Kids from poorer neighborhoods keep coming to trick-or-treat in mine. Do I have to give them candy?

[Hortensis]

134. I think we're being too harsh on her, and we LOVED the traffic coming to the densely packed

neighborhood where we raised our own children. An old but family neighborhood with small home sites, so even very little ones could hit a lot of houses before they wore out. Adding all those children to all our own made the street scene quite a party. We loved it. This is one of the very nice things we left behind in Los Angeles when we followed our son to beautiful rural Georgia.

That said, Prudence was off the mark. This person feels something isn't entirely right about this, and she's right. Some parents DO head for a big haul, abandoning this very special opportunity to acquaint their children with their own neighbors, bring happiness those neighbors, and better their neighborhoods in the process. If children start coming one year, most people will be glad to have candy ready the next.

I remember the year after poisoned candy was given out in a far-off state and the number of little treaters dropped off dramatically, even though no one had been hurt. I took our children out as usual on this, the only holiday of the year where children are encouraged to meet their neighbors, and dragged a rather reluctant (conservative-protective) friend and her kids with us. To this day I remember the sweet 80s-ish woman who had come out to stand by her gate looking for the lost treaters. She asked us, alone on the street, "Where are all the children?" All neighborhoods have sweet people like her who really look forward to meeting the children and showing them what nice, giving people are behind those doors. How sad when they don't show up.