This is a short, but savory Pastime of past Halloweens in Warren and Bradley County.
There is pure “sticker shock” when perusing the local grocery stores for candy for the 2023 upcoming Halloween for the Trick or Treaters.
By Maylon Rice
Saline River Chronicle Feature Contributor
Bag of the name brand candies, even in a hodgepodge of brand names and flavors start at about $12 and quickly jump to over $24 a bag.
No wonder there are more and more “trunk or treat” type fall celebrations as area churches to get away from all this commercialism of Halloween.
There were no “blow up” monsters, or fake cemetery headstones erected along with silky spider webs in front yards. If the homeowner (or the older kids) wanted to scare the smaller, younger trick or treaters, they usually hid in the bushes alongside the house.
There were plenty of old school – carved pumpkins with round eyes and a snaggle-toothed smile present. They were all smiling friendly smiles – none with evil looks or devilish grins.
And it was a single candle that illuminated each one of those orange pumpkins. No strobe lights or flashing, pulsating noise makers. It was scary enough wandering out in the dark from door to door. Hollywood extra effects were not necessary.
Back in the days all the kids were armed with large paper sacks from the Kroger Store or the Mad Butcher or even an old pillow slip from home for a trick or treat collection device.
There were no plastic orange pumpkins for collecting the candy. We ran and ranged from house to house, up and down the many streets of Warren doing “trick or treating” but there were always some “must stops” along the way.
These “must stops” were where some of the very best “homemade” treats could be found.
Usually, it was a favored teacher or some other well-known home of a civic leader where such a goodie as a real homemade popcorn ball was passed out – often wrapped in tin foil, so the caramel, sweet syrup holding the popcorn together in a softball sized orb, would stay as sweet as sticky as when it was ready to be crunched.
Popcorn balls were the absolute delight for me back then.
It is amazing and only because of one very determined dentist a native of Star City who set up a practice in Fayetteville almost 35 years ago, I still have most of my natural teeth. Thank you very much.
But chomping on Halloween sugary treats was a wonderous thing back in the day.
Aside from the rare popcorn balls there were two kinds of sugary covered apples all us trick or treaters loved to find on our evening of scavenging.
One area teacher, to my memory, always served up caramel apples in little white paper like bowls, to keep the gooey light-colored caramel on the bottom, pooling up in a rather rich tasting glob.
At if you were wearing your costume – as crudely homemade as many of us dared to be “hobos” “clowns,” “hunters” or even the local deputy sheriff uniforms – an ice cream cone at the Dairy Queen or some other snack from Wayne’s, the Corral or other eating establishment, open after dark provided.
There were few packaged candies back then. Oh, some early takes on a mini-Hershey’s chocolate bar or some small sized Snickers bars, but nothing like the tasteful bonanza found today, packaged, and ready to go for a princely sum.
I do recall one house near the Bradley County Medical Center where a real handful of candy corn – that’s right that orange, yellow and white triangles of candy corn – was dropped in each sack.
And another house out along Davidson Street where a smaller bag of popcorn was carefully placed on the trick or treat sack for later consumption. Often the top of the sack was stapled shut to keep the popcorn, which had a sugary, not salty taste to it, from spilling out in the sack.
One year, I got a tiny sack with some candy corn, a few grains of popcorn and those little Hershey’s kisses in a sack. On the sack was a handwritten Bible verse.
Can’t find those out today on Halloween.
One fall, I cannot quite recall the year, but one house along Pine Street was giving out candy apples – not caramel apples, but sticky, brittle red candy apples.
They apples were those big Washington Delicious apples – the plus sized apples found in the fruit section at most stores.
And munching through that sticky candy apple was quite a feat for the later evening.
Oh, there were several houses when trays of brownies, cookies, fried pies, and even little petit fours (those gooey square cakes covered in fondant) were dispensed.
And once, I got a big, flaky old-timey biscuit in my sack. I had to think my uncle Lonnie Brown, known for his prank pulling humor, placed that in my sack.
But most every house with the porch lights on and the screen doors open for the trick or treaters to have easy access were met with smiles, comments on our costumes and comments on the amount of sugary swag we had accumulated.
There were, as always, on a Halloween night, some houses that were “rolled” with toilet paper and even a few downtown storefront windows were “soaped” but all done in fun.
So, enjoy the modern trends along Halloween this season. But it is a Pastime for the older days and that cool, fall night every year, when homemade sugary surprises made trick or treating so much fun.
