Anyone here know about Goosey Night?

[LiberalEsto]

You would be familiar with it if you grew up in or near Passaic County, NJ, like I did.

Goosey Night is the night of October 30, when kids and teens put on dark clothes and go out to soap windows, toilet-paper trees and ring doorbells, then hide.

People in other parts of New Jersey call it Mischief Night, Cabbage Night, Tic Tac Night and some other names I've forgotten. Around Detroit it's called Devil Night, and in Baltimore it used to be called Gate Night (as in, hang someone's gate up in a tree) but I doubt many folks know about it any more. It's virtually unknown in most of the U.S. but I've read that kids do this in the Toronto area in Canada.

The word goosey probably comes from the word guising, which was a form of mumming in disguise several hundred years ago.

[In_The_Wind]

1. WOW! I grew up down south so a lot of this is news to me.

http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2014/10/mischief_night_cabbage_night_goosey_night_what_does_it_all_mean.html





New Jerseyans are among the only people in America to call the night before Halloween "Mischief Night."

That is according to the very scientific Harvard Dialect Survey, conducted by professors Bert Vaux and Scott Golder.

Well, we took our own, very unscientific survey of New Jerseyans and confirmed that the term "Mischief Night" is, in fact, widely used throughout the state, from Warren to Williamstown. But in certain pockets, we found that people use two other terms for Oct. 30: Cabbage Night and Goosey Night.

Mischief Night is straightforward enough. Halloween and Mischief Night have their roots in both Samhain—the Celtic New Year—and the Christian All Souls Day. But what do the other terms mean?

Cabbage Night stems from an old Scottish tradition, according to "Framingham Legends," a history of the Massachusetts town. In Framingham, which apparently also calls it Cabbage Night, girls on Halloween Eve would closely examine cabbages pulled out of their neighbor's patches to divine the qualities of their future husbands.

"Once the cabbage had served its purpose, the only logical thing to do with it was throw it against the door and run really fast, thus beginning a long tradition of Halloween pranks," the book states.


Cabbage Night is especially prevalent in Paramus, which Kevin Wright, a historian with the Bergen County Historical Society, said likely had to do with the Dutch natives who settled and farmed the borough. The Dutch, inventors of cole slaw, are big cabbage fans, Wright said.

Today, Paramus kids carry on the tradition by calling it Cabbage Night, but Paramus Police Chief Kenneth Ehrenberg, who grew up in town, said he has never seen anyone employ cabbage in their pranks in his nearly three decades with the police department.

"It's eggs, shaving cream, toilet paper," he said. "We've never, ever, ever seen cabbage."

Goosey Night is more prevalent in western Bergen County and Passaic County, and the origins of the term are murkier. Wyckoff Police Chief Benjamin Fox used the term in a letter to parents urging them not to let their kids go out. Carol D'Alessandro of the Passaic County Historical Society said she remembers using the term growing in Pompton Lakes, but doesn't know where it came from.

"The Jews of Paterson," a history by David Wilson, calls Goosey Night a "Paterson Tradition," during which boys in the 1940s would soap up car and store windows, but also offers no explanation as to where the term came from.

Perhaps, Wright said, the simplest explanation is best.

"Goosey. It means flighty or unreliable," he said. "It's a night to act goosey. Or maybe get somebody to throw a cabbage at a house."

[DebJ]

14. I heard it called Mischief Night in Maryland many many years ago. n/t

[In_The_Wind]

15. I think they called it Mischief Night in Georgia.

I know kids went out with eggs and toilet paper 50 years ago.

Not me I never did that even once.

[orleans]

2. i'm outside of chicago & i've heard of mischief night

but not as something practiced around here--i've just heard of it

never heard of cabbage night or goosey night.

devil night: heard of

gate night: never heard of it before

tic tac night: news to me.

[chrisa]

3. Here it was called "Mischief Night." No one ever did anything.

Seems more urban legend than true.

[malthaussen]

4. Mischief Night around my area.

40 years ago, it usually stirred up some mischief by the local teenagers.

-- Mal

[LiberalEsto]

5. Central Jersey?

I lived in the New Brunswick area for many years and that's what it was called there.

[malthaussen]

8. Philly 'burbs. n/t

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. Okay, you're the second person today who's used that term, and I've never heard it before in my life

I've have heard about the concept (I've heard it called "Hell's Night&quot , but not the actual Goosey Night term itself.

[LiberalEsto]

7. It's pretty much only known by people who grew up in or near Passaic County, NJ

so the vast majority of people have never heard of it.

[Special Prosciuto]

9. Mischief

It was Mischief Night to me growing up in Western Essex County, NJ. My grandparents called it Gate Night. On that night circa 1967 I grabbed the bicycle of a rival neighbor kid who vexed me, rode it to our school with giggling friends, and we hoisted it to the top of the school flagpole streaming yards of taped-on toilet paper.

[magical thyme]

10. Mischief Night in PA

kids soaped windows and spread toilet paper around 50 or so year ago. Gave my my school nickname of M. Mischievous, combo of my last name and my b-day holiday

[mackerel]

11. I've never heard of any of these terms. I'd like to think it is because Californians are

more civil but I think it's mostly because you will catch kids here in Cali doing this through out the year.

[Rhiannon12866]

12. Ah ha! I do remember - "cabbage night" here in New York

I did it once, but never again after my father found out...

[Joe Shlabotnik]

13. In Southern Ontario its known as Devil's night.

Shortly after my high school fraternity days, I recall a bunch of younger brothers stealing something like 120 pumpkins, getting caught by the police and having to return each and every one of them.

TBH, I had the urge to toilet paper the trees at work tonight, since I'm off for the weekend, and my counterpart would have to work all weekend cleaning it up.