Halloween – Ah, the good old days

Do kids come to your door Trick or Treating on Halloween? Do you decorate your porch or window with ghosts and goblins? Or do you even buy Halloween candy? In so many neighborhoods, the answer is “no” these days.

Things have changed from the proverbial good old days.

The good old days. That’s when kids played outside until dark, usually unsupervised. That’s when kids decided on their own whether they were going to jump rope, play hide-and-seek, ride their bikes, or walk to the ice cream shop. Kids in the city cooled off at the fire hydrant, and kids in the suburbs drank from water hoses. And Halloween was time to amass bushels of candy from the neighborhood.

Then things changed.

Today, in some small towns kids still play outside, close to home — maybe they have a basketball hoop, maybe a soccer ball. And come dusk, chances are everybody goes inside.

For Halloween, some neighborhoods have developed supervised Halloween gatherings. Some neighborhoods have patrolled “Treat Trails.” But, the old tradition of kids just deciding on their own how they would roam the neighborhood collecting candy and compliments on their costumes is pretty much gone.

What happened?

Did people get mean or loony all of a sudden? Did government suddenly go berserk making up safety laws? Did the scourge of drugs, ripping up minds and soiling communities, turn our neighborhoods into battlefields. Did the bane of social media force itself upon vulnerable young minds, exchanging reality for mimicry?

Who knows.

Regardless. “Happy Halloween!!” Or should it now be the bromidic “Stay Safe.”