Halloween is the only holiday I can think of that is essentially car-free, and maybe even anti-car. Kids go out into their neighborhood, walking door to door... the smaller ones accompanied by a parent to supervise things.. sometimes a group of two or three parents and a half dozen kids. I suppose there are neighborhoods where parents drive their kids around to go trick-or-treating, but I've not seen that. But even so, people expect strangers to be coming to the front door; they expect there to be pedestrians on the streets; many people even make a special effort to be home and not out driving. All this is to the good.
So it was a bit ironic that yesterday evening my eight-year-old daughter asked if I'd take her trick-or-treating on the back of my new Xtracycle, and I thought, great idea! The Xtracycle is, to people on this forum, an alternative to the car; but we used it as an alternative to walking. I perverted it into an instrument of greed and laziness, where it should rightfully be an antidote to those vices. Ah, me.
Well, the result, whatever you think of it, was a blast. We covered a much larger territory than ever before, and only quit when her bag of goodies got embarrassingly heavy. We weighed it when we got home: almost six pounds. And I was thinking, the whole time, two things: 1. Why didn't I think of this before? and 2. If everyone starts doing this, it'll be awful.
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You apparently have not been to my neighborhood where children were being drive door to door to collect their booty. Makes me glad I decided to give out granola bars this years.
gwd
In my neighborhood they close a block to cars so the kids have a safe place. This is on the initiative of the people who live on the block. Of course it feeds on itself, the adjacent streets get few kids and fewer people participating while the car-free street has more kids and a higher percentage of households participating. The bad thing from a public safety point of view is that the fire station is on that block. They station their ambulance on the street outside the car free zone but the fire trucks are inside.
Bruce_B
You apparently have not been to my neighborhood where children were being drive door to door to collect their booty. Makes me glad I decided to give out granola bars this years.
We get some of that but it's mainly parents who live in more rural areas and bring their kids to neighborhoods to trick or treat. I guess they're too lazy to park and walk with the kids.
ctyler
You apparently have not been to my neighborhood where children were being drive door to door to collect their booty. Makes me glad I decided to give out granola bars this years.
Same here in southern Wisconsin. Dirve the kinds to a neighborhood, drop them off, follow them around the streets in the car, pick them up, and move onto the next neighborhood. Oh, and don't even bother with a costume.
wahoonc
Same here in southern Wisconsin. Dirve the kinds to a neighborhood, drop them off, follow them around the streets in the car, pick them up, and move onto the next neighborhood. Oh, and don't even bother with a costume.
This is one of the main reasons we did away with Halloween in our neighborhood, and went with neighborhood parties instead. Ours was a fairly small close knit one so it was pretty easy to do. Hated to do away with the tradition of house to house trick or treating, but like many things in our society it has been ruined by greed.
Aaron:)
Lamplight
No one walks for trick-or-treating around here anymore. Plus, they only drive to the houses of people they know. So it's laziness and paranoia.
Artkansas
This halloween was not only car-free but it was 'trick or treater' free. Not a child showed up at my apartment door. I did see a total of 6 children while I was riding home. I guess everyone else was at "Boo at the Zoo".
bmclaughlin807
This halloween was not only car-free but it was 'trick or treater' free. Not a child showed up at my apartment door. I did see a total of 6 children while I was riding home. I guess everyone else was at "Boo at the Zoo".
I saw trick or treaters in some surrounding neighborhoods... Not a single one came to my door (for the second year in a row)
zoltani
I mom told me that around her house the mega churches were having trick or treating.
Everyone was parking their cars in the parking lot and the kids were trick or treating from car to car.
Cosmoline
The paranoia has gotten so deep the parents in this town seem to stick to organized trick-or-treating, either car-to-car as zoltani notes or inside office buildings, which was a new one I saw last night.
csr
We covered a much larger territory than ever before, and only quit when her bag of goodies got embarrassingly heavy. We weighed it when we got home: almost six pounds.
:roflmao:
I can just see you, pedaling like mad from driveway to driveway, loading up on all the goodies!
Domromer
No kids darkened my door. Which is good. I did hear a lot of cars and such. It seems the parents drove the kids from door to door. I never thought there was less trick or treating because of the paranoia. I miss out on a lot of the fear mongering because I don't watch any tv. I also miss a lot of the consumerism B.S. that your force fed whenever you watch tv.
roughrider504
When I was younger [which was not that long ago really] the best part of Halloween was walking around the neighborhood with my parents to trick or treat. It was the one night you could actually go out at night!
Smallwheels
This year the weather in Montana was not freezing and I expected plenty of children to knock on my apartment door. One boy came last year in the freezing night. This year only six children showed up and knocked. Two were little girls together with their parents. Then four not quite teen girls showed up together about thirty minutes later. Now I need to eat all of this candy, and I bought the good stuff too.
When I was a trick or treater I loved going to the apartment buildings because it meant more candy per distance travelled.
bmclaughlin807
Now I need to eat all of this candy, and I bought the good stuff too.