Remember when 'Trick or Treat' MEANT 'Trick or Treat'?

Halloween isn’t a big deal to my kids. Halloween parties are. Each of my daughters is going to two parties, and they’re hosting one jointly at home.

Heck, back when we were growing up Downriver, in the ‘60s, Halloween WAS a party! A one-night street party that stretched for blocks in every direction – just for us kids. We ruled that night – one of the few we were allowed out past the full illumination of the street lights – dashing from one front door to another, shouting “Trick or Treat!” while trembling adults with bowls of sweets huddled behind closed doors, ready to offer us treats as tribute to escape our dreaded trickery!

Ahhh … and there was trickery for those who failed to provide us treats. Awful, sometimes unimaginable horrors … soap (yes, I said soap!) on screen doors, overturned trash cans – their contents spilled like entrails, and, in the most horrid of cases, eggs on aluminum siding!

Yes, devils we were, when our sugar hunger was not fed!

My kids and their friends make a short, token outing on Halloween night. I guess it’s all they can manage after two nights of partying. They lethargically wander from door to door and they knock – yes, knock – or worse, they ring a doorbell, and only when someone appears at the door do they offer a feeble, half-mumbled “trick or treat” – knowing full well that they’re getting a treat, and the adult at the door knowing full well that the kids are standing there without a single trick up their sleeves to back up their unconvincing ultimatum.

So, friends, when lethargic trick-or-treaters like my kids and their friends show up at your door on Sunday night, toss them a treat; but when you do, remember what it was like for us all those years ago … adrenaline driving us from door to door through the darkness in our Ben Cooper costumes, sweat collecting under our plastic masks, and treat yourself to a few Kit Kat bars.

And, before your sugar buzz subsides, run outside under the cover of darkness and soap that cranky neighbor’s screen door!