Oh For The Good Old Days

Halloween and trick or treating is a big part of our childhood memories, how many of you remember the time when there was no fear of your treats but only of the spooks and goblins you were likely to run into, how many of you actually were allowed to run all over town knocking on doors, gathering goodies and returning home all worn out from the fun evening you had just experienced, with no fear of what may happen, I remember as a kid getting dressed up in old clothes and materials found at the house and grabbing a paper grocery bag, remember those? They were provided all the time back before the question, Paper or Plastic, yes I remember grabbing the paper bag and walking the whole town it seemed, candy corn, popcorn balls, apples, and chocolate bars were the majority of the loot gathered, some folks who had run out of goodies would throw some change into your bag and there never was a concern about the quality of the goods you received, oh for the good old days—right.

Now that we have all grown up and the problem with tainted goodies being handed out and kids being hurt in years past we just can’t do this anymore, it’s pretty sad that we can’t allow our kids to go out into town and get a bag full of goodies and have the pants scared off of them in fun, now for fear of what may end up in their bags and the pants being literally scared off of them we have to go into protective mode and make sure our kids have a good time with no harm coming to them, if we have to scare them ourselves by going out with them, I tell you it’s all worth it because of the fun you can actually have with your own kids.

Cindy and I have gone through several Halloween traditions so to say with our kids, we had several years of taking them all over town to only the people we knew, to trick or treat or to the churches for what they called trunk or treat where the people sat in the parking lot with their goodies in their trunks and the kids went from car to car in view of everyone to collect them, one of the best set ups I remember was all the Fire Departments would have their doors open and Firemen sat inside and passed out candy and such for the kids who came by, and would answer any questions or show the kids around, this was really a treat. We had one year when the kids were smaller when we were driving them across town to a neighborhood we knew; we parked the old Taurus Station and walked with the kids up the street, across and back to the car, move the car up the street and repeat the process, everything was going well when Timmy asked if he could go ahead to the next house while I was parking the car, as I said everything was going well so why not, next sound I hear was a crashing sound which made me think someone had hit a mailbox with their car, a mailbox had been hit but it was Tim’s head that did the damage, the mail box looked like a prankster had taken a baseball bat to it as the mailbox was turned sideways on its post with a dent in the side and Tim had a knot the size of a goose egg on his forehead, the next house we trick or treated for ice and to our surprise this house was occupied by a nurse who worked at the ER, she and her husband took us in and she looked Tim over to make sure he was OK, provided cokes and cookies for everyone and really made this accident as much a treat as it could possibly turn out to be.

Cindy and I

 A few years later when the kids were older, we began having more fun hanging around the house and setting up for trick or treaters on our own turf so to say, we started dressing up and handing out candy, this was so much fun, one year in particular a young man who lived across the street, Randy, and I dressed up sat on the porch while Cindy in her own Halloween attire handed out the candy, our job was to sit motionless and try real hard to not scare the little ones too bad, heck some wouldn’t even come up onto the porch for fear of finding out whether we were real or not, I was at the top of the steps and everyone had to pass by me to get to where Cindy and the others were sitting, everyone would give me a look over as they made their way to the candy, and I did all I could to keep from busting out laughing at the looks on their faces as they stared into my face trying to determine if I was real or not, there was always one who hung back and stood next to me because they did not trust the other two since they just knew they were real, they would watch the others and turn to look at me, then look back to them then back to me, what made this so much fun was when I waited until they were watching the other two, before I turned my head to be looking them in the eye when they turned back to me, I had several run screaming from the porch and I had never said a word, others would sit down next to me and casually reach to grab one of my crutches, it was all OK until I turned and said something like “Hey I need that” or if I just slowly turned my head to look at one standing next to the teen trying to look into my eyes, I lost more kids that way.

The Best one was later in the night when the older kids started coming out, a young teen dressed up as a gang member came up to our walkway and yelled “Oh Hell No, I ain’t coming up there” Cindy told her “If you want candy you will have to come up here because I’m not bringing it to you” “Oh Hell No” she said again and Cindy told her, that’s OK so no candy for you, she stuck her chest out and strutted up our walkway stating things like “Oh Hell No, Y’all ain’t scaring me” “I can tell you are real”, she was real tough spouting off how she ain’t scared and cussing like a sailor, she looked me over then pointed toward the other two talking about their costumes, “You are real, I can tell, and you are real because it ain’t even a scary costume” by this time she is standing directly in front of me, I leaned forward and whispered in her ear “What about me?” She literally stood there screaming and running in place for what seemed like forever before she ran down the walkway yelling obscenities, I think she actually left a puddle of pee right where she was running in place, a few minutes later the neighbor came over to find us still laughing, said a girl was in front of her house yelling for no one to go over to our house because we were mean.

Tim (a pregnant woman) Autumn (Tim's pimp) Randy (Kneeling)
Cindy, Jimmy, and David (a friend from the neighborhood)

 We were so mean that most of our night was filled with fun and laughter, we had parents bringing their kids by asking if we would allow them to take our pictures with their children, and the people who came by the next year a bit early to inquire what we had planned for the upcoming Halloween. Oh for the good old days---right.