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Trick ’r Treat, Smell My Feet
Hallowe’en has always been a fun time for me. When we were kids in the fifties and early sixties, Hallowe’en was a great, big deal. We didn’t get a lot of candy, chips or gum when I was a kid. Our mom’s idea of a treat was a bowl of stewed fruit and an Arrowroot cookie after school. If we balked at that, there was always a bushel of apples in the side porch, “help yourself”. We’d barely put our baseball gloves and bats away for the season when we started to yack about what we were going to be for Hallowe’en. Trick ’r Treating costume preparations usually started around the time the boards for the hockey rink showed up in the park. Along with my siblings and our friends we would head down to our basement where our mom kept an old trunk full of dress-up clothes. That trunk was full of old house dresses, a few fancy dresses, strings of faux jewels, old work pants, high heels, rubber boots, old hats and old sports coats. With bath-powdered hair, an old house dress and a tatty handbag, a kid became an “old lady”. It was even funnier if the old lady was the boy who lived at the corner. Our mom and our Aunt Nina would give us the compacts and tubes of old make-up. We were usually pretty sure ours would be the best costumes in the neighbourhood, not that there was a contest. Once the costume situation was sorted, the Durning kids, and friends, plotted as to whose house we’d go to first to get the best loot. At least one of our neighbours always had homemade fudge. She never made enough for every hob-goblin, so a kid had to put that house on top of the list or we’d find ourselves looking at an unlit front porch. If you were into popcorn balls, that was the next house to the house with the fudge. Most of the treats were homemade, and “boughten ones” were often little boxes of Chiclets (which Mom claimed as tax the moment we walked through the door), shelled peanuts (also a Mom favourite), those nasty “Hallowe’en” wrapped excuses for toffee along with licorice pipes, wax lips, penny suckers, candy corn, apples and Gobstoppers. We used old pillowcases or six-quart baskets to collect the goodies. The street lights were the signal to start the seriousness of getting the neighbours to “Shell Out, Shell Out” and the flickering porch light was our signal to get home as quickly as possible.
Hallowe’en was great fun when I was a kid. We wandered the streets of our neighbourhood, trying to scare the bejeebers out of each other. We made up stories of a crazy hermit who supposedly lived by the Humber River. While we gathered the loot we ran through backyards shouting, booing and singing. We didn’t knock on doors, we hollered “Trick ’r Treat and if no one answered there was no telling what we’d do with a purloined roll of toilet paper and a bag of doggie-doody. And, bonus, as a Catholic kid the next day was a “holy day of obligation” which meant “no school” on November 1st. Let’s hear it for All Saints Day! My poor stay-at-home mom had the pleasure of our boisterous company the day after. I want to know, who wouldn’t be thrilled to have houseful of noisy kids who’d been up late, were hopped up on sugar and in need of baths? With the exception of more inventive costumes and far better treats (although I wouldn’t say “no” to homemade fudge or a popcorn ball or even a taffy apple), Hallowe’en is still a hoot and a haunt. Ah yes, Hallowe’en. Scary times then and scary times now with that enduring threat of blowing the windows inside out. I’m not sure what that meant back in the day, but it could be pretty intimidating to hear these days.
An old friend and I were recently talking about the days when we were the youngsters Trick ’r Treating. She was always a fairy princess and I was almost always a nurse. She said she didn’t like seeing so many older kids out and about for treats on Hallowe’en night, these days. I knew how she felt, in a weird sorta way. I used to feel the same way about teenagers Trick ’r Treating when LOML and I first played host to the ghouls and goblins. And then? Well, and then I thought about the fun of being out, often on a school night, roaming the streets in noisy, giddy packs with a bunch of friends from school. How bad would it be to give treats to whoever shows up at the door as long as they are polite and remember to say the magic words? And, let’s face it, it’s all about the magic.
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