What's your Halloween plan for your kilt?

[OC Richard]

Unrelated to the kilt, but regarding the topic of Halloween's nature changing over the years, my father described Halloween in the isolated mountains of West Virginia in the 1920s as being more about young people being out in the dark doing various pranks, such as hauling one guy's wagon up onto the roof of his barn. The traditional treat of course was apples, candied or no.

When I was a kid in the 1960s it was the night of kids running around half the night without adult supervision, getting apples and candy and playing pranks such as sticking toilet paper all over somebody's house or car with shaving cream. The recipients of the pranks were the people who turned off all their lights and pretended not to be home, thus avoiding giving out treats. "Trick or treat" was taken literally.

It's so different now, with kids being taken around by their parents to get pre-packaged candy, and no pranks for non-givers. Many churches hold Halloween events to keep kids off the streets. We've seen the number of kids who come around to the door steadily decline, from a steady stream in the 60s to a handful today. Sad.

[Chip2]

It's so different now, with kids being taken around by their parents to get pre-packaged candy, and no pranks for non-givers. Many churches hold Halloween events to keep kids off the streets. We've seen the number of kids who come around to the door steadily decline, from a steady stream in the 60s to a handful today. Sad.

That could just be the neighborhood growing older.

My house is a 1/4 mile down a dirt road from a pretty tightly packed development, so last year MsChip and I dressed up, grabbed a bag of candy, and went walking to hand it out to the trick-or-treaters. We only saw one group, but stopped and talked with a few folks who said the number of kids in the area is dwindling, and that the place is just getting older, but hopefully not crotchedier.