The Last Time I Ever Trick-or-Treated

Well, Almost

It’s hard for me to come up with something I don’t like about the Halloween season. I like horror movies. I like haunted houses. I like being scared. I like candy. I like Halloween specials. I like carving pumpkins. I like pumpkin-spice coffee. I’m not one of those “every day is Halloween” people or anything but I did once buy a skeleton from a medical supply company. My daughter and I had a fun time assembling it and “Mick Rib” stands in a corner of my home office, year round.

I have a picture of me and my friend Scott which was taken Halloween night, 1976. I was three years old and he was four. I’m the ghost on the left; he’s the devil on the right. This was the first year I went trick-or-treating.

Trick-or-treating was the culmination of Halloween for me. I got to dress up in a costume and walk around my neighborhood collecting candy and looking at all the decorations. I loved every part of it. At some houses, older teens would put on scaru masks and jump out from behind trees or fake tombstones and scare us. I would scream and my legs would start to run on their own. Every time it happened I was convinced I was about to die… and by the time I got back to the sidewalk, I’d ask my parents if I could do it again.

It was an entire night of mingling with fellow ghouls and ghosts and then when you got home there was the candy — oh, that beautiful, delicious bounty! An entire night of running around in the dark while dressed in a costume ended with the annual ritual of sorting more candy than any kid should possess into piles: chocolate, suckers, gum, random candy, and gross stuff. I would come home with a month’s worth of candy, which I would devour over the next two or three days.

Around the time I become a teenager, Halloween parties began to replace trick-or-treating. In seventh grade a friend of mine threw a Halloween party and while I so wanted to go, I realized that this was evolution; this was what we were supposed to do instead of trick-or-treating. Well, not me, friend. My friend’s party ended at 9 P.M. and asked my mom to pick me up around 9:30, which gave me enough time to knock on a few doors and fill my pockets with candy from strangers. I was not going gently into that dark night.

I turned 14 in 1987. In Oklahoma, you can get a motorcycle license at the age of 14. I had grown up riding dirt bikes and I jumped at the opportunity to gain some two-wheeled freedom! That’s me on the right and my mom on her Honda Rebel. Around that same time, I got a part-time job working for the city, manning concession stands at basketball, baseball, and football games.

My friend Louis also got his motorcycle license. He was my only friend who also had his license and so the two of us rode many places together. We also both played D&D, had similar computers, and rode skateboards.

On Halloween, 1987, the two of us came up with an idea for Halloween. We decided to dress up as undead versions of the Blues Brothers. Then, we would ride our motorcycles to a more affluent neighborhood to get great candy. I told my boss I needed the night off from the concession stand that night, and put together a spectacularly bad Blues Brothers costume. I wore a blue jacket, my dad’s fedora, and painted my face with white paint. I looked more like a ghostly hobo than John Belushi’s ghost.

Louis and I met at my house and rode our motorcycles, in costume, across town. We parked our bikes in someone’s driveway, grabbed our Halloween bags, and made our way up to the door. Full-sized candy bars, here we come!

Beaming with pride regarding our plan, we rang the doorbell. Moments later a man opened the door. Based on the look on his face, he was expecting someone shorter and younger. After a moment of awkward silence the man said, “aren’t you two a little old to be trick-or-treating?”

And it hit me. We were.

Both Louis and I had licenses and jobs. I don’t know why it hadn’t hit me before, but it hit me hard right there on that man’s front porch. I was too old to be trick-or-treating.

I didn’t go trick-or-treating again for almost fifteen years.

The ghouls don’t fall far from the tree, and I ended up with two kids who also love Halloween. Unlike when I grew up, my kids trick-or-treated multiple times each Halloween season. There was trick-or-treating at the school, trick-or-treating at daycare, and trick-or-treating at the zoo. There were a few years when they were burned out on trick-or-treating and candy by the time Halloween rolled around, but I did my best to convince them that roaming the neighborhood was the most fun. Truth be told, it was as much for me as it was for them.

My kids have now also aged out of the tradition. For a few years I had trick-or-treating withdrawal. We handed out candy to kids, but didn’t do much else. Eventually, I got my third wind. We haven’t gone all out, but we did pick up one of those 12’ skeletons a couple of years ago and last year I put on a simple (but apparently creepy) costume to meet visiting kids. I had so many kids take selfies in front of Skelly and I like the idea that I might be a part of their Halloween memories someday.