Hallmark Halloween

When I was a kid, we dressed as ideas, notions of behaviors or activities like lambs, spaceman, Fairies instead of the branded, iconic individual and very specific cartoon characters that movie studios license to sell. We made costumes.
We got together with a bunch of other kids our age (under twelve), went to the barn to get buckets and raced like a wolf pack through the darkened neighborhood screaming, laughing and blissfully at ease in the independence that traipsing across lawns and tripping over Jack-O-Lanterns demands. We were free and we were on a mission. -A true team effort if ever there was one. Despite that we didn't actually like any of those kids during the daylight - they made perfect companions for one night.
Our buckets were filled with home made treats (popcorn balls were my personal favorite), apples, games, puzzles and pieces of gum or hard candy.

Things sure have changed!
This year, I watched my kids yearn for mass-produced costumes that weren't embarrassing the way that home made costumes must be. Funny, even as Aunt Jemima or Fu Man Choo, I was never embarrassed. It was a costume - not a political statement. Then again, I was eight and had sugar on the brain.
My son ran with just one other boy as opposed to a pack. Operating under the 'you can only go as fast as your slowest member' theory, he decided to cut his losses and stick with speed - which hopefully, would ensure more candy.
I guess the 'sorting' ritual is still intact. Especially for my youngest son. He likes to take inventory. He has always been preoccupied with organization. (Why this doesn't carry over to his dresser drawers is beyond me. But it doesn't.) When I was invited to survey the takings, I was really surprised to find only one piece of Double Bubble, no candy cigarette sticks, no Chicklets, not an apple in sight, nor a popcorn ball, a Rice Crispy Treat or even a box of raisins. Even more alarming - no Candy Corn and only two Caramels. Nothing that couldn't be hermetically or figuratively sealed from the outside influence of the world - like the germs left behind by the innocent touch of another as they offer it.

Even the Jack-O-Lanterns are different. Most I saw were made of painted Styrofoam and illuminated with electric lights. Clean, homogeneous, sanitary. They don't smell like pumpkin pie as they 'cook' in the flame of an actual candle. No actual slugs crawling in and out - feeding on their own private and tiny holiday feast.
I thought Halloween was supposed to have an implicit layer or gore, vileness and rawness to it. These are the characteristics that pushed it just beyond the realm of entirely safe and that also made it so feverishly attractive to kids.
Out at night, candy from strangers, the absence of parental supervision, be someone else. It was a beautiful thing. It was a tangibly different day with rough edges that required real bravery not canned pseudo-bravery.

The new version of Halloween is for syndicated, licensed and branded weenies. And don't even get me started on Devil's Night. Those were the days!