© Jerry F. Couch
On Tuesday October 31, 2024 participants in the Baby Sprouts and Little Pines programs at the J. Fred Matthews Memorial Library in St. Paul paid their annual visit to the Clinch Valley Times. Readers who are sensitive to cuteness are advised to use discretion when viewing the photos included with this article. The photos are courtesy of local photographer, Patsy Ingle Phillips. Her help was much appreciated because I am old, slow, and lacking in the requisite get up & go to simultaneously hand out treats AND take photos 🙂
And now let’s take a look at some trick-or-treaters of the past. Here’s a photo from the November 2, 1995 edition of the CVT. Although the children’s names were not listed in the caption, some of our readers will recognize them.
No mention of the Halloweens of years gone by would be complete without recalling the shenanigans that once took place under cover of darkness. Older boys would sometimes cut trees, causing them to fall across the highway and impede school bus traffic the following morning. That didn’t work in South St. Paul because the bus driver would simply divert to Riverside Drive. At the CC&O underpass, he would stop, blow the horn, then wait for us to cross the bridge and get on board. [Driving a school bus is not an easy job and the CVT says “thank you” to those who do it.]
In St. Paul itself, garbage cans would be rolled into the streets, eggs would be thrown (the stairway of the St. Paul Apartments was a favorite target). Store windows would be soaped as high as the mischief-makers could reach, and parked cars would get the same treatment. In the residential area of town, certain people’s front gates would be removed and tossed into the lake.
At 9:00 p.m., the fire siren atop the St. Paul National Bank building would commence its piercing cry, signaling that Halloween was OVER and it was time to go home. Those who lingered too long would be (first) politely, then strongly encouraged by members of the St. Paul Police Department to get off the streets. Those who were caught in acts of vandalism would be taken to the St. Paul jail and their parents would be called to fetch them. Times being what they were, we don’t have to think too hard to know what happened after they got home.
Those who once did these things are now senior citizens. Privately, they still chuckle about those days. For years safe, organized Halloween group events have become increasingly popular while door-to-door trick-or-treating has declined.
I haven’t seen a battered ash can disgorging its untidy contents on Fourth Avenue in years. Has someone invented a Halloween APP?
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