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One time on Usenet, ojunk (Mpoconnor7) said:

> I live in an apartment and no kids come by. I can't remember the last time a
> kid came to my door on Halloween.

The only ones we get, and rarely at that, are close neighbors.

> I remember when I was a kid we used to go out for 3 hours, starting as soon as
> it started getting dark.

To put this in context, my trick or treat escapades took place
from the late '60s to the mid '70s, in a very small town.

My father used to take a shot glass with him and hold it out for
his treat too! Apparently, driving two girls from house to house
was thirsty work. When we got older and could go alone, Sis and I
would make the rounds, change costumes, and hit everyone up again.
As I said, small town -- everyone knew it was us, but they didn't
mind. We didn't have to have our candy x-rayed or anything, but
I do remember one lady who gave out bags of homemade caramel corn
with her name on them so the parents knew it was okay.

> It was 1982 when the practice of kids going to strangers houses for Halloween
> effectively ended. About a month before Halloween that year, the Tylenol
> poisoning occured, and there were other copycat incidents across the country
> and people died from tainted products. Halloween as we knew it was cancelled
> that year. At that point, the malls picked up the slack and started handing
> out candy to kids because parents were terrified to let their kids go to every
> house in the neighborhood to get candy. I'm sure parents will take their kids
> to houses where they know the people living there, but never to people they
> don't know.

We get together with other parents and take the three kids to
local businesses (no malls here) and parties held by various
schools and community groups. It makes me sad that my son will
never get to go from house to house as we did...

--
J.J. in WA ~ mom, vid gamer, novice cook ~
"I rule you!" - Travis of the Cosmos, ATHF