Last year on Halloween, I wrote about one of the great frightful mysteries still unsolved in Lloydminster.
It was in 1979 when the TV station went off the air after the more than 500-foot-tall transmission tower north of the city fell.
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A grand mystery loomed as people wondered what happened to the tower and who knocked it over.
Today, I’m talking about something entirely different. Halloween is a time for fun, trick-or-treating, dressing up and just enjoying the brisk fall weather.
I was going through some old stories and found one about Halloween curfews. Now, I’m old enough to remember seeing kids outside until midnight. Back in the day, kids were out to get candy and usually Oct. 30 was reserved for the mischief.
I found a story from 2005 talking about how both St. Paul and Bonnyville had a curfew restricting how long people could be out in the community. St. Paul had kids home by 6 p.m. and Bonnyville had the festivities wrapping up at 7 p.m.
Luckily for Border City residents, there was no curfew in place. Local officials said they never had any real incidents that warranted a curfew. That being said, the direction from St. Paul officials seemed to indicate they wanted the festivities confined to a certain time rather than have it run until the late evening.
I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on where Halloween started. I’m not old enough to have hung out with the founders, unfortunately.
What I do know, or rather what History.com told me, is that Halloween has its roots in the festival of Samhain. Typically, it’s celebrated from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1 to mark the harvest and welcome the darker half of the year. It’s also believed that’s when the barrier between the physical and spirit worlds break down, allowing for greater interaction between humans and the denizens of the otherworld.
Most importantly, trick-or-treating could be traced back to 1000 A.D. when the church designated Nov. 2 as All Souls’ Day. It was on that day when poor people would visit the houses of wealthier families and receive pastries called soul cakes in exchange for a promise to pray for the souls of the homeowners’ dead relatives.
Now that we have some context, I think it’s safe to say we’ve been going door to door for quite awhile. Post Second World War, with sugar rationing on the way out, kids hit the streets looking for candy.
Of course, pranks and mischief were popular around the time of Halloween. Now, back to 2005, when these curfews were in place in two nearby municipalities.
I am old enough to remember when “Devil’s Night” was a common practice for people committing crimes. It was typically Oct. 30 and people were up to no good.
If you’re putting out a curfew on Oct. 30 to stem that crime, I totally get it. But, Halloween night is when kids gather with their friends into the late hours and collect candy. Dressed as whatever otherworldly being they feel like dressing up as and having the time of their life.
Also, the actual time of 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. would be too early for most families to get through their neighbourhood and enjoy the festivities.
I like new additions like Trunk or Treat because it gives kids a safe and weather-controlled way to get some free candy.
I think kids should have some fun and enjoy some stress-free time out. I’ll be enjoying some Dubble Bubble as my Halloween treat, I’m sure my teeth will be fine. And next time I meet a young trick-or-treater dressed as a spooky ghost, I’ll bid a fond hello to a denizen of the otherworld.
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