It’s Halloween.
Halloween was our nirvana when we (meaning my siblings and my friends, growing up in the 1970s in blue-collar Hammond, Indiana) were kids. I still remember my oldest sister Sheila and her then-boyfriend (now husband of 30+ years) John taking my brother and me out trick or treating and what a hissy fit I had because I got so tired of carrying a heavy (heavy!) bag of treats in a paper Burger’s Supermarket grocery bag… but ohhhh, there was a payoff after that. There was every year. Every house was a treasure trove and although we did heed some precautions–like watching for traffic, that was the big one I recall, and the same nonsense about checking for razor blades in apples, AS IF we’d ever actually EAT the apples we got), for the most part the neighbourhood and streets and more streets beyond our own were OURS on Halloween and we all made out like bandits.
It was fun, more fun than Christmas in some ways.
So now I’m prepping for the minor onslaught of trick-or-treaters here at 1443 tonight. I picked up snack-size Twizzlers and Nibs because I’m very much enough of a nanny-stater to not want to kill hapless kids with nut allergies. But man, these things are small!
I do have freakishly big hands but I was a little shocked by the soap-my-car-windows worthiness of these diminutive things. But hopefully this will be a small part of large bag o’ treats.
The reasons why I’m not expecting more than a small gaggle of ToT-ers are many. First, there are just not that many kids in the neighbourhood. There are lots and lots of urban types pushing strollers but many of those, I fear, will head to the ‘burbs when school time comes (a ridiculous folly seeing as the schools in this area are the best in the city, but let’s leave that for another post). Babies tend not to ToT, and when they do you just KNOW that Mom and Dad (or Mom and Mom, Dad and Dad, etc) are going to eat everything so it’s a cynical exercise there.
Now, we DO have a recent and modest influx of more ToT-age-relevant kids here in lower Bankview over the last couple of years- let me give you a little tour to show why. I live near the intersection of 19th Ave and 14A St SW, and 14A is a jewel, treed with elms and with lots of nice old character homes- here’s one decked out Halloween-y:
There are some condos and at least one infill but they do a nice job of fitting in- this house was completed about two years ago:
And here’s a row of gorgeous houses across from previous- who wouldn’t want to raise kids in a lovely environment like this, especially with the urban escapes of 17th Ave and downtown proper a mere walk away? It’s a really nice area:
But the general urban-but-traditional niceness of my ‘hood is not why there has been a recent increase in ToT’ers (that’s from ONE three years ago to, at my best count, 18 last year): It’s because of the city having purchased an apartment complex at the top of the street from low-income family housing. This is the building, repainted from a garish pink and with all new windows and doors:
Not too bad- the firestorm that sprang from my NIMBY neighbours–who should all be very ashamed of themselves–when this project was announced has abated, and one cool thing is that Halloween actually happpens now, right here in the otherwise almost child-free inner city.
So yeah, there is an issue of the mere presence of kids here. I can only imagine what is was like here in, say, the 1960s.
But even in the traditional-family-rich suburbs I doubt the streets are clogged with kids as they were in my own childhood. See, if you google “Calgary Halloween” you can stumble across pages like this advertising all sorts of planned activities (including, pardon my projectile puke here, having a damn MALL host trick or treat!), and it’s all very nice and sanitized and not at all what Halloween is, or was, about. Halloween is an interesting “holiday” because it actually engages some pretty heavy themes, especially death, but danger too. It’s a thrill ride version of a holiday, one that entails our toying with themes of death and the occult, and is edgy that way. There is also the theme of violence and of mayhem- give us candy or we’ll do something bad to you- and the whole idea of its being sanitized like this (“family” fun? Halloween isn’t for bloody “families”!) is just another case of people, especially parents but also anti-fun forces demanding “accountability” and zero risk environments for their kids and zero liability for any adults.
This isn’t, incidentally, about the “nanny state” so don’t misunderstand me. As I’ve said before, I’m a fan of most “nanny state” policies. This is about parents who ACT like nannies and refuse to let their kids out unsupervised, believing that a child rapist is behind every door.
Not this one. Just twizzlers, I promise.
Happy Halloween.
