THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 23, 1994 TAG: 9410210323
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: John Pruitt
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Comments and observations from the peanut gallery. . .
Am I the only person who dreads Halloween? Or do others think this business of having kids, toting bags bigger than Santa's, knock on doors and beg for candy should be buried, along with the lifelike skeleton decorations?
Am I the only one dreading the tired discussion that having kids parade as little devils is a prelude to satanic rituals?
As much as I disdain having carloads of greedy kids ferried from neighborhood to neighborhood by their greedy parents to collect enough candy to last the entire family until next Halloween, I'd rather heap candy on busloads of them than encounter people who actually believe a 4-year-old in a Power Ranger outfit is driven by some form of witchcraft.
Once upon a time, I suppose, trick-or-treating was a true treat for kids - unlike today, when our kids load up on just about anything they want any day of the year and when being given something is certainly no rarity. The only things special about the whole deal are parental competition to see whose kids can outdo others with elaborate costumes and sibling rivalry to bag enough garbage to feed Cavity City.
And just in case you haven't noticed, Halloween seems to be taking on commercial significance right up there with special days that actually mean something. This silliness with pagan roots isn't a national holiday, for heaven's sake!
But everywhere you go, there's some promotion, from specially marked (and doubtlessly higher priced) candy to elaborate outdoor decorations. My newspaper last week even brought me a Halloween sale insert.
My mother lamented last year that Thanksgiving just seemed to have gotten lost; soon as the hullabaloo of Halloween is over, it's on to Christmas. Actually, she's misinformed: Christmas merchandising begins earlier every year, certainly before Halloween, and I anticipate that her next complaint will be that the Fourth of July bunting is no more than down when the buy-for-Christmas push begins.
Now that I've portrayed myself as the ghoul of Halloween - Is that the equivalent of the grinch of Christmas? - I do think it's fun to see the parade of costumed neighborhood children. I wouldn't deprive them of that fun, but I do think we need to draw the line on mobile trick-or-treating. It's not safe for children to be going into neighborhoods they don't know, and there's nothing special about handing out candy to gluttons.
It would suit me fine if Halloween were taken off the calendar. But since that won't happen, maybe we can at least be spared of migratory candy-grubbers and the lectures on how our costumed children are worshiping evil spirits.
Why would anyone endure this? That's what I asked the other night as I listened, at various times, to two radio call-in shows.
Do people actually enjoy being belittled? It would seem so, based on these shows.
During one of them, the host called someone who phoned in a cockroach. During the other, the host belittled callers as essentially brainless, since they didn't agree with him.
And no, neither of the shows featured Rush Limbaugh. These were louder and more obnoxious, and that's saying a lot.
Granted, some of the callers either had no idea what they were talking about or didn't know how to express it. But callers are the people who keep these shows going, and one offensive treatment would be plenty to keep my phone firmly in the cradle.
Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing, but I see these shows as one more way we're debasing common decency.
I've found a wonderfully simple solution, though: the off button. MEMO: Comment? Call 446-2494.
by CNB