I just can’t get over the unpleasant notion that we collectively as a society have ruined Halloween over the past 60 years.
Like so many Baby Boomers my age, I remember well the “good ole days” when all of the children in a community went door to door in our neighborhoods and beyond to practice trick-or-treating. If there were risks, we were unaware of them. About the only thing I feared back then was some teen-age hooligan taking my candy.
What I remember most was that just about everybody got into the spirit of attempting to scare somebody else.
My brother Gib Goodwin had one particularly splendid performance in greeting the kiddies at the door on Oct. 31, 1970. When they bellowed “trick or treat,” he cautiously opened the door with an extensive spooky costume and he took up a menacing voice. In the background he played a recording of a Ligeti requiem from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” perhaps the most frightening sustained musical piece I’ve ever heard.
The children who came to the door did not scream or put up a fuss, but they clearly demonstrate their fears.
Little did I know that was that night produced the beginning of the end of customary and time honored practices in celebrating this quasi holiday.
The next day it was widely reported in the Detroit area that some foul ghoul had planted a razor blade inside an apple and gave it to an unsuspecting trick-or-treater. As expected, the public large was outraged and parents everywhere became very fearful of sending their kids out into the night to visit people they didn’t know.
Other stories of the perils of trick or treating surfaced as well.
Making things more troubling were suggestions from church-going folks, particularly of the evangelical and charismatic persuasion, that Halloween itself was a celebration of the devil himself that should be terminated.
Adding to that was the concern about safety for the children who were roaming the streets and could become victims of passing automobiles and trucks.
It was in the early 1980s that I first noticed that some of the churches that objected to Halloween on spiritual grounds began to sponsor the “Trunk or Treat” alternative, in which kids would gather at a parking lot and go around begging for sweets placed in trunk of a vehicle and handed out by members of the sponsors of the activity. The reason given for this alternative celebration was that safety would be ensured and it would curb spooky and scary activities.
It wasn’t long before other entities besides churches started sponsoring their own trunk or treat offerings.
Fast forward to this month or even today and we see trunk or treat programs offered on weekends other than Halloween and now many churches have their own celebrations that include cider, doughnuts, bobbing for apples and, of course, sweets.
One of the best known trunk or treat attractions was held on this day in downtown Wayland, referred to as “Monster Mash.”
The bottom line is that almost all of these changes were prompted by unwarranted fears over the years. You see, that report about the razor blade inside the apple actually was a hoax. Consult Chelsea Weber-Smith’s podcast “American Hysteria.”
To be sure, there’s nothing horribly wrong with putting on the trunk programs or having your own celebration. But I still yearn for those days gone by when all the kiddies went door-to-door trick or treating. It might be the only time you interact with your neighbor. Instead, we’re encouraged instead to party only with our own tribe.
So have we ruined Halloween?
Happily, in our Chandler AZ neighborhood, kids of all ages still parade door-to-door in costume to receive traditional goodies! Parents wait patiently at the end of the walk or the driveway, and some of us enjoy sending goodies out for the oldsters, who are often in costume themselves!
A Happy Halloween to all!