The AM Forum

Daughter Anna AKA Anna Bat just turned 7 last Monday and is ready for trick or treat.

I wonder if I dressed up as an old time FCC radio inspector and went trick or treating at the houses of vintage gear enthusiasts  if I could get a bag full of big tetrode finals and cool vintage microphones?

Cute! One of the few holidays left where kids can go out and have fun without a load of political correctness and other BS. Hope she has fun!

Good luck with your own personal trick-or-treat endeavor, should you decide to give it a go. A plain, white van might add to the effect. Stick a rotating dish on top and see if that helps.

My Halloween fun is confined to working on the transmitter. I call it 'Trick-or-Zorch', since there seems to plenty of each to go around. Hopefully that will change to 'Zorch-or-Treat' soon, where the treat is having a transmitter that works for more than a month at a time between crapouts.

On the contrary.  In recent years it has been widely attacked as some kind of occult festival, and the fundamentalists here succeeding in having any mention of it banned from the local school system several years ago. The last few years before I retired from teaching, kids were no longer allowed to dress up for school, and elementary classes were no longer allowed to have "Hallowe'en parties".  It became a more politically correct "autumn festival" or "harvest festival".

BTW, what happened to the apostrophe?  I was taught to spell it "Hallowe'en", but I just noticed this year that the apostrophe is missing.  I asked a couple of people, and they told me they had never seen it spelt with the apostrophe (which replaces the "v" in All Hallows Evening).   ::)

Another example of the dumbing down of our language?

I don't know Don, I have always spelled and seen it as Halloween.  Or something without an apostrophe.   Maybe it is a regional thing.  I am not saying my way is right; for all I know the apostrophe is correct.  

I am waiting for the kids to show up.  I am hanging round the front door so I can hear anyone knocking.  This is a good time to reassemble the Matchbox I had to repair after UPS smashed it (unless it was already smashed which is possible).   I can't operate because doing so would mean going to the basement and I'd never hear anyone at the front door, which at other times is a good thing.  When Halloween falls on a Saturday or Sunday I make an effort to participate because during the week I don't get home from work early enough to be around.   But I never get many kids because I have no sidewalk in front of my house, and my gesture at decoration is a plastic pumpkin with a long filament bulb on a dimmer inside it.  I used to do a real candle but got tired of having to watch it all the time.  

WX here is great this weekend--sunny and high around 55.  

p.s. unrelated note, I called CQ last evening on 3705 for about half an hour and got two odd things on the frequency:  the dead carrier keying on and off and another modulated carrier off in the distance sort of pw, with some guy saying "hello" repeatedly as if he were testing his rig, but he never actually called me or identified.  this went on after every CQ of mine for around 20 minutes.  Weird.

Don,

It' not just Halloween, but any holiday with even a hint of spirituality, no more christmas parties, but "winter holiday partieis"...

Anyway, I am sitting at the PC near the front door. Only one family so far, but it's early yet.  We don't get hardly any kids anymore.  We used to worry about having enough candy, now one bag is more than enough...  I wonder if it's between generations or something.

As long as I don't eat the rest of it, it's good.

Last year I had Zero trick orr treaters.....
The 340' driveway and the house hidden from the road maybee has something to do with it...
Maybee i'll hang  a deer skeleton up and see if that helps.


klc

I like the pumkpin cut with its innards hanging out the mouth-hole to make it look like it is puking.

We haven't had any trick-or-treaters for years, not since our kids grew up.  But I have noticed that Hallowe'en has increasingly become an event for commercial hype, like mothers day, Valentine's day, back-to-school, Easter and Xmas. The stores are  full of costumes, candy, fake pumpkins, etc. The only reason you might miss it is because it is harder to see, with all the Xmas stuff that is already on the shelves. I always thought of it as a festival for kids, but adult costumes and adult Hallowe'en parties seem to get more attention every year. It is not unusual to see high school kids in their late teens out trick-or-treating.

The bozos in congress extended Daylight Shifting Time one more week in the autumn "for the children", ostensibly to make it safer for trick-or-treaters.  But how many kids begin their rounds while it is still daylight? It just means that the kiddies will stay out  later (per clock time) because they will still wait till after sunset to begin their trek, and will go to school to-morrow ill prepared with less sleep.

Watch out for the Evil Slopbucket and don't eat too much candy.

Steve,

If that is Ms slopbucket she doesn't look so evil to me :)

That's the candy.   :o

I knew I was missing something :)

We used to spell it Hallowe'en decades ago but no one does any more. All Hallows' eve. Monday is All Souls Day, that's always been there. The apostrophe went away along with respect for the following religious day. No trick or treaters aound here for years. neighborhood is not safe at night.

There has NEVER been a trick or treater at the door in over 25 years now. We always have candy ready anyway.  The neighbors down the street refer to this place as "Area 51."   Never been a burglary either. Guess the place gives everyone the creeps all 365 days. I don't get it...  :o

T

K1JJ QTH taken by a brave tourist:

When I was a kid Halloween was a blast.  we went out by ourselves at night.  We spent a few hours going all over the neighborhood maybe several blocks in all directions.  You'd get a grocery bag full of candy.  All this huge assortment of off the wall candy for free.  For a kid it was huge.  Some of the candy stank--wax things filled with liquid, popcorn balls (always at least one clueless adult giving those out), apples (not even candy except for the ones dipped in carmel on a stick) but most of it was great, like Chunky bars, BUNs, PayDays,  toffee, but it didn't matter because of the volume of FREE candy!  Then you'd go home planning on candy for dinner and every meal thereafter and your parents would take it all away from you ("You're not getting any more of this tonight; go to bed") and hand it out to you the next day in small doses.

Now, it's nothing.  What happened?  I keep hearing, "Oh, it's dangerous now because of all the kooks."  The kooks didn't suddenly spring into existence.  It's got to be something else but I don't know what.  Maybe kids are not interested in a bag of candy now.   Maybe we all need to be giving out little USB thumb drives and flash memory sticks.

I don't think kids got anymore sick of it than of ham radio, Rob. It's all in the guidance they get from adults. Many can't be bothered and will use any excuse. You're right - the kooks didn't just appear. In fact, I'd bet it was far worse in the 60s when LSD was everywhere including those lick-n-stick tattoos. We had razor blades show up in apples and all kinds of nasty things back then, yet life went on.

We're kind of out in the sticks, so it's really not an issue here. When I lived in VT, even though I was right in the village, it was more a case of the 'crazy guy in the scary house on the hill' syndrome. Gotta admit, the old Gothic Revival-style house dimly-lit had to look a bit intimidating to a kid, especially since a 'crazy old lady' had lived there for decades before me. The place had one of those wind up doorbells that shook the whole wall of the house when it rang with a *BZZZZZZT*, which sometimes sent a few brave souls running.  ;D

I have only had one trick or treater in the 21 years I lived here but we are also well out in the country and the previous owners of the house were killed in a car accident so maybe there is a fear factor. 

In fact I call our house the "Beetle Juice" house after the Tim Burton movie because it was built in 1901 as a wedding gift for a great aunt and uncle and it was in the family until a couple from Chicago bought it to restore as their retirement home.  They were killed on the interstate just after the restoration was finished and that accident happened the week I had flown up to interview at the university.  But nothing really spooky has happened beyond a cat that would sometimes stare at the wall and fluff her fur up while growling before running from the room.  That was a bit unnerving at times!  There was also a wedding ring that I found in the attic and moved downstairs which ended up back in the attic but I am pretty sure one of the invading field mice (before I got a cat) was responsible for that ghostly act.

Anna still loves to trick or treat but in years past her major activity was going through the nursing home that was adjacent to her day care center; that was a great treat for both kids and adults and I was fortunate that my university schedule allowed me to be one of the chaperons for those expeditions.  This year we took her door to door in the very small village nearby and one of the churches sponsored "trunk or treat" in their parking lot where church members handed out candy from their decorated trunks.  That is a nice concept for modern times.

I have to agree with Rob, the popcorn balls were pretty lame.  The high point of the childhood tours was an older German lady who was a friend of my grandparents.  She had a big older house that was always decorated and she had candy sent over from Germany so we always got unique items there.

AREA 51

Tom you need to park a MIG17 in the front yard Then get that cool netting over the garage opening so the commie birds can't take pictures of your top secret big rig.

We had 21 "trick or treat" kids come to the door. All came during the daylight hours.

They probably wanted to get home for some excellent nighttime conditions on 80m AM, Pete.  ;D

heheheh - Yep those popcorn balls, those small orange and yellow triangle turds and apples... those people had no clue.

I used to love the Milky Ways, Snickers and Baby Ruths.  

I remember one house was giving out those JUMBO Baby Ruths. They were like, 9" long and heavy. I went back and got a second one using my friends's mask. Then went back for a third with a coat on my head.  The forth time I just went with no mask thinking she was easy. The bitch finally realized and screamed at me - accused me of being the same kid! What nerve!.. ;D

We would go out while still light, cover several neighborhoods and bring back 3-4 bags of candy by 11PM. It got to the point of people not answering the door anymore.

One of my enterprising friends tried dropping a firecracker into another smaller kid's bag, thinking it would rip a hole and pick up the candy. That never worked too well.

Yep, the early 60's were a great time for kids.

T

We still do the Trick or treat scene here.  The kids bring home a bagload of candy. One of us will escort the youngest and her friends while the wander the neighborhoods.  My middle son is 17 and he still went and "hung out" with his friends, bringing a mask and odd clothes. 

I used to get pillow cases filled with candy, and yes the one lil' ole lady used to give us these huge apples. 
I think though that the post hallowe'en inventory and trading party was nearly as fun...

In my early 20's around here, there was a always a good cheap wine house party at Halloween to attend.

Some strange costumes at this party.

http://www.k1wd.com/ham/97hween/97hween.html

So where's Gary?

We also had Begger's Night which was the night before Halloween when some kids would go around pleading for candy in advance.  It never worked as far as I know but I never tried it.  I think the kids who did that went on to sell aluminum siding and 1 mm wall aluminum tubing which they called "all band vertical."