A friend sent me this cartoon, which I think is very cute.

Unfortunately, it isn’t true. For whatever reason, our neighborhood gets almost no trick or treaters. Damned if I know why. It’s a safe enough neighorhood, and Parris and my minions and I always stock lots of candy.

This year was the absolute nadir. We got no one at all, not even people we know with a kid in tow.

A pity. Halloween used to be my favorite holiday when I was a kid. I usually went as a monster of one sort or another, and I was fearless trick or treater, prowling late into the night and knocking on doors blocks and blocks from home, on streets I seldom visited during daylight hours. That brief glimpse into the homes of strangers when the door was opened was part of the thrill. In those days you got the usual candy, sure, but also cooler treats, cookies and home baked pies and brownies and little cakes, the caramel apple (no razor blades, that urban myth was years in the future). Nor would it ever have dawned on me to bring my mother along. I would have been mortified. All Hallows Eve was for ghoulies and ghosties and kids.

Halloween isn’t what it was, alas.

Current Mood: melancholy