dance for me

Halloween is a-coming! Time to decorate your house with ghosts and cobwebs (unless that is your everyday décor). Time to purchase giant bags of candy — some to even give out to groups of trick-or-treaters that will come a-knocking at your front door on October 31. You'll probably buy another bag of candy — the good stuff — that you'll eat before the days of the month reach double digits. The Reeses cups are too good to give out. The freeloading neighborhood kids will have to be content with Tootsie Rolls and Dum-Dums lollipops. If they don't like it.... well, you get what you pay for. (I believe that Halloween can be used as a teaching moment.)

When I was a kid, Halloween was a marathon of candy collecting. I lived in a big neighborhood with lots and lots of houses. Word would quickly spread through the groups of costumed children prowling the streets about a house that was handing out full-size Hershey bars. An apple received in good faith from some out-of-touch, childless old person would invariably be quickly returned via an impromptu Sandy Koufax imitation. Some years, I would stop back at my house to drop off my accumulated haul and to pick up a fresh pillow case that served as my collection bag. I could get enough candy to last nearly 'til Thanksgiving, with only a few unwanted Mary Janes and Bit O' Honey gracing the bottom of the bag.

When I grew up, got married and moved into my own house in the Philadelphia suburbs, Halloween was always active, but never as jam-packed or as busy as the Halloweens of my youth. When my son was little, we would only walk as far as the end of out block. He was usually too anxious to return to our house and see all the other kids' costumes. He figured that he could get candy from his parents anytime he wanted — and he was right.

Just after we moved in to our house and for several years following, we would recognize some of the kids who would come trick-or-treating at our house. And there was this one girl...  

Groups of kids would make their way up our front walk via a narrow paved path that stretches from the sidewalk to our front porch. Their parents, or the elected adult tasked with guiding them around for the evening, would wait on the sidewalk during the candy transaction taking place on our porch. Every year, a particular mom and dad would proudly present their precocious daughter for our entertainment pleasure. They'd help her climb the stairs to the "performance" area of our porch and prod her to amuse us with a little, choreographed dance routine, the result of countless hours of  afterschool and weekend practice. Decked out in a sequined and sparkly, but unrecognizable costume and a pair of shiny black tap shoes, this little girl would "5-6-7-8" her way into local Halloween immortality. Her parents would stand alongside of one of the stone support columns of our porch while this diminutive Shirley Temple wannabe kicked and tapped and buck-&-winged for a good three minutes. A good long three minutes. After the big finish and a loud round of applause from mom and dad, she'd stick her plastic pumpkin out for some sugar-spiked, chocolate-covered compensation. We'd oblige. The little girl would courtesy, just the way she was taught in dancing school, pirouette and descend the steps to the front walkway. Mrs. Pincus and I would, of course, scratch our heads and wonder what in the world we just witnessed.

This was an annual performance... until it wasn't.

In the over thirty years we have lived in our house, the amount of trick-or-treaters has slowly diminished. Kids grew up. Families moved away and the residents of the neighborhood got older. Some years, no more than five costumed kids have come begging for sweets.

I like to think that our yearly entertainer is probably knocking 'em dead on Broadway. For candy.

Or, perhaps, she's writing a letter to Dad-dy....

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