"RoseGarden" - - - - - - - from - nscave

Last night means Halloween is over for another year. There was a big drop in people coming to our house for treats. It wasn't too many years ago that kids were dropped off near our place by the van full and about two hundred would show up during the evening at the door. Last year maybe forty or fifty appeared. This year about thirty.

I am pleased the numbers are more reasonable, however something is happening. We had a steady stream of young people coming to the door until about 7pm. Then just as if someone threw a switch they stopped - instantly. The street was almost bare, .of adults and children

Almost, except for a group of thirty to forty younger individuals hanging out in a group just up the street. They were mostly in the ten to fourteen year old bracket. They were not doing anything at the time of my observation, but were ignorant of people's property and were being watched by several agencies. The media reported today that such a group in this area had beaten an individual severely, stolen candy from others at various times and so on.

Some people suggest the ones that used to come are now grown up and there are less young folks in the area. Could it be that both parents and the young are afraid to go outside after dark? Are youth gangs taking over?

Or as one news article suggested, even in France Halloween is about finished. Seems they think it was a North American stunt to promote commercial sales of costumes and sweet treats.

Whatever the reason, times are changing, whether we like it or not. Does it matter? Think about it. Even Christmas has to be called a happy holiday, and don't be singing those songs at the festivities.

This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License