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Trick Or Treat
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Trick Or Treat Halloween has always been one of my favorite, if not my favorite holiday (and of course I've always had a bit of a sweet tooth), so I decided to go out trick or treating yesterday for the first time since 1982 I believe. I realize that I can buy all the candy I could possibly eat any time that I would like to, but there's something about getting a FREE and random assortment from the good people of New Jersey. I went out with a merry band of high school and we got a lot of compliments on our costumes. I was the Tazmanian Devil. I remember going trick or treating in St. Clair Shores, MI growing up and that was possibly the best place on earth to do so. The houses were very close together, the terrain was flat as a pancake and almost everyone was home on Halloween night. I recall doing Yale, Erben, Alexander, Walton/Centennial, and Ardmore Park between Harper and Little Mack. That would be approximately 94 houses on each street for a total of about 470 houses in about 4 hours give or take. That's a lot of candy. I remember coming home and dumping it out on my bedroom floor and sorting it out into the good candy for me....and the dad pile. Dad got all the Mounds, Almond Joys, Butterfingers, Bit O Honeys and those generic orange and black wax wrapped candies, not to mention an assortment of hard wrapped candies. I can't believe that I gave him all that good stuff, but not a lot of liked coconut as I recall including my sisters and I. Now it's among my favorites. Unfortunately, very few people give out Mounds and Almond Joys any more, or Butterfingers for that matter. I was out trick or treating for approximately 4 hours total last night and I would say about 30-40% of the houses were either dark or no one answered. And considering that the neighborhood in Oakland, NJ that I was in was relatively spread out, that certainly cut down on our candy intake. It never ceased to amaze me how many houses had Halloween decorations and pumpkins all over the place and/or lights on and cars in the driveway, but still no one came to the door. Kind of odd. The best houses to hit were the ones that seemed to be either empty or that were not easy to access as most would skip these houses. There was a risk/reward involved so that if you did find someone home, they almost certainly would tell you that they didn't have hardly any trick or treaters and they would almost always give you a handful or more and tell you that they just wanted to get rid of their candy....as if it were a requirement to get in good stead with the Halloween Gods. Now I've been out of the trick or treating game for the past 30+ years, so I wasn't quite sure of the proper etiquette at times. Most people drop one or two pieces of candy in your bag, but many others just held the bowl out and didn't say a word. In that case I always only took only one piece unless they said take two. Every once in a while you would get someone that would tell you to take a handful. Unfortunately I had paws on my hands that inhibited my handful capacity. The other situation that tested your Halloween ethics if you will was the bowl of candy left on the porch. Sometimes it said, to take one and most other times it didn't say anything. So we all made a pact to take only one piece each early in the evening until about 8 PM, and then we went "bowl dumping". We figured we were currying them favor with the Halloween Gods. I amassed a pretty good pile of candy. So I decided to sort it out and take a little inventory and compare what people gave out last night, to what I recall getting as a in the 70s and into the 80s. Here's what I got (I know, it's a little OCD, but it is kind of interesting): 25 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (when given the choice, I often chose them over everything else), 34 Snickers, 20 3 Musketeers, 18 Milky Ways, 14 100 Grand bars, 12 Hershey bars, 17 Tootsie Rolls, 20 Tootsie Pops, 12 Nestle Crunch bars, 18 Whoppers, 9 Baby Ruth bars, 3 York Peppermint Patties, 25 Kit Kats, 3 Butter Fingers, 2 Butter Fingers Cups, 22 Twix bars, 3 Heath bars, 4 Take 5 bars, 2 Almond Joys, 1 Mounds, 25 M&Ms, 8 Raisinets, 23 Twizzlers (most from a bowl dump), 5 Milk Duds, 1 Junior Caramels, 3 Dots, 3 Sweet Tarts, 6 Skittles, 8 Starbursts, 4 Smarties, 6 Dum Dums, 1 candy corn, 1 Runts, 1 Airhead, 1 Sprees, 1 Nerds, 1 Welch's Fruit Snacks, 1 Creme Saver, 1 Atomic Fire Ball, 1 Wendy's Jr Frosty coupon, 5 Misc suckers, 6 bags of Pretzels, 2 Cheetos, 1 Potato Chips, 4 notepads, 2 erasers and 1 Double Bubble gum. I also got 5 FULL SIZED items (M&M's, 3 Musketeers, Butter Fingers, Kit Kat and Starburst). That's about 396 items if my math is correct. I did to a little trading before taking my inventory so my actual haul did vary slightly. I noticed that many people gave out pretty good candy such as the old standards, like Reese's, Snickers, Milky Ways and Tootsie Rolls. My theory is that most people buy the candy that they like as it seems that so few go trick or treating anymore and that they are sure to end up with leftovers. Not much you can do with a bowl of Dum Dums unless you work at a bank and put them out on your desk. The new on the block since back in the 70s would be the Kit Kats which were fairly new back then and the Twix bars which didn't exist back then if I recall correctly. To me a Twix bar is more like a cookie than a candy bar, but they're still pretty good. I would have to say that my favorites would be 3 Musketeers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I was pretty shocked by what I DIDN'T get though. Not a single Junior Mints, Bit O Honey, Goobers, SnoCaps, Good N Plenty (or Good N Fruity), JujyFruits, Rolos, Krackle Bar, Clark Bar, Chunky, Sugar Babies, Sugar Daddies, 5th Avenue bar, Payday bar, Reese's Pieces (Thank goodness), Red Hots, Hot Tamales, Charlestown Chew, Zagnut bar, Boston Baked Beans, Lifesavers, Bottle Caps, Tic Tacs, JuJuBes, Necos, Wax Bottles, Pixie Sticks, Chuckles, Candy Cigarettes, Charms Blow Pops, Chicklets, Gum Cigars, Razzles, Bazooka Bubble Gum or any Wrigley gum product. In fact, I got exactly ONE piece of gum. I can understand the lack of candy<b> cigarettes </font></b>and gum cigars as I can only imagine the outcry if someone did give them out. Also, Pixie Sticks were probably the dumbest thing you could give out as they 100% always broke and left a pile of colored sugar at the bottom of your pillow case. No apples either as they were already on their way out in the 1970s because they were certain to contain a razor blade or pins in them (as if that wouldn't be noticed or that you wouldn't remember which house gave you said apple). I also didn't get any money at all. I remember one of the first questions you got at school the next day was how much money did you make trick or treating. It was usually somewhere around a dollar or two in change. I loved the creative neighbor who wrapped up nickels in tin foil. Some interesting things that I did get included a coupon for a Jr. Frosty at Wendys (From the house that used to give out dimes no less), little note pads and erasers and Welch's Fruit Snacks. I was actually surprised that I didn't get more "healthy" treats like that though in this day and age. One of my group actually got a little tub of Play Doh. I thought that was pretty neat actually. I'm not sure how I missed out on that. I also thought it was a little odd to get bags of pretzels and chips, but they're certainly welcome in my belly. I would have to say the absolute worst treat I received (listen to me complain about free candy), would have to be the orange sucker at the bottom right of the picture. It's even lower on the food chain than Dum Dums...which are given out for free year round in nearly every bank in America. And lastly, the best treats that I received would of course be the 5 fulls sized items. I was curious as to how many people would give out full sized candy bars and it turned out not as many as I though might. Of course they aren't cheap these days. And back in the 1970s it was also a real rarity. In an interesting twist, I got a full sized candy bar from two houses in a row at one point. Maybe they were keeping up with the Jones's so to speak. So there you have it. My take on Halloween 2014. It will go down as one of my all-time favorite Halloweens, along with all 4 years at Southern Illinois University back in the mid 80s (look it up to get an idea of the enormity of the party back then), Austin, TX at the beginning of my Big Trip back in 2010 and of course all those wonderful Halloweens back in St. Clair Shores when I was a . I very much look forward to trick or treating for many years to come.  |
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Yeah, I wrote it the day after Halloween but posted it yesterday on here. Of course in the context of Halloween and who I was with, I blended right in as if I were a teenager.
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Here's all the candy I got. Yummy.
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