Home Again

By Joanne Peterson

Halloweens coming up fast, andas I do every yearI wish 6-year-old granddaughter Annika could be with me. I would love to take her to the Edmonds downtown merchants trick-or-treat event. I cannot imagine any town doing a better job of providing a safe and pleasant Halloween evening for families.

Perhaps next year, when grandson Adam is a year and a half, I can convince his parents to come from West Seattle on Halloween evening and do the town with their little boy, attired in a monkey or tiger suit, riding on his daddys shoulders.

Edmonds was such a small town when I was a kid that trick-or-treating didnt take all that long. Up and down the neighborhood blocks we would go. People knew us on sight, no matter how we disguised ourselves.

And in those days, costumes were not the big deal they are today. Certainly, no one bought a costumeor rented one!

Mom might sacrifice an old sheet, use pinking shears to trim it to length and cut holes for eyes. Id darken around the eyeholes with black crayon, tie a bit of rope around the waist for a belt, and off Id go.

My brother might put on a cowboy hat and plaid shirt, buckle his gun belt, grab his cap gun, and be out the door.

After wed had enough of trick-or-treating with our friends, wed go home and do our ritual of candy sharing with our parents. Actually, that would be our dad. Our mom wasnt so quick to act like a kid!

Warren and I would bring our bags of treats into the living room, dump the contents on the floor, and our dad would sit on the carpet with us and negotiate for the candies he preferred.

I was not willing to part with Neccos. My brother would not give up homemade popcorn balls. One of us gave our mom a Hershey bar; she did not resort to getting down on the floor to claim it.

If there were jawbreakers in the mix, which usually there were, our dad moved in on those right away. (It wasnt easy to give up jawbreakers, as they were a favorite treat our dad occasionally bought us at the Polar Bear Caf, just north of his Western Auto store on the corner of Fourth and Main.)

Our parents certainly never checked the goodies for anything harmful. Homemade treatspopcorn balls, crumbly oatmeal cookies or buttery caramelswere common.

Now, one reason merchants provide Halloween events is to keep children safe from tainted treats. Innocence was a great part of childhood Halloweens in Edmonds, as in small towns everywhere. Its too bad that has changed.

Annika, of course, chooses a different costume every year. Last year, a ladybug. This year? A butterfly. Her momma, ever creative, designed a costume with layered glittery wings, puffy skirt and pastel tights. Instead of trick-or-treating in Rathdrum, I wish my butterfly could fly to Edmonds for Halloween.