It was a rare moment for us rural kids to envy the town kids, but it
happened at least once a year.
Every Halloween, to be precise.
After the dress-up party at school, the townies could always go out and
trick-or-treat, just by walking out their own front door and going
door-to-door after that.
That doesn’t work when you’re 20 miles from town, too young to drive,
and the farmstead yard lights are far between.
Rural depopulation being what it is, the situation probably hasn’t
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If we rural kids wanted a chance to fill an old pillowcase with enough
goodies to make ourselves sick for weeks, like those lucky town kids
did, it took skill, cunning and persistence.
Skill: choosing a costume that would retain an identity even when
covered with a parka or snowsuit. Then, as now, Halloween was
invariably a freezing cold night. The harem-girl outfit that looked so
cute at the school party? Nope, not when that wretched wind would whip
it into the dance of the seven veils.
Better to go as a ghost, a snowmobile driver or a sherpa guide.
Cunning: the nearest neighbour was miles away, so a driver was
required. How to get a parent to sign up for this duty on a dark and
stormy night? By acting like a goblin or a devil of course. This is
still known today as pleading and whining.
Persistence: The trouble with visiting the neighbours is the fact that,
well, they’re the neighbours. Let chauffeur Dad get his head inside
their door and you’d be stuck there all night, listening to talk about
crops and cattle, with nothing but an empty pillowcase to show for it.
Well, it wouldn’t be completely empty. The neighbours would always
contribute a bruised apple – all they had on hand because they naively
thought distance would prevent visits from little hobgoblins and
sherpas.
A certain amount of persistent devilish behaviour was required to keep
Dad from staying too long – honking the horn in the car or revving the
engine, for example.
Weather and parent permitting, you might eventually be driven to the
nearest hamlet, population 60, or the nearest village, population 100
or so.
Even in a comparatively urban setting, it can be a long way between
houses, especially if you’re dragging a pillowcase of fruit, a sheet
and a sniveling sibling.
But my big sisters were pretty good about that. They let me keep all
the bruised apples.
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