My mother told me that when she was young Halloween was a teenager’s holiday and there was very little candy involved. Groups of kids would sneak into a farm yard, wait for the man of the house to go to the out house and lock him in it and leave, or take apart a family’s Model T and reassemble it on top of a barn.
In the 1950s only small children went trick or treating, and if you were getting on in years, approaching twelve the year of doom, or were tall for your age, the people that opened their doors would glare and half would slam their door on your face, leaving you empty bagged.
A few years ago mostly big teenagers came to my door and many apologized for being there. They didn’t look homeless and I’m sure they had money for candy so I wondered, “Why were these kids on my porch?”  Perhaps they didn’t have a party to go to and wanted an excuse to dress up. Or possibly the teens were going from house to house asking their neighbors if they, as teenagers, were accepted and valued.
A few thoughts from my book If Mrs Greeby Asks are: Every year my mother wants to cancel Halloween… Every year I trade candy with Don so I end up with only chocolate but while I’m sleeping half of my candy disappears and my mother always says she didn’t do it…this year I hid my bag of chocolate! You should know that one day I had two pieces of chocolate left and the next day the bag was totally open and absolutely empty.
This is a sad story about a persistent kid whose life gets worse by the day but she wins in the end.
No kids come to my door now and grown ups are the primary celebrators of Halloween. I’m wondering if in forty years I’ll see Old Grandmas and Grandpas dressing up and perhaps coming back to my door.  nancymauerman.com