The Demise of Halloween

“Trick or Treat! Trick or Treat!”

We knocked on doors and exclaimed loudly as we made the rounds of the neighbors’ houses. My mother insisted we dress in “Halloween” costumes; no fairy princesses or knights in shining armor left our house. One year she made me a witch’s costume and I was so pleased with her ideas that I later copied them for my children. She sewed a simple black loose fitting dress, made a black witch’s hat from poster board, and added hair of Spanish moss gathered from outdoors. She blackened a couple of my teeth with crayon, made my face as ghoulish as possible with make-up from her dresser and I carried a thick, knobby stick from some unfortunate tree. Mother had other creative ideas for costumes, but the witch with moss hair was my favorite. Of course, after the first time, we learned to put the moss in a hot oven for a short time to kill the resident critters.

When we shouted “Trick or treat!” we really meant it. Fortunately, everyone gave us treats so we did not often have to think of tricks. Store bought candy was coming into fashion, but we preferred the home made goodies that most people handed out – cookies, popcorn balls, caramel apples, and very infrequently, coins.
“Stick your hand in and take as many as you can hold in one dip,” invited the occupants of one home holding out a bowl of pennies. Small hands can’t hold much, but the dream of a fortune was there.

I only recall one grouchy soul who refused to give us treats. On top of his refusal, he announced that we had better watch out.
“I am a policeman!” he announced in a loud, intimidating voice.
Policeman or not, we didn’t feel he should be allowed to get away with his refusal. After all we were supposed to” trick” if he didn’t “treat.” It took us a while to decide the offender’s fate. We didn’t want to be destructive and get into trouble and we certainly didn’t want to go running down the street with a policeman chasing us. After much discussion, I was chosen to sneak quietly over to the water spigot on the side of his house. I turned it on just enough to have a steady stream of water, but not hard enough to draw his attention. There were no known repercussions to our prank. We just hoped he had a flooded yard the next day.

Halloween was not celebrated in the countries where we lived as my own children were growing up. In Peru, All Saints Day was celebrated more as a night of revelry before a day of religious fervor on the first day of November. In Australia, Halloween was not mentioned, but they celebrated Guy Fawkes Day around the same time. By the time we moved back to the U.S., Halloween seemed to be facing its demise. Homeowners turned on their porch lights if they wanted to hand out treats and the “trick” part of the phrase was all but forgotten. My children had a sample of running door-to-door collecting treats until the Pixy Stix incident.

In Pasadena, Texas, the year after we arrived in Houston, Ronald Clark O’Bryan gave several children Pixy Stix laced with cyanide. Two of them were his own children whom O’Bryan planned to kill for the insurance money. Other children were given the laced candy to throw investigators off the track. His son died and O’Bryan was executed by lethal injection 10 years later. Halloween was never the same after that. Most children stopped going door-to-door and the ones who continued the tradition were advised to only eat commercially produced, and wrapped, treats. Hospital Emergency rooms offered to X-ray the bags of loot. For several years, needles, pins, razor blades, and other dangerous items were found in the treats by X-ray. Concerned parents banned trick or treating, turned their porch lights off and started hosting neighborhood parties.

We lived in a sparsely populated area with about 15 homes, only half of those with children, so the neighborhood planned progressive parties. Our children moved as a group from house to house with a different activity and treat bags at each house. A pinata, active games, and bobbing for apples, kept the children busy until they arrived at our house. We had a bonfire and a bubbling “cauldron” with refreshments to top off the evening.

Halloween has lost its fervor, it seems. Some children are allowed to beg for treats, but the idea of tricks seems to have disappeared. Halloween as we knew it, a fun holiday with good memories for children, has given up the ghost.