The Year I Stopped Trick-Or-Treating

I was thinking today (of all days) about how my observance of Hallowe'en has changed over the years. It's gone through several phases, especially as I grew older, to the point where I am now: of the middle-aged man who spends his evening on the 31st of October passing out candy and comicbooks to kids in costumes at his front door. My thoughts were drawn most strongly to a "key" Hallowe'en, 26 years ago. That was the day my childhood ended.

(It would be more profound if I'd written about this last year, or if I faked it and said "25 years ago", but I've taken a solemn vow of blogging truthfulness, so I must say "26".)

That summer my family had moved to a new neighborhood and that September I'd started middle school. So while I had friends (I hasten to emphasise) I didn't have any who lived within walking distance. My older sister was in high school and doing teenagery things for Hallowe'en, and my younger sister was going trick-or-treating with some girls she knew from school or something. I'm not sure exactly. But I remember that as Hallowe'en approached, it dawned on me that I had no plans. I had a costume to wear to school that day, but no plans for All Hallows Eve itself.

I was 12 years old, which was a somewhat awkward age. It wasn't that I was "too old". If a friend had invited me to go trick-or-treating with him in his neighborhood I could've done that without anyone thinking it inappropriate (least of all me). But it occurred to me that I had reached the age of "old enough not to". I could do something I had never (in my memory) done. I could... stay home.

I'm not sure exactly how it happened... if I asked to, or if my parents sensed my situation and suggested it. My vague recollection is that I just did it: when the doorbell rang first rang after dinner, I went to the front door and gave a piece of candy to that trick-or-treater (no doubt a pre-schooler making the rounds by daylight with a parent or two). And I just kept doing it, the rest of the evening. It wasn't quite as fun as being on the other side of the door, but I approached it with a good attitude. It was official: I wasn't a trick-or-treater, and I knew that I never would be again. I certainly wasn't an adult yet. I was an adolescent, trying to figure out where I fit in.

It wasn't long before I started to find other things to do on Hallowe'en, such as going to a scary movie or a school dance or whatever. I went on to have some rather fun times on Hallowe'en as a teenager (such as when I wore a skin-tight Superman costume to a "theatre people" party). And there were many years when I did nothing special that night. It's only in the past several years that I've been back to passing out stuff at the front door. But to a typical kid, Hallowe'en Equals Trick-Or-Treating. On 31 October 1977, I ceased to be one of those kids, and became... someone else.