Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Dead Quiet for Halloween.

No children again this year for Halloween, out here in the country, Halloween is dead and not the spooky dead like ghosts, the boring end of an era kind of dead. It's what happens when the breeders don't breed, no children. It used to be that people would drive to the neighbors but not anymore, everyone heads for the nearest village and drops the kids off. Even people in the villages notice the difference. My aunt living closest to me, used to get around two hundred kids, a lot for a small village, now however she only gets twenty to thirty. Last year I had two kids but I cheated, I text the mom to stop in on her way past my house, not counting those two it has probably been twenty to twenty-five years since the last child. Oh well, I guess that I will just have to eat these delicious mini chocolate bars. I was a bit of a procrastinator getting them, just this afternoon is when I bought them. All the stores had moved the candy and Halloween displays near the doors... because as usual they were frantically filling the shelves with Christmas items. ................................................. I remember my last Halloween, I was ten or eleven, it was a rite of passage for us to stop around that age in my area, a sign of maturity, unlike the city kids, a person would be called a baby if they were in high school and still trick or treating. My sister had started high school so she was no longer interested in going and my father said he wasn't going to just take me. A friend living close by, invited me to join her and her brother. That evening I had a lot of fun, we rode in the back of a pickup and her mother would drop us off and just let us go to work, walking up and down the streets and then taking us to another part of the Village, this was new to me. My father would only let us go to seven or eight houses, he always seemed embarrassed by us trick or treating, to him it was almost a form of begging. I remember it being really warm that last night and the moon was shining. We finished our candy quest and decided to ride home in the back of the truck, (something kids would not be allowed to do now). I remember leaving the Village and looking up at the sky, hoping to see a bat or an owl, something Halloween-ish, maybe even a witch's silhouette against the moon light. I remember also taking in the moment that this was my last Halloween to trick or treat, I also remember thinking that growing up sucks!

6 comments:

Vivian said...

I never know who I'm going to get at my house. One year, I made up treats and got no one; the next year I didn't buy treats and kids came knocking (I gave every one a dollar each because what else could I do?). It's been that way every year: I either have way too much candy and NO ONE comes, or I hand out dollars. This year was the year that I had a big, beautiful bowl of treats, and not one kid showed up.

One year I got an Asian mother with four kids. None of the kids had costumes, and they were carrying little sandwich baggies to collect their treats in. I guess she was new to America and had not yet got the holiday figured out.

I was also 10 when I said good bye to childhood. But I'm a Capricorn and was born old.

Sooo-this-is-me said...

Vivian, I have a solution to not knowing if kids are coming. Buy candy and then eat it if no one shows up, if you don't like candy then you can share it, however I highly recommend eating it!

Once I had neighbors who had just moved to Canada and were completely perplexed by all the children knocking on their door. They laughed when we explained what Halloween was to them.

Old Lurker said...

Young Stephen wasn't wrong. Growing up does suck.

Sooo-this-is-me said...

Yes lol, he always seemed to know that. I was never one of those kids in a hurry to get older like most of my friends did.

Ur-spo said...

I am sorry your Halloween was a let down
There will be other ones.

Sooo-this-is-me said...

Lol, not a let down Dr.Spo, it was as expected, having no kids "is" our Halloween tradition now! Just a little sad to see things change so much.