EDITORIAL: Don't lock up tradition in somebody's trunk

It’s Mask Season again, when people aren’t what they may appear to be.

Not politicians, silly. When it comes to many candidates and elected officials, it’s always Mask Season.

We’re talking Halloween here — a subject that only through calendar coincidence gives normal people badly needed respite from cries of existential threats from malignant forces masquerading as donkeys and elephants.

Was it so long ago that it was only the cries of a wolfman or a swamp creature or a vampire’s victim which kept us awake at night, blankets pulled up over our heads? 

When reality is terrifying, diversion increases in value. With that in mind, Halloween has perhaps never been more welcome than the one sweeping toward us now like dead leaves on a wicked wind.

Peruse the internet — now there’s a place that’s really scary — and you’ll find reasonable-sounding estimates that between 60 and 70% of Americans will participate in some sort of Halloween festivities this year. That includes kids getting dressed up, going out into the chilly night and requisitioning sweet sustenance from complete strangers.

Old-fashioned trick-or-treating is unquestionably in decline, however. In many places it has succumbed to mathematical equations lurking behind the sinister label Trunk-or-Treat. 

While parents and grandparents say Trunk-or-Treat is safer than the door-to-door approach — and perhaps it is — kids figured out quickly that it is far more efficient to gather in a parking lot where, in 15 minutes, they can fill a plastic pumpkin that would take three hours of hard work in sprawling neighborhoods to achieve the same net profit.

And yet, some of us Halloween hardliners prefer the traditional approach, now perhaps more than ever. 

In this age of diminishing human-to-human contact — social interaction occurs increasingly in the ether — facing real people and communicating live in real time is important for personal growth. So what if it all takes place in costumes and behind masks?

Door-to-door candy campaigns provide other benefits, like entrepreneurial experience complete with competition. You want to rake in more booty than your brother, sister or friends, right?

But there’s another benefit that shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s the gift to the givers.

While kids are thrilled with what they may receive, look at the faces of the people standing in warm porchlight, dispensing the loot. There’s a childlike joy emanating from that doorway, the level of that joy often proportional to the number and depth of wrinkles on that happy face.

To them, Halloween might be the best holiday of all.