Halloween Thelma Style

I've got to make this quick, because it is already Halloween, and I was just talking to my oldest daughter about how my mother loved to celebrate Halloween. She said, "Mom, you should blog about that." Well, I'm running out of time, and I don't want to wait a year to share this with you!

My mom was a pretty funny character. She had this thing about Halloween. We five kids were allowed to Trick or Treat until we got to be teenagers. Once the word "teen" came after the number in our age, we were doomed to become the greeters and official candy-disher-outers to all the lucky little kids who came to our door.

Well, I say "lucky", but actually that was only if one was under the appropriate 13 years of age, or if one was short enough to easily pass for being 12 and under.

You must understand my mom's point of view; there were lots of kids in our predominantly Catholic neighborhood, and candy was expensive. Older kids had the advantage of speed over little treaters, and as far as my mother was concerned, she wasn't going to run out of candy for the little ones just because teenagers were beating them to the door. That wasn't right.

The original Halloween of Trick the Teenager fame was a holiday of extreme delight for my dear mom. The first teenagers to darken our doorway on that memorable night were clearly older than 12. As a matter of fact, Mama suspected that the vampire, Frankenstein and ghost were at least 16 years of age. And as I said, that was against the rules. In our house, anyway.

So the tall, lanky ghouls held out their bags and said in deep, crackling voices, "Trick or Treat!" Mama excused herself, and came back with her hands behind her back. She could not disguise her obvious delight as she swept her arms forward and dropped something heavy into each bag. Whatever it was, it hit the bottom of the bags like a lump of coal. Heavier than apples, but lighter than lead.

The ghouls, looking bewildered, peered into their bags. What the heck was that, anyway? Thanking Mama properly because they were yet young gentlemen, they quickly exited our yard.

Mama shut the door and had to sit down, she was laughing so hard. She was infinitely satisfied with her cleverness.

Now you're wondering what it was that gave my mom such delight to drop into those bags.Well, the night before, she had served the family Southern drop biscuits. I don't know if you've ever had such biscuits before, but I can assure you that after 30 or 40 minutes, drop biscuits are hard as rocks. Let alone, a day or two. Our dog wouldn't even eat them.


So began Mama's tradition of always baking a few extra drop biscuits the night before Halloween.

I just thought you'd enjoy it. And by the way, if you were one of the ghoulish recipients of my mother's Halloween prank, the answer is yes. It was my mom, and it was you...you don't think anybody else's mom gave out those things, do you?

Trick or Treat, ya'll!