Comments on: My First Halloween

By: Naomi Johnson

Naomi Johnson — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:46:00 +0000

Photos! We must have photos!

By: Pop Culture Nerd

Pop Culture Nerd — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:21:24 +0000

Whoa—your sister’s got skills! That Gizmo costume looks like it came straight from the movie!

You just gave me an idea. I’m gonna whip up something awesome to go T-or-T tonight and then wear a sign around my neck that says, “Cash only, please.”

By: Pop Culture Nerd

Pop Culture Nerd — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:17:49 +0000

Haha! Wanna be my ghost writer?

By: Pop Culture Nerd

Pop Culture Nerd — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:17:24 +0000

Thanks, Shell. Do you celebrate Halloween now?

By: Pop Culture Nerd

Pop Culture Nerd — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:16:50 +0000

Wow, I’ve never heard of scheduled ToT. I’ve always lived in places where kids only do it on the actual Halloween night. If they show up at my house on the 29th, I may not even have candy for them.

Your rant is understandable, Naomi. The no-trick-or-treating-on-Fridays rule is stupid. If adults want to protect their kids, don’t drive drunk on Halloween. Or EVER.

By: Christine

Christine — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 18:44:08 +0000

Rant understood, Naomi. Andrew Vachss wasn't a name I was familiar with, so I went and checked him out. (No surprise that Brian had and has read some of his books.) In addition to his fiction, I'd be interested in checking out the bookHEART TRANSPLANT that he cowrote about bullying.

By: Naomi Johnson

Naomi Johnson — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 17:55:04 +0000

Grr, don’t get me started, Christine. I deleted a rant that I was all ready to post to my blog, about the stupid reasoning behind Beggar’s Night here in Ohio. Mainly that putting the kids’ version of Halloween – costumes and trick-or-treating – on any weeknight except Friday, is cited for safety reasons, when I’m pretty damned sure it’s so that adults can have their costume & drinking parties on Fridays & Saturdays, and so the fundamentalists don’t get bent out of shape by having the kids getting all pagan on a Sunday. Adults don’t want to have to show up at work after a wild night of partying, but by all means let’s force the kids to pound the pavement on school nights. Sure it’s about safety after all. Having the kids out on the streets while the grown-ups are driving drunk IS a safety hazard. And it’s just public policy (ask Andrew Vachss) that when kids’ interests conflict with adult interests, the kids will lose almost every time. [sigh] End of rant.

By: Christine

Christine — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 14:55:23 +0000

As you faithful readers of PCN are from all over, I was wondering if Trick-or-Treating is referred to as anything other than that where you live? I’d never heard it called anything else until I moved to Dayton, Ohio where they called it Beggars Night. That was also the first place where ToT was “scheduled” on different nights in different school districts as opposed to October 31st. I’m sure there was some safety rationale in doing so, I don’t remember.

Anyway, Happy Halloween to all!

By: Naomi Johnson

Naomi Johnson — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 02:52:56 +0000

I don't remember Halloween being that much fun for me as a child. I never had a really good costume and it always seemed to be cold and rainy. Then I'd get home and have a paper bag with nothing in it but popcorn balls -- hated'em then and now. So my favorite Halloween was seeing my two then-young nephews going out trick-or-treating one year in costumes their mother, my too-talented sister, had made for them. One costume was no biggie, a simple ninja outfit. But the four-year-old went as Gizmo, the cute furball from The Gremlins. People who opened their doors gave him extra candy and some were so floored they felt the need to get out their wallets. Seriously. That boy came home with about 8 pounds of candy and roughly $10 in his satchel. Here's the URL to our only photo of the costume if you want to see what he looked like.

By: sus

sus — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 00:18:58 +0000

AWWW…Elyse…I never heard that story before… Perfect!!!Now forgive but I am going to say it again…Write your BOOK!!!!! xoxox