The

The On Halloween night back in 1978, I was just 10 years old and I was getting ready to go trick-or-treating with my buddies from fifth grade.

I remember being really excited because the year before, my friends and I had gotten to run up

and down the streets in total freedom, knocking on houses wherever we could.

Now, it sounds crazy to think that we were allowed to go out at night at that age, almost totally

unsupervised, but since we were going from door to door and being constantly greeted by adults

giving us candy,

I guess folks figured that it was just safe as could be.

And it really was.

We had the night to ourselves, running around like crazy and seeing all our elementary school friends in their costumes.

Then, at one point, there was this big old candy swap going on, where kids would swap their

pixie sticks for dum-dums and their tootsie rolls for peanut butter cups, like some big old candy stock

exchange. It was magical, one of those childhood memories you carry with you for the rest of your life,

and most importantly, nothing very untoward happened.

And so as you can imagine, I was incredibly excited to do the whole thing again next year,

and then incredibly disappointed when I found out it wasn't happening.

The first year, so back in 77 I remember my parents saying something like, just make sure you're

back before dark and don't go too far. But then the next year, in 78, my mom seemed way over

involved right from the get-go. She wanted to know who I'm going out with, where they live,

what their parents' names were, and if I know their phone

numbers and all of that. She asked me a million questions to the point where it got very

annoying, and then when I told her that I was heading out to meet my friends, she broke some

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