And that’s why I’m stocking up on dehydrated prunes.
Further thoughts* – I remember riding our motorbikes on Halloween night to the edge of the hill overlooking Moose Mountain Creek. From there, we could watch the straw bales burning 6 miles away on Main Street in Arcola.
Future Occupiers in training.
At least there was some creative imagination behind the letter. A worse scenario would be the raw eggs splattered all over the house.
From the comments:
“I had a friend who bought candy for halloween , but his wife gave birth to her child just before dawn so he had to take her to the hospital. Needless to say he wasn’t home to give out candy.She had a bouncing little boy and he got eggs on his truck windshield. I applaud the retort of the home owner.”
People aren’t raising children. They are giving free reign to brats.
That letter appears to have been written by an adult, not a kid. If so, the scummy parents can buy candy for their own little occupiers and not rely on the neighbours feeling guilty.
Forty plus years ago when most houses had pumpkins with lit candles inside; I would blow out the candle before I rang the doorbell and yelled Trick or Treat.
Almost all appreciated me letting them know the candle blew out – extra candies / chocolates from most of the houses… 😉
People aren’t raising children. They are giving free reign to brats.
Bingo. But when people like me raise children not to be brats, the left wets itself and screams about “child abuse” and “indoctrination” because I – gasp! – don’t give my kids everything they want and take them to church. The horror! The horror!
The sad part is this reminds him why he doesn’t want to have kids. Instead, it should encourage him to have kids and raise them right. The only way we’ll win this culture war is with fecundity.
peterj: “A worse scenario would be the raw eggs splattered all over the house.”
That’s next year.
There was an implied threat in this letter: Either you pony up with candy, not chips, next year or else …
Hallowe’en has become almost as important as Christmas. I can’t believe the amount of money spent on decorating and shell outs for the kids. My husband and I long ago stopped “doing” Hallowe’en. We leave our house in darkness and leave our house for the night.
Amy P., right on. Those of us who brought our children up to be polite and responsible to their broader community — in our case and yours because of the tenets of our Christian faith — were berated and harassed by the feminazis in our kids’ schools and by all of the other “progressives,” who said we were too doctrinaire, too repressive, too prudish (because we didn’t want permissive sex-ed in the school. These same Leftards are now moaning about and lamenting the high rates of STDs and HIV/AIDs amongst our young people and are initiating fundraisers to care for the afflicted. Duh.).
“we’ll win this culture war is with fecundity.”
Well said, Amy. (Makes a great battle call too!)
Sometimes you just have to shake your head at the pure unmitigated gall of some people. Oshawa, figures.
Good response from the home owner though. 🙂
Halloween is getting to be a bore around here, no kids in town, all grown up.
Amy P. may be on to something there. Volunteers to have little Phantoms? Bwahaha!
I miss egging.
“Give us some candy or we’ll egg your house back to the stone age”
That’s what the bullies say on the Simpsons and that is how Halloween used to be. Years ago you would never leave your house on Halloween because someone messing with your property was a real possibility. No treat; trick for sure unless the homeowner had run out of candy. It was the one time in the year you could act like a hooligan. We have become a tame lot indeed. Writing letters, pshaw!
I agree with peterj at 12:23. I think the guy got off lucky.
I can well recall what happened when 2 old Glengarry bachelors put butternuts in little brown paper bags and handed them out to us many moons ago.
It’s the logical outcome when a day of extortion is made a celebration. And it serves to back up the year of extortion people who pay taxes experience.
The whole thing sounds fake to me but it is a good portrayal of the OWS movement.
The sense o’humour here has tanked badly! It TRICK or treat and, yeah, it’s extortion. That’s what Halloween is about! It’s a day for kids to be a little naughty, for the ones a little older to dress up in a way maybe they can’t, and a day for fun. It is a shame that fear of pervs, fear of kids, and fear of offending has made it so hard to have a nice evening anymore. There are too many childless people out there acting like Oscar the Grouch! The letter was funny and in the spirit of the day; Tick or treat, your choice!
I’m a little surprised that most of us have forgotten that trick or treat was supposed to be a choice. But the letter also seemed to miss the point as well. Halloween was over. If the trick was to be delivered, midnight was the deadline – not next Saturday.
A Hobson’s choice, give me your property, or be vandalized.
This is one instance where I support respect for other’s faiths and culture. If the lights are out, that house is not participating for whatever reason. Be happy that most of us are happy to meet you at the door, admire your costume and hand you some candy (that you probably don’t need).
The only way we’ll win this culture war is with fecundity.
~Amy P.
It makes little difference how many children you have if you’re sending them to public school.
Dehydrated prunes is actually what this gentleman should be handing out to the little particular little brats.
There was never an implied threat when I went trick-or-treating. I guess I ran with a dull crowd (of primary scholers). Older than that I was a)two old and b)in Britain. (I vividly remember being taken out on Hallowe’en at the age of six in limeyland with a gaggle of what must have been other North American children. The first jerk whose door we knocked on told us to something off and slammed it in our faces. The holiday has caught on a bit in maybe the last 10 years over there.)
I will play Devil’s Advocate though and suggest that the kids who wrote the letter might have been being all precocious. Of course their parents should never have let them do it.
batb – I don’t blame you, but what you write does bum me out a bit. Hallowe’en is a great North American tradition. Could I try and sell you on the notion of “community”?
A lot of grumpy, out of season, grinches on this topic. Certainly that (adult-composed) letter was way off base, but a lot of the comments have strayed off base too.
Hallowe’en is for everyone. I enjoy greeting the rotten little urchins, so proud in their regalia. I likewise participate, usually by dressing up all evil-like, telling them menacingly to eat properly so next Hallowe’en they’ll be just right for roasting and eating. Then I give them special candy — scorpions, ants, weevils, wasps, caterpillars encased in clear candy on a stick. These treats are carried by a specialty candy store on W.4th Ave. in Vancouver, and I stock up during the year to make sure I have a supply.
I cannot begin to describe how popular these candies are. The reactions are extraordinary, equally by the parents hovering on the sidewalk. For pure pleasure I’ll take Hallowe’en over any other occasion. Except my birthday, of course, but that has yet to be declared a national holiday.
I recall when Halloween degenerated into a night of mindless arson and vandalism…..then some sick individuals began booby-trapping sweets with everything from XLAX to razor blades….then it morphed into pre-adolescents with a parental security detail…
Halloweens are now pretty quiet..no need to mount constant security patrols….or purchase candy….
I really like the serenity….
How many children use words like “rectify”?
I call fake, I bet the guy wrote the letter himself and posted it on Kijiji for laughs.
…then some sick individuals began booby-trapping sweets with everything from XLAX to razor blades….then it morphed into pre-adolescents with a parental security detail…
sasquatch, you may want to read this:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/halloween.asp
IN my corner of the universe, it was far simpler: Either the lights were on ( and usually a pumpkin with a candle) and that meant you were going to get something and if your costume was any good, maybe a bonus.
Or the porch light was off and the house was dark: i.e. “Move on kids, we aren’t playing”
When did outhouse tipping on halloween go out of style?
Oh yeah, and how many children use a postscript? That’s an affectation left over from the days of non-electronic composition. Or are we to suppose the kid used a typewriter?
This is as fishy as a dolphin’s breath.
“There was never an implied threat when I went trick-or-treating.”
The threat isn’t implied; it’s implicit: Give me a treat or you’ll get a trick.
Rob Huck – depends on the neighborhood.
Black Mamba: “batb – I don’t blame you, but what you write does bum me out a bit. Hallowe’en is a great North American tradition. Could I try and sell you on the notion of ‘community’?”
Two things, Black Mamba (sorry to bum you out!!)
1) Hallowe’en, and I’m not talking All Hallows Eve, is the high celebratory day of those who worship the Dark Force. I feel it every Hallowe’en night. As a friend of mine, who is a priest, says: “Who’s the scariest guy around? I am!”
2) When we were living on one limited income, the reason I’m talkin’ Freedom 85, I always resented having to put out all this money to give kids, whose disposable income was probably greater than mine on any given week, more candy, more junk food. Then, when I handed out a small chocolate bar and a small chips bag to the big louts in their teens and got back from them “Is that all?, I thought, “OK, when my kids have moved out of the house, that’s it.
Capiche? 😉
batb. That happened to us a few years ago. I told the brat if he didn’t like what I gave him he could give it back. I then took his bag, dumped the contents all over the porch, retrieved the bag of chips and went inside.
He could be heard saying a lot of words, mostly starting with the letter F.
We laughed our asses off!
What Amy and Batb said.
If you raise children properly, the sad and childless activists think something is amiss, chiefly because mannered children think for themselves.
We should be publicly shaming the parents.
Dick, this year I handed out little yo-yos and games just to do something different. Many people were pleased. I had a handful of brats who did not thank me and were not pleased to get a free toy.
Dick- that’s probably what they were calling you (your moniker), but funny as hell. Good for you.
At home the cops pulled a guy over with an old wooden two holer outhouse in the back of his truck, heading off to install it on someone’s front lawn.
When they quizzed him about where he was going with the outhouse he tried to pass it off as his camper, and was deeply offended that they would make such a viscious insult to his property and person.
They just told him to take his ‘camper’ back where he found it.
It makes little difference how many children you have if you’re sending them to public school.
You sound like my husband. I went to public school and turned out just fine, thanks.
I’m with batb on this one: we don’t “do” Halloween anymore. After handing out nice treats for over 30 years, we now treat ourselves to a dinner out.
Kids have HALLOWE’EN, BIG TIME at school—starting weeks before it actually happens. And, despite the warped beliefs of the letter writer—definitely some idiot adult: “Hallo’ween”?—no one, not even his/her entitled, spoiled brat kid[s], has a right to free candy.
Black Mamba has raised the issue of community involvement: observant Christians, like me, batb, and others here have committed ourselves to community, big time, and not only at our churches: it’s hard data that Christians give far more of their time, talent, and treasure, far beyond their churches, than other groups, especially those who don’t belong to any faith community.
It’s quite OK not to belong to such a community, but to suggest that Christians should “do” Hallowe’en for community building, is, I believe, barking up the wrong tree.
E.g., “Conservatives who practice religion are the most generous Americans/[Canadians], by any measure.”
“. . . Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks . . .
“[t]he child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts . . . has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income.
“The book [Brooks wrote is], titled ‘Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism’. . .”
I’m very community minded: not observing Hallowe’en, the secular reincarnation of the Christian feast of All Saints—the night before was called All Hallows’ Even[ing], shortened to “Hallowe’en”—is another matter altogether!
Amy P. writes, “I went to public school and turned out just fine, thanks.” Same here.
But, Amy, have you been in our pro-green, pro-homosexual, pro-Muslim, pro-feminist, etc., anti-Christian, anti-authority, anti-equality (only certain groups are included), anti-academic, etc. public schools recently?
batb – “Hallowe’en, and I’m not talking All Hallows Eve, is the high celebratory day of those who worship the Dark Force.”
lookout – “… Hallowe’en, the secular reincarnation of the Christian feast of All Saints—the night before was called All Hallows’ Even[ing], shortened to “Hallowe’en…”
So before it was bad (rotten kids), it was good (“all Saints’ eve”), and before it was good it was bad (pagan autumn festival when the dead walked and had to be appeased; most pagan cultures have some equivalent).
It’s horrible if you let the little brats go feral, and you need to keep an eye on teenagers (esp. ones with motorbikes); otherwise it’s fun. There’s a glamour to it; a little anodyne thrilling brush with darkness, with dressing up, with going out late. I always loved it. Of course it would really p*ss me off if I was getting egged or something, but in an okay neighborhood it’s awesome. (They bus kids in from the inner cities to the suburbs.) I never cared about the candy.
Eh, maybe it’s an east coast thing.
Jamie MacMaster at November 8, 2011 8:57 AM
I’m crying I’m laughing so hard!
BTW…the very first beer I ever drank, while still a kid in a one room schoolhouse, was given by those who had no candy for a treat…
Black Mamba, I agree with a lot of what you say . . . but I don’t think you’re addressing the issue that I have. Of course, that’s your choice.
However, the apparently anti-community thing that you introduced, re those of us who choose to no longer involve ourselves in the Hallowe’en hoopla, seems to hit somewhere below the belt. That’s my point.
All the best.
It used to be fun screaming Halloweeeen Applessss at the tops of our lungs…and yes, we got candied apples and homemade popcorn balls. Later on I made popcorn balls too, but would put our address on the wrap so parents knew where they came from. Eventually that stopped when I realized the labor intensive balls were likely ending up in the trash. So it goes. In the end the kids lose.
lookout – of course the kids who wrote that letter, if kids did, are horrible brats. No argument. And if your point is that religious people, and esp. Christians, donate more money and time to charity than secularists, no argument there either. I wasn’t trying to suggest that opting out from Hallowe’en makes you a bad member of your community. Personally, I have never knowingly been a member of any “community” – the word to me is like “society” was to Margaret Thatcher. I really just meant that a person’s Hallowe’en experience is likely to depend on their neighborhood. Nothing else implied. I just always loved Hallowe’en.
Oz
Thanks for the link…however that does little to diminish the perception..urban myth or not.
Parents are genuinely concerned hence the security escorts.
However it’s an ill wind….I went out one Halloween when the 2 gal’s husbands were unavailable…funny these empowered females need an adult male back up…
I had a good time….the kids got treats and the escorts were generally provided a shot….It was just as well, I wasn’t driving.
This situation seems “de rigour”…a civilized modification to the changed Halloween procedure.
The threat of a trick, in pre adult escort days, was definitely implicit – never “implied”. Some gangs of 10 to 12 year old boys weren’t strictly honorable and, if they disliked someone or were simply over-candied, they’d take the treats and deliver tricks anyway.
What’s the difference between “implicit” and “implied”?
And why isn’t there an “explied”?
Black Mamba, I appreciate your response. But I was commenting on your question of batb, “Could I try and sell you on the notion of ‘community’?” Sort of a “taking coals to Newcastle” question for observant Christians . . .
I used to love Hallowe’en. I think it’s now blown out of all proportion. Someone recently suggested that, for many in our secular society this thoroughly paganised religious day is taking the place of Christmas. When I was young, the only concessions to Hallowe’en were costumes, candies, and carved pumpkins. Now look what’s up! I actually find many of the decorations a lot of fun, but am disturbed by the fact that zombies and other “death/violence cult” aspects are now so pronounced. My take . . .
“That letter appears to have been written by an adult, not a kid.”
Bingo. Not surprised most people missed this – not a lot of abstract-thinking skills around here.