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Hello, friends, neighbors, people I've never met, adults and kids of all ages. Though we may not be acquainted, our neighborhood, and neighborhoods across the nation, are having huge block parties this weekend, and you are all invited.  Everyone. Rich, poor, black, white, legal, illegal, interesting and dull, all are welcome! 


This is an election season, but the event I refer to is not a political rally. This is one of the most fun community get-togethers ever, and kids have been counting down the days to this event every year for nearly a century.  


Everyone dresses up in something that shows a little imagination, nothing expensive, and then we meet at the gnarly tree at the end of Mill Street and walk around together in the lamp-lit fresh air, knocking on each other's doors to show off our cute kids in exchange for some sweet neighborly hospitality. By the time we are all out of breath and our pillowcases are full and our make-up is wearing off, plenty of time will have lapsed, and we will hear, from the poor person who had to stay home, an interesting report on who showed up at our door.  


Had to stay home? It sounds crazy, but older brothers would rather watch the game anyway.  For those adults who don't get into the whole costume thing, that's fine. But the more competitive types may want to know that there will be one mom of four dressed up as Mother Nature, and she even has a husband who agreed to be Father Time.  Top that.


Oh, yeah -- the time: It starts about the time the streetlights come on.


Sounds like a good old-fashioned American pastime, right? Sadly, Halloween as we grew up with it is on the decline, probably because of over-commercialism, "stranger danger," and an origin in paganism. Instead of wandering down sidewalks greeting "the people that we meet each day," chances are good that we will find our neighborhood walks emptier than last year, porches darkened even as T.V.  sets emanate an eerie, all-too-familiar blue light from family room windows. Others will flock to the mall or the churchified Halloween alternative. 


I may sound judgmental, but I speak from experience. I've dropped $25 for the size six- to nine-months-old Sweet Pea get-up and spent the night in the sedentary line at the mall, wrangling toddlers who are hot in their Dora the Explorer wigs. Only to get home and find that every store gave out the exact same thing -- Tootsie Rolls! How dare they? Don't they know what this holiday is all about? Variety! 


The mall may be convenient, but consider: Kids' crying and whining voices don't carry nearly as far in the crisp autumn air.


I'll even admit that there were a few years, in my conservative early 20s, when we drove over to our church to spend the night volunteering at one of the games for the kids.  We spent time with the same people we always spent our time with, and it felt good knowing that our kids would never be exposed to those scary pagan monsters (our neighbors) and their costumes, too. 


Did my kids get through the entire season without spying a skeleton or a ghoulish mask?  No.  We still shopped at the same Target. It didn't take me too many years to figure out that isolating my children didn't work out that well.  At first we allowed only costumes that ranged from the cast of "Little House on the Prairie" to characters from the Bible, but by age 5 my daughter was just as loud and stubborn as I was, and I realized that neither one of us was ever going to become the meek and mild kind of female that our religious community favored. 
 

That was the year we began trick-or-treating again, and it was fun!  We still went to our church night, but after the fourth pie walk we hit the streets, knocking on our neighbors' doors.


With all due respect for businesses and religious freedom, I would like to offer a plea for the best old-fashioned American Holiday, next to the Mother's Day and Thanksgiving, that our advertising executives ever came up with: Halloween.  Do your kids even know what color their neighbor's house is?  Yes, it's probably some shade of taupe, but how about the fifth house down?  


When I was a kid, the family at the end of the street were recent immigrants, and either no one had explained what a bite-sized candy bar was or they had whole-heartedly embraced American culture, because they gave out full-sized candy bars.  In 1991, it was the new Cookies N' Cream Hershey Bar.  The kids in our neighborhood raced out down the road, skipping all the other houses to get to the Wongs' before they ran out.  My mom always made us eat our whole supper first, so I never got one. 


Remember those neighbors who became Halloween legends? Remember the pranksters who would jump out of the bushes, or the older widow who had an assortment of shoeboxes filled with peeled grapes and noodles on her porch that you had to graciously navigate before she'd give you a homemade popcorn ball?  Those were the days before instant gratification was invented.  What kinds of legends are in store for our kids this weekend?


I'll admit that our street is a dud. Only one other family has kids.  As an alternative, we are heading over to Lake Alice (no, that is not cheating).  I have it on good authority (a 4th grader!) that one house on the lake (if you live in Fergus Falls you know which one I'm talking about) is going to be giving out whole big-sized boxes of Nerds. So we're meeting at the gnarly tree at the end of Mill Street; it's the best spot for pictures (plus it's the last year before all the trees are cut down).  Then, we're headed over to Summit Avenue and Cavour, where the sidewalks don't end unexpectedly and the houses are close together.  The people there may not be my exact neighbors, but unlike the people in line at the mall, we all live in the same town and county.  


I hope to see record numbers of actual trick-or-treaters as we all head home with a variety of candy in our pillowcases, community in our hearts and a natural flush in our made-up cheeks.  Whether you live in Fergus Falls, Minn., or my old hometowns of Suffolk, Va., or Bluff City, Tenn., I hope you'll join us. If not in person, then at least in spirit. 


Jessica Sundheim, mother and student, is a source in MPR's Public Insight Network.

Tricks, treats and community: Meet you at the gnarly tree

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