Where Have All The Tricks Gone?

Unfortunately, I'm part of the generation that witnessed the birth of political correctness. The generations before me were too busy fighting wars and surviving depressions to entertain the luxury of whining whenever someone expressed a negative thought. They sucked it up and moved on, folks today want to whine everything into conformity. This is the result of giving kids trophies for being losers- they think they should always be made to feel good and if something makes them feel bad about themselves it should be done away with. We have bred a nation of weaklings. I'm glad this isn't the generation that had to stand up to Hitler- hash tags wouldn't have won the Second World War.

You could get away with a lot more funny business back then. Sometimes this wasn't a good thing, but for the most part I think it was. People could be funny without fear, men could compliment women and kids could take peanut butter to school. Let's look at Halloween as an historic example of a time when people could be incorrect and get away with it.

Halloween used to be more fun- and safe; kids could run the streets without the fear of ending up on the back of a milk carton. Nobody complained about this or that costume hurting someone's feelings. People were mature enough to understand that if so and so dressed up in an offensive costume then that was their own bad taste. It didn't hurt anybody, it was just unpleasant, but hey, so are a lot of things- deal with it. So they dealt with it. People appreciated freedom much more and would not consider taking it away from someone due to a tacky error in judgment around the holiday season. Especially if alcohol had been involved.

People also understood the concept of Halloween more clearly. When people go trick or treating they ring your bell or knock on your door and say, "Trick or treat." We seem to have forgotten that this gives us options. We don't have to mechanically hand out expensive chocolates to kids that ride bikes through our flowers the other eleven months out of the year. We can strike back. And that is just what somebody did.

The following is an absolutely true story.

My grandparents knew a man in the small town they lived in. This man felt kids were generally a pain in the neck and decided to have some fun at their expense. Halloween night comes around and he's ready at the door with their treats.

Ding dong! "Trick or treat!" the kids demanded, excited about getting free candy from a person they cared nothing about.

"Hi kids! Here you go, here's your treats!" he said with a big grin, plopping the homemade goodness into their bags. "Some for you ... and some for you ... and for you." He made deposits into each child's bag, taking pleasure in their horrified faces with each scoop. Plop ... plop.

"Mashed potatoes?!" one of them cried out in alarm.

"Yes! Mashed potatoes!" he agreed. "What's wrong, you don't like mashed potatoes?"

This guy could be part of the reason parents do go trick of treating with their kids, now that I think about it. Sure, there are creeps out there who dress like clowns; and worse, if that's possible. But who wants to pay for child therapy because some loose screw dumped mashed potatoes all over their kid's Halloween candy? Of course, no one got therapy back then, you were told, "That's life," and you soon learned that that was life and you'd better get used to it. I'm starting to wonder if this guy wasn't performing a public service.

But; because parents rarely went trick or treating with their children back in those days, he was able to keep it going. This probably lasted until the kids got word around that night: "Stay away from mashed potato guy." But he clearly had his fun at their expense, no one called the ACLU, people moved on with their lives and another year passed.

Kids forget, kids move, kids get older, but the roster of kids in a neighborhood is constantly changing. And so, the next Halloween, kids came to his house.

Ding dong! "Trick or treat!"

"Hi kids! Here you go, here's your treats!" he said smiling, just like the year before. Plop, plop, plop went the treats into the bags held by excited faces. Faces which quickly turned downcast as they witnessed the abomination being tossed in with their precious candy.

"Broccoli?!"

"What's the matter, you don't like broccoli?"

That was it, his house was marked as the house to never go to again. Ever. His house was also never vandalized or toilet papered. Who would dare desecrate an asylum? You never knew when the crazy person would come out and chase you down.

 (Probably not the actual house)

The following year the kids were all avoiding his house. He had to call out to some of them to get them to come to the door.

"We're not coming to your house! You give out broccoli!" they hollered back in disgust.

"No kids! No broccoli, no mashed potatoes! I've got good treats for you this year! Come look, I've got ice cream!" His argument was persuasive.

"Ice cream!" they shouted, running toward his house. They crowded around the door, holding their bags open in anticipation of an ice cream sandwich of maybe a fudge bar.

Plop, plop went the ice cream into the bags. Drippy, runny scoops of ice cream right out of a container splatted into bags of candy with a gratuitous chuckle. The original Good Humor Man.

"Oh man!" they groaned retreating from his house. "You're crazy!"

And maybe he was. Or maybe he just had a great sense of humor. I never met the guy and I like him. I think I still have time for a trip to the produce department before the kids start coming to my door.