"Trick or Treat"

I love Halloween. The costumes...the pumpkins...the excitement of the children when the door is opened and "Trick or treat!" rings out.

One memory of Halloween "back in the day" was decorating our lunch milk cartons at Fossil Grade School. The cartons were used as we went door to door chanting, "Trick or treat for UNICEF!" I'm not sure we really understood what UNICEF was, but we loved collecting coins on October 30th, and the highlight of Halloween at school was dumping out the cartons and counting the collections. The class with the most money had bragging rights and received a special treat. Another memory of the holiday was a classroom party and the excitement of bobbing for apples with a lot of giggling from the ghosts, witches, hobos and pirates.

As we got older, my friends and I became a bit more mischievous. My friend, Darrelyn's family lived upstairs from her dad's shop, Mac's Electric, and the roof of Ray Luther's garage was right out the window of their apartment. Sneaking out the window to the garage roof armed with water balloons, Darrelyn and I fired the balloons at the boys who were down on the street creating their own Halloween havoc. November 1st found Darrelyn and I washing the soaped windows of Mac's Electric, Luther's Pontiac, and my dad's store, Value Variety and Hardware. Oh, but it was worth it.

Another bit of shenanigans that will long be remembered occurred when my husband and I were teaching at FGS. When Dick was heading to school on November 1st, he reached under the door handle of his pickup and was surprised to find limburger cheese. The chuckles at school from Alf, Ronnie, Steve and Troy gave them away. It was suggested that the boys wash Mr. Allen's pickup, which they did. And I'm sure it was worth it.

Have a safe and happy Halloween.