I wrote this a couple of years ago around this time of year:

“Growing up in a small town in the 60’s had its advantages, believe it or not.  Halloween was on of those perks.

There is nothing like the anticipation of halloween when you are a kid.  After the halloween party at school where we were all sugared up with candy, cupcakes, punch all provided by the classroom moms.  Remember, this was way before the age where parents worried about peanut allergies.  The 60’s were the time for sugar.  My friends and I looked forward to Halloween licking our chops thinking of all the good stuff we were going to get when we went out in our costumes.

Keeler Michigan is a very small farming community.  All of us kids knew one another.  We had grown up together, waited at the same bus stop for years, went sledding together, and pretty much everything else.    And when darkness fell on Halloween, we all descended upon the streets like a horde of vultures.  The very coolest part of trick or treating in Keeler was that there was a volunteer fire department in town, and on Halloween they took us kids for unlimited rides in the back of the fire trucks.  While the trucks were out running the streets, the firemen would show old cartoons and serve donuts and cider in the fire station.

So imagine walking in the dark, on your own…no parents went with us when we were trick or treating.  We were on our own.  Crunching through the leaves going from house to house while the fire trucks went past us..sirens blaring, lights flashing.  Then, to cap off the evening after having hit every house with a porch light on, we went to the fire house and gorged ourselves on donuts and cider while watching Woody Woodpecker, The Three Stooges, and all the other cartoons that we had watched for years but still had to experience yet once again.

Because is was Halloween, after all.”