Boo (hoo)
Well, the last of the trick-or-treaters have vacated my neighborhood. Let’s assess the sociological damage:
To my surprise the candy grab started at five and not six. When the first group showed up at the door, my dogs went absolutely berserk. Dudley bit me on the leg and Nellie fled to the basement to hide.
We had many more kids than usual. Which was not a good thing. I usually try to buy twice as much candy as we need, so there will be plenty left over. This year there is precious little left over.
I am one of those old-fashioned guys who not only has a real pumpkin, but actually carves it and puts a candle inside. Lots of people in my neck of the woods buy those “pre-carved” ceramic jobbies. Heaven forbid they’d have to get all that goop on their hands, or risk cutting off their thumbs with the paring knife. These are the same humbugs that refuse to go out in a blizzard to cut their Christmas tree. The same people who buy an already plucked frozen turkey at Thanksgiving instead of chopping the head off a live one. Wait a minute. Bad examples. I’m one of those humbugs on both of those counts.
But I do think that ceramic jack-o-lanterns are taking things too far. And it has nothing to do with the fact that my family is in the pumpkin business. It’s just the observation of an objective social critic.
Another thing I’ve noticed in recent years. Most houses these days are multi-pumpkined. When I was a boy, you had one pumpkin. Maybe if you were the neighborhood showoffs there’d be one pumpkin per kid. But today you see a lot of houses with a lot of pumpkins. Six, seven, eight. Casey, I’m sure has twenty or thirty of them – and a 35-foot inflatable Casper the Friendly Ghost.
This multi-pumpkin trend is good for the pumpkin growers though, or so I would imagine.
I’ve noticed something new this year. White pumpkins. They’ve been around for a while, but this year I see them on porch after porch. What’s next? Blue ones? White pumpkins are the moral equivalent of aluminum Christmas trees. Remember those back in the sixties? With the color wheel that went around and around?
As for the trick-or-treaters themselves, there was the usual gaggle of cute little kids walking with their moms and dads. Back when my daughters were small, by the way, I was the first dad in the neighborhood to walk around with a steaming cup of coffee. The following year all the dads had them. Anyway, in addition to all the cute little kids in their costumes, there were the usual packs of 15-year-olds without makeup or costumes, refusing to grow up, without a twinge of guilt or embarrassment stealing the candy right out of those cute little kids’ mouths – not to mention mine.
Happy Halloween. Don’t forget to set your clocks back.
