Go Home Kids - Halloween is Tomorrow

by Mary Jane Dougherty
(California)

Back in second grade in Anchorage in the late fifties my brothers and sister and I put on our Halloween costumes.

We had several to choose from. Because not only did we have costumes for Halloween to go Trick or Treating. We had a nice and fun party at our local Salvation Army church, at school and our friends Birthday Halloween party.

We grabbed our large paper bags for the candy and walked from 2nd and Cordova to 3rd Street.

It was around 6:00 p.m. and as I recall it was alright with our mother. So, there we were walking down the street and up to our neighbors path ways where we knocked on their doors.

We noticed a lot of people were not home and a few said with a smile, for us to come back tomorrow.

However, we knocked on this one door and all of us were standing on the door step.

The door opened and we all shouted, "Trick or Treat!" A very grumpy person shouted back, "Go home kids, Halloween is tomorrow!" And with that the grumpy person slammed the door.

We were stunned and we walked home.

Our mom laughed when we told her what our neighbors said especially the grumpy neighbor.

But I must say that for all our troubles, we each got a small Butterfinger candy bar.

We learned our lesson.

So, on Halloween we put on our costumes and went Trick or Treating with our friends and got a lot of candy. But we did not go back to the grumpy persons house.

My family still laughs about that interesting experience on the night before Halloween in our wonderful town of Anchorage.