Just for the fun of it

All Hallow’s Eve, and I am tucked away upstairs where all the ghosts and goblins can not find me.There was a day, a long time ago, okay, a very long time ago, when children would go out into the night, within the confines of their own neighborhood, alone.

All porch lights were on, and flashlights were beaming up and down the street as children and teens made their way from one house to the next. Thankful for what was given. Not many were dressed in costumes, but the ones that were, were decked out in homemade garb. Most of us had on warm clothes, and in our hands we'd carry a brown paper grocery bag: the kind with the handles (we didn’t have plastic then). Once we circled the immediate neighborhood, we went home. The Hawaiian lady down the street gave out nickels instead of candy, so we’d hit her house more than once or until we’d get 'the look’ as multiple visits occurred to her. Well, we had to try, didn’t we?

Now a days, there are rowdy teenagers, and yelling crying babes in the arms of a parent who waits impatiently at the gate or in the street. Store bought creepy ghosts and goblins, walking bloody pirates, a few princesses and ballerinas come in droves for one thing, and one thing only: gimme, gimme, gimme! The sad thing is they don’t even say 'trick or treat' anymore. They just shove a rather large bag at you, one that dangles from the end of a long extended arm, as if they just couldn’t be bothered with any of it, and then have the audacity to look inside the bag before walking away without so much as a thank you.

I’m up here and Keith is down there so I really shouldn‘t be complaining at all should I?