Last night I was on candy duty, handing out the goodies to the neighborhood kids. As it is most Halloweens, there weren't many door knockers. Perhaps we now live in a paranoid and overly protective society, or one that isn't interested in sugary treats (ha!), but this is much different from the days when I went out trick-or-treating. There was always a big turnout and you could see many groups of kids hustling between homes. Now-a-days there are long gaps between candy seekers. And half of them were well over the age that would have been considered appropriate back in the day.
Will the trick-or-treat tradition be in it's own grave within a generation? I don't know. What's I do know right now is that I've got too much candy on my hands.
Anyway, the most interesting part of the evening was when a group of girls, probably about 14-15 years old, came to the door. Most had put in minimal effort to look different (I think).
But one of them had a fairly large hand written protest sign: Stop Illegal Immigration. That's a new one to me - I've never had a protester at my door for halloween. Her friends were chatty but she was rather sullen. Maybe she wasn't getting as much candy - hell, she didn't even have a bag for the goodies.
I didn't have any Democratic signs or bumper stickers on me at the time - but they would have been a more appropriate offering than the candy.