HALLOWEEN-THEN AND NOW

Forgive my nerdiness. Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher that coined the phrase, “The only constant is change”. I did ask for your forgiveness which brings us to Halloween.

CIRCA 1950’s. As you can imagine in a small Southern town where churches outnumber the local businesses, Halloween was not viewed as a day for costumes and candy for children. Depending on one’s church affilation Halloween was defined as a day for the devil’s workshop. Children dressed as monsters, witches, and mom’s makeup that made you appear as the walking dead. If there was a store bought costume in our town it did not come from our neighborhood.

Even in the throes of candy vs. the church’s philosophy my partner in crime ( middle sister) would venture out in quest of sweet rewards. Our costumes, what we wore to school that day and a kerchief tied around our nose and mouth, original right? We did have a psychology to our madness. If the trick or treaters before us came away with a candy cane left over from last Christmas we moved on to greener pastures. Usually this was Front Street where the residences could afford current store bought candy. And it was handed out one piece at a time, not grab a handful and haul tail.

CIRCA 2024′ Halloween has become almost as popular as Christmas with elaborate yard displays and money spent. Back in the day in our hood a plastic jack-o-lantern or small pumpkin was the extent of Halloween decor. Elaborate would have been a lit candle for the plastic jack-o-lantern. Needless to say costumes today are as elaborate as characters from the Wizard of Oz to the main character in the smash movie Oppenheimer. Even the family pet’s are dressed to the nines. How rude to give a child a pack of M&M’s and the Golden is looking at you with sad eyes all decked out thinking, ” where is my milk bone”? So we got that going on now.

Last but not least let’s address candies. OMG. I just love the kid’s that plunder through your variety of twelve different candies and ask, ” you don’t have any Twixt bars’? Maybe the way to go is the dentist that give out toothbrushes with his business card. There was one Halloween where we set up a child’s table and an adult’s table. The adult table had chardonnay and merlot shooters. At evening’s end there was much more candy left on the child’s table than wine on the adult’s table, hmmmm!. Change is constant. Happy Halloween.

Be safe.