Trick-or-treating back in the day was an entirely different experience.
The town bully boys roamed in search of prey. They did their worst, which back then came down to stealing a candy bar or two from our bags, soaping the windows of a few cars, hitting some houses with handfuls of corn and scrolling foul words on our plastic masks. At the time it felt like we were victims of terrorists, but in today’s context it really was practically nothing. We did our best to avoid them, but usually we found ourselves cornered somewhere during the evening.
There was also an upside to trick-or-treating back then, as unexpected in today’s context as the terror that is now perpetuated somewhere every Halloween. The three small, neighborhood bars in our town were prime targets for any kid in the know. Patrons in those bars, usually 8-10 per bar, were big spenders on trick-or-treating kids. Sing a song or do a little dance and each one of them would buy you a full-size candy bar or a soda, or drop a quarter in your bag. (A quarter bought five full-sized candy bars or 2.5 sodas at the time.)
Parents who were not bar patrons themselves may not have fully appreciated their kids’ once-a-year patronage of those hotspots of giving. But back in the day parents did not feel the need to trail their kids on their trick-or-treating forays.
Small-town Pennsylvania was safe, even on Halloween night, at least more than it is today.
