I’ve always loved the Greg Brown song “One More Goodnight Kiss,” especially the line where he sings, “The scariest thing I’ve seen, is the death of Halloween/No treats for the children, just all these grown-up tricks.” And yet, even though I love the sentiment behind that line, I always thought that the line itself was a little premature (in other words: the reports of Halloween’s death were greatly exaggerated). After all, my kids still went trick-or-treating every year–even on those nights when Halloween fell on a school night, or (Heaven forbid) a Sunday. In fact, Halloween is one of those holidays we plan our vacations around: we would no more miss Halloween and the chance to trick-or-treat our neighbors than we would miss the 4th of July parade and the chance to mock the Republican candidates. (Come on–his name was Korn; did he really expect to march through a town like Flagstaff unscathed?)
Recently, however, in the middle of planning an upcoming October trip, I realized that this might take us out of town for Halloween this year–and I hardly turned a hair. The fact is, in all the ways that really matter, Halloween is dead. Oh, it’s not dead for the girls who want an excuse to wear lingerie in public and get smashed (even though I’m sure I speak for every man in America when I say, “Honey, you don’t need an excuse”), and it’s not dead for that guy who likes to go to Halloween parties in his street clothes and tell everyone, “This is my costume.” (And, judging from the number of bobbing orange blobs on the lawns of some of the nicer neighborhoods, it’s especially not dead for the people who manufacture $200 inflatable lawn ornaments.) But for the kid who wants to put on one of his dad’s old shirts for the “instant hobo” look, or the one who cuts eyeholes in his mom’s 800 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets for the ghost of Martha Stewart look (and then uses the pillowcase for a haul bag), Halloween may as well be dead.
We only got five trick-or-treaters this year. Five. It was a beautiful night, our yard was done up in spooky magnificence (no giant inflatable pumpkin, though), our “come hither” porch light was on, and all we got was five lousy trick-or-treaters. It’s not as if we live out in the boonies somewhere–we live downtown, the place where people who do live in the boonies take their children trick-or-treating. The saddest part is that this was practically a good year: some of my neighbors have even started giving out full-sized candy bars, both because it’s just as easy when the numbers are that small, and also to potentially increase their share of next year’s return customers. Heck, at five it’d probably be just as cheap to give out cartons of cigarettes (thereby at least assuring myself a return clientele up through the college years), but that’s not really the demographic I’m trying to catch. I want the eight to twelve year olds who are totally psyched to be out trick-or-treating on their own for the first time, the ones who are absolutely determined to stay out until their pillowcases are dragging the sidewalk, no matter what.
Unfortunately, that’s a market niche I’ll probably never get to see again, because those kids are the ones who are at all the “Harvest Festivals” all over the city. (Harvest Festivals, of course, being the new, “safer” alternatives to trick-or-treating. What’s next? “Spring Festivals” to protect kids from the dangers of eating too many Peeps™ at Easter time?)
But then, as people are always so quick to point out to me whenever I start to fuss, “things are different these days,” and, “maybe you were just lucky when you were a kid.” Maybe I was. After all, I got to go trick-or-treating.