October 31, 2007
 

Trick Or Treat

Boo!  And Happy Halloween.  We’re in Denver to chaperone the trick or treating grandchildren and, truth be known, occasionally snitch one of those yummy mini-Snickers bars from a Halloween swag bag when the grand squirts, and grandma, aren’t looking.  Which probably means it’s another Halloween evening filled with “You’re actually stealing candy from three and four year olds?” lectures.  

The Halloween of my youth was basically all about talking Mom out of an old sheet, guesstimating the ideal location to scissor holes for the eyes, nose and mouth in said sheet, I always seemed to guess wrong causing me to wander the streets of Cambridge, Illinois having to choose between breathing or seeing, as a ghost trick-or-treater.  One of the real stumpers of my third grade life was grumpy old Mr. Swanson, he lived up the street, greeted our “trick or treat” shouts with “I’ll take the trick” which was followed by a door being slammed in our faces. Trick?  What trick?  That was just a part of the pre-candy handout ritual much like a store clerk handing back your change while murmuring, “Have a nice day.” 

A Halloween TV discussion last week detailed, excluding Christmas, more money is spent on Halloween than any other holiday in the year.  Forget Valentines Day, Mothers Day or Easter, Halloween is the holiday of choice.  Today’s youth, and adults for that matter, will have nothing to do with the old fashioned wrap yourself in a sheet drill.  The 31^st of October of this century has become a fashion statement.  Today’s Halloweener, according to costumezee.com, a website devoted to costume suggestions (who knew?) lists the top ten 2007 Halloween costumes.  Borat, (what?) checks in at number ten preceded by Jack Sparrow or Elizabeth Swan from “Pirates of the Caribbean”, the Geico Caveman (not the lizard?), Doodle Bops (a Disney Channel rock band for pre-schoolers), the Burger King (this must turn Ronald McDonald green with envy), Transformers, Hairspray chubby Tracy Turnblad, any character from High School Musical or The 300 (a graphic movie about the Battle for Thermopylae) and number one, Hannah Montana.

 Missing from the list are the scary characters of Halloweens past like ghosts, vampires and politicians. (Is there a closet shelf somewhere filled to overflowing with Nixon, Clinton and Dubya masks?).  Not to be judgmental but Halloween has been wussiefied. 

As a public service on behalf of the marauding bands of

trick or treaters clogging neighborhood streets tonight, anyone contemplating offering the youth of America a “healthy alternative” to Snickers, candy corn or Butterfingers should know they’ll be branded the neighborhood dork.  Halloween is not about “healthy alternatives”.  The list of unacceptable “treats” includes, apples, oranges, “Halloween is Satan’s Holiday” pamphlets, granola bars, juice boxes and dried fruit.  Real Halloween swag is about Sugar Daddy’s, gigantic peanut rolls with marshmallow inside and big honking Tootsie Rolls, not those mini-Tootsies one finds sitting beside the teller window. 

So tonight will find we grand geezers wandering various Front Range neighborhoods following, at various times, a ladybug, Dory, Belle, a werewolf, a girl pirate and, just for his grandpa, a ghost. 

Not that the ghost is without reservations.  “I have a secret hiding place for all my candy,” he related.  “Last year I lost six Snicker bars while I was sleeping.  Do you know anything about that Grandpa?” 

Me?