Sanitization

When I was little enough to be stuffed into a cat/princess/witch/gypsie costume and paraded around our street, clutching a pillowcase that gradually filled with the largest amount of chocolate my little eyes had ever seen in once place, sixty to seventy children would tramp up to our front door. "Trick or treat!" they'd yell in squeaky little voices, and we would capitulate by dumping peanuts and caramilk bars into their pillowcases. I don't think any of us ever thought of a trick to play if anyone refused candy. Our brains were so loaded up with a pre-emptive sugar high that we could think of nothing other than "candycandycandycandy..."

This year, the first I have spent at my childhood home in six years, we had 12 trick or treaters. 12. I was so disappointed. Also, I had about 36 liters of candy just sitting in the front hall like a predatory wild beast.

As I sat there, with my friend R, waiting for the non-existent hoards of costumed beasties, we got to wondering about the decline. Was it just a function of my neighborhood aging, of the kids growing up and moving on to Halloween parties where they dressed up like naughty nurses and drank orange punch out of bowl?

Possibly, but certainly not the whole story.

The real culprit, we decided, was the Evil Subdivision. The Subdivision exists as a sprawling ring of stucco houses on treeless lots that encircles the older part of the neighborhood in which I live. The older area has architecturally different houses that were built over a period of 20 years. The yards are large and individual and full of gardens and pine trees. There are no sidewalks, but the roads are wide with large shoulders. There are no streetlights, but all of the houses have porch lights.

The Evil Subdivision went up almost overnight. All the houses look the same, the only trees are ornamental because the developers bulldozed the whole area at the outset of construction. Ornamental lawns are good. Chaotic perennial borders are not. These places have a front walk slicing through the sidewalk every 3 meters. There are streetlights.

While I do understand the attraction of closely spaced, well lit houses to both wary parents and candy hungry kiddies, I think it is fundamentally wrong to attempt to sanitize Halloween.

It is supposed to be a dark and scary night.
You are supposed to hear unexplained howls in the darkness.

Subdivisions suck out the mystery of life. Be wary.