Happy Halloween.

DaveinGermany

a multieloquent Mule
Tackler
Aye well .... it's that time of year again, the Monsters (read charming kidlets) are rampaging, hundreds of little apprentice extortionists dressed up as Witches, Vampires, Weird wolves, Goblins, Ghosts & a multitude of things from the crypt that on any other day would receive a swift toe to the posterior are actively encouraged to go out scrounging & threatening dire reprisals on any who don't accede to their demands, it's like a mafia protection racket without the suits & Pasta. :D These mini Bin Ladens are usually in possession of the biggest buckets you're likely to see outside of a building site & they're 8, I suppose hope springs eternal, they obviously haven't heard there's a recession on.

Anyway with the eternal optimism of youth they'll wander down a total strangers pathway (Although all through the rest of the year they're told don't talk to, or take sweets from a stranger, I know you figure it out !:rolleyes:) Then proceed to ring the bell, bang on the door & shout through the letter box in the hope of sweeties. The door opens & old Mrs.Wiccan is standing there with a fistful of sweets usually some old mints or boildies she's had in her handbag since last year covered in fluff & cat hairs (the kids wouldn't go to her house cos she's a proper Witch with a a boil on her chin & nose, she's even got hairs on her chin & 2 cats, even the outhouse has a look of gingerbread about it :eek:).

There's usually 3 or 4 of them & the littlest is always shoved to the front (with the biggest bucket) with the gentle prodding, pushing & shoving from his mates behind him motivating this little fella :oke2: those immortal words are garbled forth in a conjoined torrent,
"Gisusasweet !", blank looks from old Mrs.Wiccan, false teeth clacking as she sucks a mint,
"What say sonny ?" the scrum forms, whispered mutterings & the spokes ghostie tries again,
"Trick or treat !"
"Thought that's what you meant !" says old Mrs.Wiccan as she drops the decrepit candy into the outstretched bucket & they're away, off on their toes before she turns them into Toads or pies. Filled with relief (that they aren't Toads), joy (that they got something) & terror(well she was a Witch) they'll happily wander around the estate crossing the paths of other Goblins & Ghouls passing on tips & warnings to these other wandering souls, eventually big Brother or Sis is sent out to find them & drag them back home, but not before the spoils are divvied out. :) I don't know, the kids today far to commercial & consumer orientated, now in my day ... !

Halloween was known as mischief night, we'd go off & play nik-nok-run, change gates in the street :D Number 27 started off with white posts & white gates, by the end of the evening the posts would still be white but they'd probably have a blue & red gate hanging there in the morning & these marvellous colour combinations could be found up & down the street ! Gnomes would be placed into new, unusual & highly improbable positions & many garden ornaments found themselves re-located next door ! I know looking back it wasn't big & it wasn't clever..... but it was damn good fun ! :s_aim1: Still the pleasure was usually very short lived, pretty much everyone knew everyone else on the estate so a few enquires the next day in the right lugholes ! :( So with contrition on our tongues & stinging backsides, the chain gang (us) would be paraded round to the neighbours to apologise & put right what we'd boogered up. Happy days & we never got any sweeties ! Pah .... Kids today ! Eeh, they don't know they're born ! :thumbsup:

Thanks for reading ..... :couchplus
 
Liked the blog Dave.....but we don't do Halloween...trick or treat is a yankee import......we have a towel covering the door so that no-one knocks,the batteries have been taken out of the doorbell so they can lean on it all they want...it won't make a peep.

Back in those dim and distant days, our scrounging tactics were around 'Penny for the Guy mister' with one of the brothers (the littlest one) done up in raggy clothes and a blacked face(coal dust or soot were ace)...none of the Yankee malarkey.
 
Thanks folks. I know, to much American influence nowadays as young uns' we'd have bobbing for apples, apples on a string & tell ghost stories, the modern day ubiquitous "Pumpkin" (another American influence) was usually a hollowed out turnip :D House used to smell of singed turnip for weeks afterwards, it was only in our terrible teens were we allowed out on "Mischief night". :rolleyes:

Aye, we'd do the guy (penny for) thing to in November.
 
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See we were too poor to spend good money on 'eating food' to play with it....My mother could peel a turnip to within an inch of its life....would not dream of wasting a candle either.
It was all about economics in those days and we had our priorities right.....food first....fun when we could pay for it!
Although there were some sorts of fun that cost 'nowt') :):):)
 
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