Halloween Is Not Fun Any More

A Dressed Clothing Mannequin

I think we had more spunk and creativity in the 1940's when I was a kid as we waited for and worked on complicated gags for Halloween the best of which when we cobbled together a "dummy" and waited between two parked cars until someone came by.  

Then we would throw the dummy out in front of the car, delighting in the screech of brakes, the driver would come out of the car, see the dummy and break into a string of "cuss-words" as we would run every direction in a strategy to keep the victim from chasing us down and catching us.  In the confusion of the moment we could put enough space between them and us that we could be sure to escape.

If we could snag a teacher the evening would be deemed a great success.  Even more fun was seeing a town notable hit the dummy and then drive away, but our fun was limited to rumor mongering as admitting we had pulled such a prank would insure a spanking at home. In those days it was "Spare the rod and spoil the child."  We wondered why girls never seemed to "get it," until we realized they "got it" a long time before we did.  

In that time there was something that little boys had that seems to be gone now and that we have probably lost something of value.

Adrian Vance