The wife and I joined the party and accompanied two of our granddaughters on their trick-or-treat mission last night, allowing me the opportunity to make observations on the good and bad of society.
While many organizations have set up structured trunk-or-treats, most often at churches to try to tone down the pagan aspects of the celebration, and also to enhance safety and convenience, I am a fan of the old house-to-house candy canvassing as practiced in my youth.
If appearances are to be believed, my grandkids, and their friend who came along, like it too. Adults get into the spirit of the thing by also donning costumes. I didn’t, but my son, his wife, and the mother of the children’s friend were costumed escorts.
The older granddaughter whooped with joy after many stops. The younger, clad in dinosaur togs, often lagged the other two, sort of like Randy in “ A Christmas Story” always seemed to trail his older brother.
But, eventually, the younger child got the job done and, furnished a cute moment when she and a younger child, also rocking a dinosaur costume, stopped to embrace on a street.
That people spend their money to gift kids, often strangers, with candy is noteworthy. Also noteworthy is the explosion in decorating for Halloween, which now seems to run a close second to Christmas, at least in these parts.
I was impressed that many people, perhaps busy with other things on this night and not at home, still left treats in containers on the porch.
I was depressed that several trick-or-treaters, despite having adults with them, seemed to mistake signs telling people to take one item of candy, for a sign saying take one handful of candy, dump it in the sack and come back for another handful.
That those kids’ supervising adults saw no problem with this speaks to a societal ill that produces misconduct in our public schools, pro-terrorist demonstrations on college campuses, and an increasing number of overall scofflaws.
As mentioned earlier in this post, I like kids roving for their treats. I don’t like them being ferried between destinations like shock troops, presumably to increase their take.
When we used to be home to distribute treats, and when different municipalities seemed to have different treat nights, we were amazed at the number of vans or SUVs pulling up, disgorging massive numbers of kids from who knows where, that went at the treat bucket like starving dogs. Sometimes I’d mention they didn’t look familiar. Some would explain that was because they were from (fill in the blank) and it wasn’t Southmont.
That, and the adults horning in on the kids’ night by insisting on treats, too, made it more than a bit disturbing.
I have been made aware that in advance of Halloween some on social media were requesting information on which neighborhoods would provide the best haul. Not exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from responsible adults, which these days too often is an oxymoron.
Lastly, allow me to observe that while most drivers seemed to respect the reality that this was a night with an unusually large number of pedestrians, and made accommodations for that by limiting their speed, an unfortunate number of drivers drove with what could politely be called reckless abandon.
In the final analysis, Halloween trick-or-treating is a slice of life. As I observed to my son, I’d like to be a kid again, but back when I actually was a kid, not in these perverse times.
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