I have good memories of Halloween as a kid. This was back in Tennessee. I would have my little costume on and would go around the neighborhood getting candy. Oh boy would I get candy, by time it was time to go home my sack was quite hefty. I would then get home and spill it out of the floor and behold the amazing sweet harvest that I had reaped.
I have no shame in saying I trick or treated right into high school. Sometimes I would go home and switch to a different costume and make the rounds again. Naturally one of the funniest parts of Halloween was seeing all the creative outfits other people were wearing. Sure, there were a few lazy parents that decked their kids out in those super-cheap plastic outfits that were popular for a while. They were basically a trash bag with a picture on it. But for the most part there was always at least a few fun and unique costumes to be had.
Fast forward a couple of dozen years. I find myself owning a home for the first time. Now I was on the other side of the playing field, I was the candy giver. I decided I was a good sport. As an appeasement to karma, I would not give back for my many years of candy mooching. No cheap suckers or sweet tarts went into my candy bucket. No sir, nothing but top of the line candy bars. And lots of them, I planned on giving them out liberally. Normally I want nothing to do with kids, but Halloween is different because I wanted to see the costumes. So I settled down and waited for it to get dark and for the kids to come.
Alas... I forgot I had moved into the ghetto.
My doorbell rang about three times that night. The first time I opened the door, a hoard of little black kids stood out there. None of them wore costumes. None of them had candy-mooching sacks. They just stretched out their hands and started shoving each other to the side. I carefully doled out the candy. They ripped it open right there and threw the wrappers on my lawn, and then wandered away.
The other times my doorbell rang it was the same thing, no costumes, stretched out hands. The third time I think it was the same group. Finally disgusted, I turned off my porch lights and went inside. I was a little upset. I do not know why... perhaps I felt that a piece of my childhood that I cherished was being sneered at.
Anyways, I do not give out candy anymore. Luckily Sanford started up a program where the kids can go downtown and get candy from some vendors down there.. Its not the same in my opinion, but at least it's not as bad as, say, going to the mall to get candy. Nonetheless I can't help but feel that the kids are missing out on that slightly magical feeling I had when I was a little kid. Running though the night, cloaked in mystery and receiving treats from neighbors. Actually going up to their houses. You know that one house? The one you pass all the time on the way to your friends? You actually go up and ring the bell.
I'll keep celebrating Halloween in my own way, even if the kids do not want to.
Happy Halloween, everyone.
2026 Update
Twenty years ago today, Ed Heffernan discovered that Halloween karma does not deliver full-size bars.
Ah, 2006: the golden era of answering your own door unattended, before the doorbell itself became a subscription device. Now the house has cameras, the porch light is smart, and the whole street watches the candy distribution live from their phones. You knew nothing of that, Ed. You just had a handful of candy bars and a childhood to reenact. The same night now runs through organized channels—school carnivals, trunk-or-treat lots, a downtown vendor corridor that has effectively replaced the wandering hoard. Even the candy has changed: your top-of-the-line full-size bars were majestic then; today they are either a mythical luxury or shrinkflated to the size of a communion wafer. And the costumes? The joke was already dying when you wrote that kids wore plastic trash bags with printed pictures. By 2026 the trash bag has become a store-bought jumpsuit and half the costumes are simply movie masks, if they bother at all. The real change, though, is the neighborhood. You moved into the ghetto and expected your own personal Norman Rockwell. The kids didn't owe you your childhood, and they knew it. You turned off the lights and sulked; the modern response is posting a security clip online and complaining about kids these days.
“2006 Ed, when you turned off the porch lights and went inside, did it ever cross your mind that the problem wasn't the children but the fact that you advertised a costume parade to a neighborhood that wasn't hiring one?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, now you go and put it that way and I reckon there's some truth to it. Here I am, fresh homeowner, thinking I'm gonna recreate my Tennessee childhood, and I forgot to check the neighborhood dress code. I was advertising a costume parade and the local kids showed up for the candy buffet instead. Can't say I blame them, honestly. I was the guy with the good stuff, and they knew it. But yeah, I was the chump expecting ghosts and goblins when the reality was a bunch of kids with open palms and no patience for my nostalgia. I turned off the lights and felt like a grandpa yelling at clouds. The magic wasn't theirs to give me. So maybe the problem was me and my dumb expectations, not the wrappers on the lawn. Still, I keep my porch dark on Halloween now, so at least we both learned something.
