Halloween: a Retrospective

Halloween really hit its stride while we lived at the Mallory house. It was an ideal situation from a parent's point of view. As late afternoon segued into evening, the 33rd Ward sponsored a Halloween carnival on one full cul-de-sac and invited the whole neighborhood as well as the ward. There were games--I suppose the usual cake walk and fish pond sorts of things. I'm sure there was face painting and hot dogs. I do remember the popcorn machine the Jensens ran out in front of their house.

When darkness fell, the carnival ended, the sponsors packed up, and the kids dashed home to collect their trick-or-treat bags. Our kids did the whole neighborhood, but it was a long walk from house to house, and by the time they finished the neighborhood, they were tired, and had a respectable enough stash of candy to call it a night. In later years, when the kids were a bit older and Spyglass was starting to open up, we took them over there as well. There they learned that if they went late enough, the Bakers would give them all the rest of their candy, which was usually a sizeable amount--not many people went to Spyglass.

One year, when Allison was probably about 3 or 4 years old, she enjoyed Halloween with especial enthusiasm. Our neighbor, Lynette Jensen, told us months later that Allison had been trick-or-treating at their house every day since Halloween, and they had obligingly rewarded her with candy each day. I guess Allison thought it was a great racket. We had to fill her in on the seasonal nature of the shake-down.