Do you remember when your mother made you a costume for Halloween? Or, if she didn't have time, she bought you one from the store that only lasted one season and the elastic band on the mask snapped one hour into your Trick or Treating? Remember when it was safe to go to strangers' houses, up and down one street after another? Two or three moms would herd small groups of kids in the cold darkness for hours. It seemed like Trick or Treating lasted all night. Remember being afraid of the groups of teenagers who always dressed like characters from horror movies and you feared they would steal your candy?
Of course the best part was getting back home and assessing the bounty you hauled home in your pillowcase. Yes, I said pillowcase. Any professional Trick or Treater knows that pillowcases are better than any designer printed paper bag with handles. In the first place, the handles, which are only glued on, always come off under the strain of half a bag of candy. A pillowcase has no handles to break. Also, a paper bag cannot be swung over head several times to build speed and force before being used as a weapon to remove slow kids or annoying little brothers who stand between you and your path to mini Butterfingers.
Prioritization of candy is very individual. Everyone had his or her own method for candy triage. Once you had your booty spread out on the table, you threw out the apples and oranges immediately, then you grouped all the gum, then the Bit-O-Honey and other chewies went together. But the "A" group was, of course, the group with the chocolate anything. Some people ate their "A" group first, some ate everything else first and saved the best for last. However, if you saved your "A" group for last, you needed to have really good hiding places or the siblings who ate their "A" group first would turn your room inside out; it would look like "CSI: Halloween".
Shelter Island is one of the last places I know on Long Island where house to house Trick or Treating is still safe. With 250 kids from kindergarten to high school seniors, there are only about 50 kids in the Trick or Treating age range. There's no sense in passing out poisoned apples to the irritating kids because it would be too easy for the cops to figure out whodunit - you'd be arrested by 9 p.m. You just can't pull it off like you could if you lived in a big crowded town like Patchogue. It's one of the few disadvantages of living in a small town.
Shelter Island always has a wonderful costume parade for the kids and whole families get into it. Many families costume in "theme" drag. One of my all time favorite groups was the family that dressed up like McDonald's characters. The dad was "The Hamburglar" - and I can still see those red and white striped tights on his skinny legs. What a crack up! It's a blast to watch the parade as it snakes its way through all 100 feet of downtown Shelter Island.
I don't know what happened to the social innocence and overall sense of decency that characterized neighborhoods all over Long Island, when the thought of putting razor blades in apples never occurred to anyone. I don't know when it went from a fun family time to a commercial bonanza for Toys R Us. I'm just so grateful it hasn't happened here - yet.
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