THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 21, 1996 TAG: 9609210264
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 51 lines
An article, running on at great length on the news wire last night, warns parents of preschoolers to prepare their children for the scary creatures - goblins and witches - that are out Halloween night amid the trick-or-treaters thronging the streets.
I'm not questioning the wisdom of telling toddlers that it is all in fun. We don't need psychiatrists to advise us of that. But their concern does show how far a fairly innocent holiday has come - or gone - since my generation observed it in our childhood by ringing doorbells.
That was it. That was all you did soon as darkness gathered. Went out in the neighborhood with friends and rang doorbells and ran.
Our daring stunt was to stick a pin in the doorbell so that the householder suffered a few minutes' frustration trying to stop it from ringing.
We had heard that youngsters in our fathers' generation used to take apart family carriages and re-assemble them atop barns. But there were no carriages left for us to take apart, nor did we yearn to do so.
In our neighborhood was an adult who took Halloween seriously and would rush out yelling like a banshee when we rang his doorbell.
That was exciting enough for us. In dread, we edged onto his porch, reached up and pushed the bell, and turned and cleared the steps in one leap as he came barreling out bellowing at the top of his lungs.
That man knew how to ``keep'' Halloween as Charles Dickens used to say of those who went all out to observe Christmas.
A day or two later, on the way to the sto' for our mothers, we would meet the man who knew how to keep Halloween and he and we passed without a flicker of recognition. Not until the next Halloween did we give him a thought. Nor he, us. As Halloween neared, we wondered if he would be there, on the alert at his door. He never let us down.
If anybody had come up to our doors and demanded trick or treat, we wouldn't have known what to make of him.
That was in the Depression's depths when, if we were lucky, we received a nickel a week, which we spent after many minutes of meditation before the drugstore's penny candy. Nobody had the dough for treats. Just go ahead and ring the doorbell, we would have been told.
Trick or treat began in the childhood of Baby Boomers at the behest of the Candy Manufacturers of America. My fear each year is there won't be enough treats to go around. Three weeks later, I'm still eating leftovers. Expanding.
Wonder what would happen if a fellow leaped out the door yelling like a banshee. Couldn't do it for fear of scaring trick-or-treaters. Dasn't do it, with all those psychiatrists about in the night. ILLUSTRATION: Color illustration by Janet Shaughnessy by CNB