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Monday, October 31, 2005
A Short, Sad Social Commentary on Halloween
O.K., so we decided to buy candy and offer it up to the kiddies this Halloween.
It is just past 7 p.m. in Los Angeles. It is dark, time for the kids to come out and trick-or-treat.
So far, I have had to desperately cajole one group of kids and their doubting parents to my (too dark) doorstep to offer my candies. I am awaiting a second group. Since that first coup, I have turned on all the house lights in an attempt to make our abode seem safe and welcoming.
Last year it was the same story. We live five minutes east of Beverly Hills in an exclusive area of L.A. If trick-or-treaters come out tonight, it will be here. In fact, kids from the East Side of L.A. are known to come here for the prime (and safe) goodies. But tonight they are sadly missing.
I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s in Tennessee, and I do not remember my parents escorting us on Halloween – ever. Yes, that was Tennessee and this is L.A., but I’d bet the house and the car that this new phenomenon – very few groups of kids (trick-or-treaters) accompanied by paranoid parents – holds true today even in Tennessee.
Wait – I hear a family and kids. Gotta run!
Posted by Marcy Peek on October 31, 2005 at 10:56 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
Marcy, I'm also in LA, but in the somewhat more low-rent district (although talk of "low rent" anything in LA is more or less a contradiction in terms), near Hollywood. And I saw kids trick-or-treating on Hollywood Boulevard last night, going into businesses along the strip for candy. An unusual custom (if such it is) that I hadn't seen before and that, in an apartment-heavy area, would make some sense. No one solicited us for candy at our apartment, but that might be because we observed our Halloween tradition of turning off all the lights and keeping the TV on a low volume.
Posted by: Paul Horwitz | Nov 1, 2005 3:18:48 PM
In my DC neighborhood we had about ten or twelve groups of trick or treaters (usually 2-5 kids per group), all between 7 and 8. I expected fewer, and was glad I got extra candy!
Posted by: ted | Nov 1, 2005 10:42:21 AM
Here in south OC, most of the kids go to the neighborhoods known for the good candy, with houses spaced together fairly closely on flat land. We live on a big hill, and the distance between our house and the next door neighboors is not great, just steep. We usually set out a big bowl of candy for anyone to grab and go trick or treating elsewhere. Never had a taker. Not one. Any trick or treater worth her weight in Snickers knows that walking the hill will impede her efforts to maximize profits.
Posted by: dgm | Nov 1, 2005 8:31:35 AM
I saw swarms of kids trick-or-treating in Hancock Park (exclusive) on my drive home from work around 7:30pm. It was like some Cecil B. Demille Halloween production, a cast of thousands, etc. Also, I remember trick-or-treating alone in a (not so exclusive) Pasadena neighborhood as a kid. I would think the most important factor is how many families with 5 to 10 year old kids live in your neighborhood.
Posted by: Anna | Nov 1, 2005 2:28:41 AM
We officially had only one group of kids. At 9:20 PM, I think I can give up the hope.
Posted by: Marcy Peek | Nov 1, 2005 12:20:32 AM
I'm in Santa Monica, and we only had one set of trick-or-treaters.
Posted by: Mike | Nov 1, 2005 12:18:12 AM
When I lived in west philly for a few years I think I had no trick-or-treaters at all, or at most one or two, despite there being quite a few kids in the neighborhood. (I lived near a school that Penn runs, and many people move near there to go to that school.) This year I live in a fairly well off neighborhood (I'm house-sitting, not, alas, well off myself) and expected to have quite a few trick-or-treaters. I even put out a jack-o-lantern. I think I maybe got 5 or 6 groups of kids at most, and didn't even go through one bag of candy. I'm just lucky that I bought a kind I don't like that much myself as otherwise I'd be sure to gorge myself on it. Weird, though. I would have expected a lot more since this is a very residential neighborhood that's fairly well off and reasonably safe. Have people stopped trick-or-treating?
Posted by: Matt | Oct 31, 2005 11:26:23 PM
We had no trick-or-treaters between 5 and 7. I suppose Los Angeles is just too dangerous. (?)
Posted by: Marcy Peek | Oct 31, 2005 11:09:35 PM
Here in South Bend, the convention in our neighborhood is for kids to trick-or-treat between 5:00 and 7:00. Then, the whole deal shuts down. And, we have kids by the hundreds. It's very nice.
Posted by: Rick | Oct 31, 2005 11:06:21 PM
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