Halloween ought not lose spirit

I remember growing up in the suburbs of the Midwest. Back then, school used to start in mid-September, and first days always felt like walking into a tangible presence of autumn.

Classroom walls brimmed with not only the usual handwriting diagrams and Scholastic ads, but also with leafy decorations in varied hues of red and gold amongst other seasonal pin-ups. Pumpkins sat in every corner, cornhusks and cornucopias were dumped in disarray all over the teacher's desk, and chilly winds blew cackling autumn leaves across unbarred windows. The best books to read around this time of the year were the Scary Stories to Read in the Dark series by Alvin Schwartz. With its nastily gory graphite illustrations that seem to ooze off the page, the Scary Stories series still terrifies me to this day (five out of five stars!).

I remember when being a kid used to be about anticipating the little things in life, like Halloween, which was always the holiday that was right around the corner from the first day of school. It was also the one holiday of the year that seemed to rival Christmas on the festivity meter.

We used to spruce up the front yard with posh commercialized spider-webs-in-a-bag and dangle little black spider rings from the fibers. Scary music full of moans, groans and eerie trills played over the outside stereo system. Kids and adults alike used to dress up as monsters and angels and everything in between on this one day of the year. You'd get to see the grim reaper walking alongside a little mermaid, and all sorts of excitement went down on that one night of the year.

The best neighborhoods to trick-or-treat in were either the huge ones with the most houses (quantity) or the smaller neighborhoods with the huge houses (quality). If you happened to live in proximity to both types of neighborhoods, you were in absolute luck, got the best of both worlds and got to gobble candy to your heart's content at the finish line (always ending in tummy aches).

And of course, trick-or-treating was always a lesson in political economy. We'd barter our candies away to each other like time-tested business professionals: it'd be three of my these for four of your those, and if you didn't like it, no deal. Each and every one of us was an accountant that night, counting and sorting through a myriad of sweets, and our parents played the overseers, trying to limit our intake.

So what happened to trick-or-treating on Halloween?

The past few years, I've stocked up on piles and piles of candy-everything from M&Ms to candy bars to Sour Patch Kids, eagerly anticipating the arrival of all sorts of ghoulies and princesses. Last year, no one came to my door at all. The year before, I had two groups of children show up. The downhill trick-or-treating trend is totally making movie Halloween scenes obsolete. Kids don't trick or treat anymore, which means more candy for me. How horrid!

I also deplore the minivan trick-or-treaters-the groups of kids who all pile into mommy or daddy's minivan/SUV and get driven around neighborhoods. Because it is so hard to walk around a neighborhood. Does taking a minivan make the experience safer? Or does that sort of carpooling help the environment? I don't really understand the parents that would go along with the idea. What ever happened to holding your kid's hand and walking with them around the neighborhood?

Kids are getting lazier and lazier these days. They don't walk, ride bikes or play outside as much as they used to. If you're going to go trick-or-treating, I say do it right and walk the night away.

Instead, if the holiday isn't straight out forgotten, adults and children alike just sit at home after purchasing their own bags of candy to munch on (defeating the purpose of Halloween), or maybe they go to costume parties with friends or colleagues, which is always fun and exciting. If I weren't too old for trick-or-treating, I'd go out and do both, one after the other.

Maybe the standing perception of Halloween nowadays is that it's dangerous-it puts us and our children at risk. But those reports about how children bite into candied apples with razor blades in them and poison-laced sweets are mostly urban legends. The last I heard, children are still relatively safe on Halloween. Crime doesn't skyrocket; in fact, the worst thing that happened (at least in my day) was the occasional candy-mugging, where one kid might steal another's bag of hard-won goods.

Anyway, for the sake of preserving this tidbit of American culture, I hope Halloween returns to life.

Maybe next year.