The Bowl on the Porch: What Happened to Halloween?

It rained on Halloween this year. Quite a bit, actually.

But the rain isn't what stayed with me.

The candy bowl did.

You've probably seen it. A bowl sitting by the front door and a sign telling the kids to grab their own. Over the last couple of years, it seems like there are more and more of them. I noticed it again this year, and it stuck with me.

It didn't used to work that way.

When I was a kid, you knocked on the door. A family came out. Somebody handed you candy. That was the whole thing, and that was the fun of it. It was the same when my own kids were going trick-or-treating. In places like Redlands and Yucaipa, families would even set up fire pits outside. It was really a community event.

Now it's a bowl and a sign.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting older. But in a lot of ways, I think that's kind of sad.

The bowl works, I'll give it that. The candy gets where it's going. Nobody has to get up. Nobody has to come to the door.

That's also the problem.

The knock was the good part. So was the person who opened the door and the neighbor sitting out by the fire. All of it took a little effort, and you had to be there for it. That's what I mean when I talk about the analog stuff. It only works if you show up.

I've been thinking about that more lately. I picked up sketching a while back. I have a busy mind, and drawing brings me back to the present. On a recent trip to Monterey, I sketched the Lone Cypress at Pebble Beach, alone, early in the morning.

A photo would have taken a second.

A sketch makes you stay.

Halloween at our house has changed too. Our kids are grown and gone. This year we got it in pictures. Our grandson dressed as Spider-Man. Andrew and the family at Halloween parties.

Bella was on the East Coast, in Boston, playing volleyball against MIT. Her team played a really good game. They won the first set against a nationally ranked team, lost the second 23-25, and ended up losing the match. Bella told us it wasn't the Halloween she's had her entire life. She was sad about it.

But one tradition made it through.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Bella watched it in her dorm room. Liz and I had gone to the Improv in Ontario to see some comedy, and while we waited for the show to start, we watched it right there at our table.

Yes, at a comedy club.

And yes, I know a cartoon on a screen isn't exactly analog. But the tradition is. It only works if you show up for it, even if that means a dorm room on one coast and a comedy club on the other.

Linus was out in the pumpkin patch, waiting. Bella was in her dorm room. Liz and I were at a table in Ontario.

Different places. Same night. Same pumpkin patch.

I can't do much about the bowls on the porches. Maybe the fire pits come back, and maybe they don't.

But some traditions can't go away.

I hope the knock on the door is one of them.