Sweet Memories of Halloweens Past

Today’s kids are disappointing in so many ways. Lazy, street-dumb, entitled and fat. And while eating too much candy may explain the latter, from what I saw on Halloween on Saturday it doesn’t come from any lack of not trying.

For my twin brother and I growing up in Brockton in the late 70′s, Halloween was a day that called for long-term planning, neighborhood outreach and the right tools to accomplish the mission.

But the kids that rang my doorbell on Saturday had none of these. Outfitted in bulky, expensive costumes and toting flimsy trick-or-treat bags they jumped from house to house with no purpose or course.

“Amateurs,” I said, shaking my head. “But they’re having fun. Isn’t that the point?,” replied my wife. Maybe, I thought. But that wasn’t the Halloween I remembered.

In the Halloweens of my youth the candy we got wasn’t just a treat. It was food. We were that poor. Besides, mom had a warped view on the four food groups. Like Buddy in the movie Elf her seven kids lived on candy, cakes, ice cream and soda. So Halloween for us was more like a night out at a favorite restaurant.

It was almost dream-like coming across the neighbor who had put out a bowl of candy with a sign on it: “Please take one.” Yeah, one bowl. That’s why it paid to travel in teams of at least two. You hold the bag open, I’ll dump in the bowl.

Faced with the same scenario today, kids will just take one candy. But not because they don’t want more, or because they respect the request. They’re just too lazy to pick up the bowl. Besides, they know there is plenty waiting for them back home. Trick-or-treating is more like a sport to them, like golf or surfing. It’s done too infrequently to be done well. It’s better to focus on looking good doing it.

But for us Halloween was something special and, like Christmas, only came once a year. At Christmas we got presents. At Halloween we got treats. And for the amount we planned to collect we needed a sack that would make Santa proud.

The bags we slung over our shoulders were either double-bagged or double stitched pillow cases. We didn’t mess around. We also knew that if you ran into the wrong crowd, you needed a bag you could run like hell with, or if you had to, wield like a mace. (Coins and hard candy naturally end up in the bottom so a bag of candy across the chops can really hurt.)

Halloween costumes are a big deal these day, but when I was growing up about 90% were handmade.

In my neighborhood you only needed enough of a costume to convince the person at the door you weren’t a hoodlum or a prankster, which became challenging after my voice changed and I grew a mustache. And you never wanted to wear anything bulky that would slow a trick-or-treating pace that rivaled the Bataan Death March.

Nothing was more important to getting a full pillow case than mapping out your route beforehand. My brother and I would spend a week checking out streets as far as a mile from our house.

We’d target the nicest houses in our area, not just for the full-size candy bars but to also see how others lived. While usually just a couple of blocks from where we lived, these homes were a world away from the six-room two family that my brother and I lived with our five siblings and mother, and dad when he was around.

But we also canvased poorer neighborhoods and climbed to the top floor of triple-deckers, stepping over bikes and baby carriages and trash along the way. The nosebleed apartments rightfully got fewer kids and had more leftover candy. A busy house rationed its candy, praying supplies would hold out so they wouldn’t get egged. Neighbors with less foot traffic–and who didn’t share my mother’s views on the powerful nutritional value of corn syrup–wanted to unload their unhealthy snacks.

When my brother and I got home–never earlier than 10 p.m.–we would split up the spoils and barter and sell-off the things we didn’t want to our five older brothers and sisters.

The only bad memory of Halloween I remember is the year I left my candy out and my three older brothers and their friends ate it all. (Freshman error. I now blame myself.) They ate a whole pillow case of candy in one night!

Yet that year of missing candy haunts me to this day. I still talk about it in therapy.

But the people in need of real therapy are the kids I met last Saturday.

Sure, my generation was rude, cagey and misguided, but we were also opportunistic, hard working and team-players.

I opened my door on Halloween this year to many a stonefaced trick-or-treater who simply held out his bag as if I owed him a twenty-pound turkey.

“Hey, trick-or-treat!” I said. His eyes said it all. He just wasn’t that in to me.

“Can I have another?,” he mumbled.

“I have a better idea. Just do another loop through the neighborhood and stop by again in twenty minutes. I won’t even recognize you by then.”

Poor kid had no clue what I was talking about. He still looked confused when I shut the door on him.

Boy, does that kid have a lot to learn.

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Tags: brockton, halloween, kids these days, trick or treating