Tricks Are For Kids?

          When I was a kid, I greatly enjoyed going out for Trick-or-Treating, as I’m sure any kid does.   My worst Halloween was the year that we decided to go to the school party instead of going door-to-door.   It was an unmitigated disaster.   I don’t even remember much about the party.   Maybe I blocked it out.   All I remember now, is that it didn’t hold a candle to going out to enjoy Halloween.
          I Trick-or-Treated every year, other than the party one, until my Sophomore year of high school, if memory serves.   “Why would I stop there?” you might ask.   It wasn’t for the usual reasons: girlfriend, high school sports, work, etc.   I think the main reason is because an old woman at one of the houses I went to, tossed a piece of candy into my bag, looked up at me, and said, “Aren’t you a little old for this?”   I think I was 14.   Naturally, I was quite disappointed.   Halloween was never quite as good after that.
          So, as I said last week, I am, occasionally, going to talk a little about the history of the current traditions of Halloween.   What many, including the old woman, don’t know, is that All Hallow’s Eve has, traditionally, been a night of mischief.   In ancient Celtic traditions, some people would leave plates of food at their doorsteps to appease, “trickster”.   At the beginning of the 20th century, and before, kids would go around and cause trouble.   People know about the toilet paper and the eggs, but they don’t know about things like Model-Ts pushed up onto stacks of hay and similar pranks of that time period.
          Treats and tricks have been associated with the holiday for a couple of hundred years, at least.   So, one woman in particular, some time in the 40s, made her own treats for all of the kids in the neighborhood as a way of appeasing them.   She, essentially, paid them not to TP her house.   Thus, the birth of the current tradition of “Trick-or-Treating.”   The kicker here is, these treats weren’t made strictly for 6-year old kids.   This woman made these treats to keep mischief away from her door, mischief conducted by bored teenagers, e.g., “kids” my age when someone told me I was too old.
          Thus, I share that while Halloween and Trick-or-Treating, in particular, can be enjoyed by little kids, it was originally intended for the older kids.   Of course, while I might actually be too old, physically, for it now, I wasn’t then.   If I ever did “decorate” anyone’s house for All Hallow’s Eve, I would have “gone to town” on hers.