General Music Chat

Things have gotten really odd over the last two years-

I've lived in my neighborhood for 8 years now, and things have always been consistent...

For Halloween, we always have decorated with string lights all over, and big displays of bales of hay, scarecrows, skeletons, corn stalks, witch brooms, etc.. it's obvious we're open to give candy on halloween night lol!

We live in a large apartment complex, and directly across the street is a huge middle-class (middle-middle .. not upper or anything) neighborhood, probably about the size of 12 x 12 city blocks, all regular houses, nothing great, but was always a decent "american neighborhood" feel. The apartments are slightly lower-ish class, but are far from "poor" (maybe the "working poor" these days), but still not really any major differences in social status.

So last year, Halloween fell right before the rather huge prez election. I remember things got really effin wierd - as there were TONS of McCain signs on lawns in the neighborhoods and TONS of Obama signs on the apartment lawns...

And I noticed.. halloween decorations were scarce, like 80% LESS than normal.. a few houses and apartments that were notorious for having extremely elaborate displays were dark and silent. We still did our elaborate setup, still not thinking much into it.

Then Halloween night came... The neighborhoods were extremely dark and oddly quiet. Dark because of no street lights, but also.. no porch lights, no house lights.. few.. VERY few were even on.. as if people were like "don't bother coming to OUR door"...

My wife took my daughter out, I handed out candy. We went through TONS in the prior years, so we bought a little more last year- instead of 8 bags, I'd say we bought 12. Years prior, we always ran out completely. Last year? Had 3 trick or treaters ALL NIGHT. the kids/parents from the neighborhoods wouldn't even cross the street into the apartments this year. A few kids I noticed started to walk towards, then the parents would steer them away..

My wife came back and said most houses were clearly "uninviting" and they did very little trick-or-treating. People were skittish, didn't say hi, were very unfriendly towards each other.

So, we chalked that up to maybe divisive politics , social division, whatever, thinking it would pass over...

This year, suprisingly even LESS deco around the hood. Our apartment is one of only three places in the entire neighborhood that has ANY deco up at all.

We decided we're going elsewhere this year and not handing out candy.

We noticed last christmas, easter, and 4th of july were equally less decorated, and it seems everyone is introverted. Other parents at the shared bus stops wont even say hi, just act all snotty and ignorant, and stare you down when they drive by, etc.. it's just freaking me out anymore.

I think this is an indicator of just how divided our citizenry has become. Our politicians, those snakes, have successfully pitted us against each other to the point that we can never band together to overcome their poison.

I fear what we are becoming.

Because we are a melting pot society, traditions change faster here than in other countries where the population is more homogenous. My neighborhood is more ethnically diverse than it was even ten years ago, and many of these families don't celebrate the same holidays. I still enjoy the Halloween ritual; I get dressed up, open a bottle of wine, crank up some Sabbath and Floyd and pass out candy to those who are brave enough to come up to my porch. But lots of people just turn off the lights on Halloween; what a shame.

Some of it probably has to do with fear. There's a new generation of parents out there now who are just flat-out more fearful for their kids and they won't do anything to put them into harm's way. Trick-or-treating is a holiday of paranoia for these people.

I know - my wife is one of them.

When I was a kid, my parents dressed us up, told us not to accept non-packaged candy (apples, for instance, for fear of razor blades), and then sent us on our way - unescorted. We roamed several blocks in our neighborhood with other gaggles of kids.

My wife - takes our kids to only people's houses she knows, and she escorts the kids. And then I look at all the other kids running from house to house and they all have parental escorts. No groups of kids trick-or-treat by themselves anymore.

And most people don't even trick-or-treat. They go to parties instead. My daughter is going to a party tonight. There will be about 15-20 kids her age there, there will be games and prizes and all sorts of stuff. The kids will dress up and have fun and there won't be any trick-or-treating.

The Mormon people in my town - they get together and do a tailgate trick-or-treat. All the people show up to the church with candy in the back of their cars, and the kids go from car to car to trick-or-treat. The space is confined to a large parking lot instead of several neighborhoods, and the people giving out the candy are other members of the church. So they know they're not getting candy from a stranger. Not really my thing - but that's what Halloween has come to for kids.


It's a different era now. So many bad things have happened and so much of it has been documented on television and the 6:00 news that an entire generation of people have grown up like my wife - just afraid of every potentially bad thing that could happen to their kids. So they change their behavior and they do things differently now.

Halloween isn't what it was when I was a kid.

Back in the 60's Halloween was a lot of fun, and scary. I remember one house where you had to go up and knock on a real casket, the "vampire" would slowly open the lid and give you your treat. My sister would do it, not me, heck no, no way was I knocking on a casket.
One year my father took us to the "old" side of town. The small modest houses with just a pourch light on. Older people would dump bowls of goodies into out bags, we would see light after light go out after we passed. Home made treats such as popcorn balls small cakes and fruit were always treasured by us as kids. People are just more selfish & hatefull today. Too many that have never had to want for anything or do an honest days work. Bankers Lawyers and Executives whom make a living screwing their fellow men dont trust others because they themselves cannot be trusted. In a society where garbage like Mad Men wins phoney awards and Disney whores out teenage girls, what would you expect.

and Disney whores out teenage girls

Really? Is that a new subdivision of theirs or something?



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Halloween is a very important day for children. All year they have to conform. This is the one day they don't have to conform. Being "bad" is good on Halloween. Being a "monster" is good. Halloween is very important for the psychology of children. This has nothing to do with religion. It's all about kids letting their imaginations run wild and not being punished for it. In the last ten years we have averaged about five kids trick or treating. The lack of decorations may have something to do with the recession but more likely it IS a change in society for the WORSE.

You Guys are all right on the money,[if you got any left]. PRETTY FOOKIN SAD.

You are so right!

Of course, I've moved from my childhood home, & things are different here. I grew up in the suburbs, & now I live in a more rural area.

Still, when I took my son out for Halloween, it was so very different from when I did it. Neighborhoods have become less friendly. Ppl are boarded up in their homes & shut off from their communities far more than even 20 years ago.

We've become so fearful of child molesters, altered candy, gangs, & lawsuits & such that we can barely allow our kids out the front door anymore.

Ian wants to take Jace out tonight. I just don't even want to go, really, because it's all so different & depressing, when you campare today's childhood experiences with your own. I prolly will, though.

Give me the snickers bar or I'm gonna mess up your pumkins face ,capece'.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love to see all the kids having fun because even at 50 I can still remember having so much fun this day. I just ran out of candy. I gave out candy to no less than 500 kids and their bags were full. Back in 1974 there was a scumbag father here in a suberb of Houston called Deer Park that poisoned his own children on halloween night with a large Pixie stick filled with cyonide laced candy so he could collect on the life insurance policy. It was a horrible thing my ex wife used to baby set those kids when she was a teen. The following year of 1975 I remember driving around in my first car and noticing how Halloween that year was literally cancelled because of that. So I think society really hasn't changed that much, times are just hard for now because of the economy. My heart feels for those that are having it hard now but this storm will pass. I beleive that the universe is such a vast thing and we as human beings like to think that it is all about us but in the grand scheme of things we are really so insignificant. Our star could go nova and the rest of the universe may not even have known we were here. So just be thankful that you have been allowed to exist on this fair planet and try to keep things in perspective.

Good words JH!

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I agree with the original poster. Our national politicians have been playing this class warfare game, which is all wrong, because THEY are the enemy.

And I'm talking about ALL politicians...both parties.

And I've got your back Lance

I agree with the original poster. Our national politicians have been playing this class warfare game, which is all wrong, because THEY are the enemy.

And I'm talking about ALL politicians...both parties.

Yep-

I wrote the OP the day before halloween this year-

We had deco and lights up again this year, re-used all the same stuff from last year-

Which is why I can't agree with the posts linking it to the economy - We're broke as hell and certainly aren't the most enthusiastic decorators in this area, but nobody else re-used deco..

Anyways, we had ONE.. yes ONE trick-or-treater, although it did rain last night, I remember many years that rain failed to stop the tradition, so not a great excuse.

We ended up going over to a friends' house around 8PM and just let all the kids play. They all had a good time and we had a big-assed tray of my home-made nachos, layered with 2lbs seasoned ground beef (my own recipe), green chilies, jalepinos, diced tomatoes, and 2lbs of mild cheddar cheese.

It was to die for lol, we destroyed them

MMMMMM NACHOS !!
Seems I end up working dang near every holiday. We've played the 4th of July three years running, but for the most part I spend holidays in the hospital. But hey they sucker punched me with an extra $10 /hr sooooo maybe I can buy some new picks or something.
I am glad to hear you guys making the best of the holidays. I'll be off Christmas and for my Nephew's wedding the 27th.
Till then gota make as much jack as I can.