To relieve the tension of this week’s voting drama, I was looking forward to all the candy bingeing I could do on Halloween night. But then I remembered. We’re not having Halloween trick or treats this year. This is the first time a national holiday has been sort of cancelled. There’s no use stocking up on all that Costco candy because this year none of the little princesses and ninjas and Spidermen and dinosaurs will be coming to compete with me to see who can down the most Snickers bars.

Not that I ever let them have any of the Snickers bars. Those were always my personal first choice followed by Almond Joys and then, in desperation, by Peppermint Patties. It only seemed fair that I should get the best stuff because, after all, I was helping prevent all that tooth decay and sugar highs and childhood obesity. The kids were lucky to find in the bowl the Twix and Reese’s and M&Ms and Milky Ways and Butterfingers – all the ones that don’t cause tooth decay or sugar highs or childhood obesity. And that don’t taste very good.

When I was a child, Trick or Treat wasn’t really a thing yet. But Halloween tricks definitely were. In Iowa, the most popular pranks were overturning or moving outhouses, changing business signs – one time one of the churches got a new sign reading “Billiard Parlor” – cabbages and shrubs were pulled up, and, very popular, gates or fences were often pulled out and placed elsewhere, such as on rooftops. Some of the newspapers used to try to take it in stride with comments like “Boys will be boys” but the police departments always had to hire more help for that night, and the citizenry just had to put up with the mischief and all the stolen gas caps. Until someone in the late 1930s – probably an astute dentist who could see visions of sugar cavities dancing in his head, invented the convention of Trick or Treat. Or, in other words, “Hand over a popcorn ball or a hunk of homemade fudge, or your garage will be burned down”.

And it worked! Beautifully. Until two years later, when World War II started and the sugar shortage brought it to a halt. Kind of like the pandemic just did.

I’m sorry about it, kids. I know your summer camps were cancelled, your school life is in shreds, lots of sports are obliterated, and your social life is limited to intimate conversations with your dog, but at least you still have me. I can tell you some jokes to cheer you up. Jokes about all the candy you didn’t get last night. (The jokes are not – repeat NOT – made up by ME, so I’m sure your parents will let you read them. It’s the least I can do after eating all your candy.)

What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear.

What do you call candy that was stolen? Hot chocolate.

What do you call a train loaded with bubble gum? A chew-chew train.

What do gingerbread men use when they break their legs? Candy canes.

There. Don’t you feel a lot better about all the sweets you didn’t get? And think about the candy makers in the United States. They’re accustomed to raking in $39 billion in sales every year but this year they won’t. Think about how THEY feel, huh? Now go to your room.

Whenever any of our grandchildren came for weekends or overnights, their mothers always threatened me under pain of death NOT TO GIVE THE KIDS SO MUCH SUGAR. So I didn’t. Most of the treats I concentrated on were HEALTHY MILK PRODUCTS, such as Pudding Pops, that exciting Jell-O creation introduced by everybody’s favorite TV father, Bill Cosby who, as it turned out, was much more interested in the mommies than the kiddies, especially when in hotel rooms.

Oddly, one of the dramatic outcomes of eating Pudding Pops, was the emotional high which often followed. Their mothers kept referring to it as a “sugar high”, but since 11 of my grandchildren were girls, I continued to insist that it was merely premature PMS, and I couldn’t do a thing about it. Especially vulnerable to this condition was my granddaughter Little Gretchen.

Normally, Little Gretchen had a very sunny disposition. But following a healthy breakfast of pancakes MADE WITH EGGS and drizzled with maple syrup, cocoa MADE WITH MILK and marshmallows, natured-sweetened orange juice MADE WITH FRUIT, and followed soon after by a Pudding Pop or two MADE WITH MILK AND A DELICIOUS MYSTERY FOOD GROUP, she would often demonstrate her obvious innate and budding talent for the Broadway stage or the Oscar awards.

You can check it out for yourself here. Here she is with her sister Elizabeth and brother Neil. (With apologies for the humble quality of this 34 year old VHS videotape.)

And here’s grown-up Little Gretchen at it again, this time with husband Joe and son A.J. This was actually for a school challenge to observe the holiday. There may have been a little sugar involved to generate all that energy!

https://youtu.be/dvGcqmYTZL4