet. Heck, there wasn't even anything good and scary on the tube. Even if I'd been up to staying vertical that long. Thbppppb as Bill the Cat from Bloom County used to say. 

Then, to add a little insanity to the mix, there  was this gal in North Dakota who was going to hand out “fat letters” to T & T’rs who were overweight. In her opinion. Twit. She’d probably have been perfectly at home at a judge in the Salem Witch Trials three centuries ago.

Or maybe she’s just a prime example of American lack of imagination. I mean she could have stocked up on sugarless candy. It’s out there. But I’m not sure if it comes in a nice, safe wrapper. What I’ve seen comes in bulk. She could have handed out granola bars. Or boxes of raisins. Heck our local butcher shop carries their own brand of jerky. I bet they’d shrink wrap individual servings on order. Of course that would take planning, imagination and more investment in time and cash than just going to BiMart with a coupon and picking up a couple of bags of Snickers or Milky Ways.

I’m old enough to remember Halloweens when you could give out popcorn balls, or cookies, or even donuts. We did that one year. Made a batch, Sampled, Found then ok, but probably won’t do it again and handed out the rest to the door knockers. Did a double batch of chocolate chip cookies one year. Again we had what we wanted, gave away the rest. Did popcorn balls a couple of years. Even tinted the syrup a color that resembled orange. If you used your imagination. The rug rats that knocked on the door didn’t seem to mind.

There was anticipation. What will we get at this house? Well, you pretty much know what’s coming. It’s be in a wrapper and hopefully untouched by human hands. Arrrrrrgh!

Then people started finding pins in the popcorn and razor blades in the apples. The industry came up with “fun” size candy bars and the rest is history. And Halloween really got really, really boring.