Thinking about the small pleasures of Halloweens past as Halloween 2013 approaches -

There are still trick-or-treaters who come to our door - and it seems more people now offer the really delicious little candy bars to the kids. But I do get wistful about the treasures of Halloweens past. In October, the corner stores started stocking the candy shelves with chewable sweetened wax toys. There were 4 items each year: the fat red kissy lips you held in place with your own lips, the black licorice flavored mustache, the toothy white wax fangs, and the orange harmonica-like wax pipes that did indeed make whistling sounds. They cost a nickel each. The popular candies were straws full of flavored sugar, candy cigarettes, Necco wafers, bubble gum cigars (in pastel pink, blue, yellow and purple), and jaw breakers. Then there were the noisemakers, the little tin rattles and clickers and the tin toy you spun with the plastic knob to make a whirring sound.

This way, you could scare off the ghosts!

and bless the moms and dads who each year made the sticky, syrupy, buttery popcorn balls wrapped in wax paper. (Steen's Cane Syrup, a local Louisiana product, was the key, not-so-secret ingredient.)

Then, thirty years later, my kids were kids in Texas. Friendly paper bats and pumpkins adorned the windows, with one big, scary-friendly skeleton waving a welcome. We made little ghosts to flutter on the tree in the front yard. The afternoon before the trick-or-treating, we carved a pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern. The candle inside made its eyes and toothy grin flicker with golden light. We played a little cassette with owl, ghost, and witch noises over and over near the front door.

Though we were in a rural location where the houses were not very close together, the kids began to show up just before sundown. The tiny princesses, ladybugs and dinosaurs with their parents; the older kids racing about on foot with just a scary mask and one big bag for the sugary loot.