Trick-or-Treatin' in Grosse Point Park is INSANE!

[jcole]

I wonder how the low-income folks in Detroit go trick-or-treating across Mack Ave and Alter Rd?

Walk?.....

[DetroitPlanner]

Warrendale [[west of Evergreen) was absolutely dead. I was 1 of only 2 houses on my block giving out candy - and our block is 1/4 mile long! Only gave out candy to 6 or 7 kids. Sad.

Same goes with me, I only had two kids come to my door all night, east of Southfield. Stick a fork in it, trick or treating in Warrendale is done. Not even the next door kids or the ones across the street came by, they were gone to a party somewhere.

[REL]

Huntington Woods: best tick or treating, in my opinion. So neighborly.

Handing out candy in Palmer Woods last night was insane. We handed out over 1,000 pieces. But as reserves were running low, we had to implement a "no costume, no candy" policy. Kids under 13 or so got slack. Some of the kids were soooooooo cute. Many store-bought costumes, and some hand-made. The hand-made ones got extra candy. We also noticed a lot of adults asking for candy, one guy even had gray in his beard. C'mon, buddy!

Note to parents: please GET OUT OF YOUR CARS AND WALK WITH YOUR CHILDREN. The 1/mph traffic crawl clogged the streets, and that's just lazy.

[Gannon]

Danny,

Your power as prophet breaks down with the mundane, doesn't it?!



They drove, walked, and were BUSSED across Mack and Alter.


Some in church vans, you'd be very proud. They must've had 15 children inside the one we saw near the end of the night. My girlfriend says she saw a SCHOOL BUS!


On the way back from CVS for more candy, I got stuck behind a GM minivan with mismatched rear tires, the right one nearly worn through. You could see the tire cords where the tread wore through. If I'd been on the freeway, I would've driven as fast as I could to get in front of them.


After walking my sister, her husband, his sister, her husband, and their twins 2-year-old boys back to their car...I met a nice woman with the hood open on her old white Taurus sedan, needing a jumpstart. Had her started and on her way before the next pass of the police patrol. [[which was VERY constant, yet not heavy-handed, showing again that this force is amongst the best I've ever encountered)


On the way to Cliff Bell's, for the incredible performance by Ben Starkey and his band [[where I learned the cocky-funny Alex Trajano from WDET plays a MEAN drum, he did a solo at the end of the night that simply dazzled us all), we saw a few older children just escape a curfew violation by crossing Alter. They even knew better than to jaywalk!



So, yeah...Halloween is a day without judgment, as far as I'm concerned. My girlfriend always throws a party, so she has at least two or three adults in costume greeting and entertaining the beggars, since they come in droves...in waves.


Last night, I dressed as a psychedelic Fred Flintstone...she found some material that was purple and beige fur, and I actually had a matching Jerry Garcia tie. It was inspired by this funny furry hat with horns she found [[and HAD to buy) while shopping for a costume for the CCS Art Parade a month or so back...THE 'Loyal Order of Water Buffalos Lodge' one! A women with two children in line with me at CVS said, just after the young ones asked what I was supposed to be, "you look like a mutant cow".

Much later in the evening, with the eighth recounting of that story, I realized my snappy retort, "Yabba-Dabba MOO". Always the quick one on the return, I am.



I must re-state, after reading that offhand comment above about some 'unruly mob', that EVERYONE was absolutely well-behaved, engaging, polite, and totally beautiful for the entire night. I ended the night with a very encouraging view of our mere human condition, even in this divided town. It was one of the most beautiful encounters I've had with a mass of humanity ever in my life, and believe me...it was a mass of people. If I wasn't in a comfortable space with loving people around me, I would've simply been overwhelmed.


HUGE Cheers through my headache this morning [[fasting off caffeine for a week or so to reset the body again, thankfully we've no more candy around the house to test my lack of resistance to its temptation).

[Gannon]

REL,

I FULLY agree with you about the crawling parade of cars with lazy adults, but there were at least a few with handicapped placards, I'll give them a wee bit o' slack. But it got cold quick after the sun set, and some may not have the right clothes.

I loved that schoolbook backpacks were being used backwards as candy bags! Necessity is quite the mother, huh?!



Cheers

[jackie5275]

Same goes with me, I only had two kids come to my door all night, east of Southfield. Stick a fork in it, trick or treating in Warrendale is done. Not even the next door kids or the ones across the street came by, they were gone to a party somewhere.

I have several friends who live in Warrendale who posted the same results on Facebook. One had 8 kids. Another had 1 kid. Another had no kids. In my neighborhood, there were several houses that were all decked out with decorations, but for some reason, the folks didn't hand out candy. I'll ask my friends from Warrendale to sit in those driveways next year to hand out candy.

[bsu]

We had about 120 kids last night in Berkley. For us that is quite a few. We did the same thing with the costume-less, no costume no candy [[except the younger ones, they always get candy)! We did also deny a few groups of kids on their second and third tries to get candy!

[Detroit_uke]

Ok, Jackie...I'll be glad to hand out candy in your neighborhood. So depressing - what has trick-or-treating morphed into?

[rbdetsport]

Gannon, I thought you had a little son that you needed to take out trick or treating? My slight memory from the Ephs days.

[preserve]

The Detroit neighborhood s. of Michigan, w. of Trumbull was
busy, both with the little beggars walking and those that came from where ever in cars. Very fun night. Lots of spider men, and I didn't see one Lady Gaga. Ran out of candy after 2 hours.

[jackie5275]

Ok, Jackie...I'll be glad to hand out candy in your neighborhood. So depressing - what has trick-or-treating morphed into?

Good DU!!!! Next year I'll have a house all set up with nice decorations that you can take the credit for while you pass out candy from the driveway.

[msamslex]

I didn't pass out candy this year due to unexpected expenses, but usually I do. My street did have some trick or treaters but not many. Most of the houses were dark but many of my neighbors haven't passed out candy in years anyway. A friend who lives near me but in the Dearborn, Tireman area said she hardly gets any kids on her street. Said everybody usually hits Oakman for goodies and she's only a few streets away.

I went to a church Halloween party Sat. night for the day camp I help out with. Must have been about 50 kids. They had food, treats and a haunted house set up in the church basement rooms we use for classes. The church is pretty large so we had the room. Kids had a good time.

More kids go to organized parties these days, house, church etc., whereas back in the 60's, we roamed the whole neighborhood. Be'd gone for hours. Most houses had lights on and gave out candy and money. One year I remember getting plenty of apples. Of course this was before the poison, needles, razor blades scare. Guess it depends on the city, "hood"or street you live in or on if you get the traffic that some posters mentioned.

[GPCharles]

The problem in Grosse Pointe Park is that you don't see many neighborhood kids out on Halloween and those you do see you see early. It isn't the number [[or home address) of visitors that we get, it's all the cars. Our street was like a line up to get into a mall on the day after Thanksgiving. Cars with running motors were everywhere! The drivers were moving down the block in sync with their trick-or-treaters. If the drivers would just park at the end of the block on the cross streets and walk up and down the residential blocks, it would be a lot safer for everyone.

[Gannon]

Gannon, I thought you had a little son that you needed to take out trick or treating? My slight memory from the Ephs days.

Naw, you got me mixed up with the owner...I was merely the volunteer lackey.

I might've treated his son as my own, but as far as I know I have no children.

Cheers

[Gannon]

I fear there isn't enough parking on the EW streets to handle the traffic I saw in GPP last night. I don't know if there is a solution, unless they institute a temporary one-way policy for that night on all residential streets.

I cannot imagine how any emergency personnel could invade that parade, if they were needed, either. The police presence was palpable, though.




HEY, did anyone else see this article? Kudos to the Police for another good move. I will have to rethink my opinion of Chief Godbee, this is EXACTLY the sort of outreach that may destroy the momentum of the No Snitching 'hood policy.

http://www.freep.com/article/2010110...ighters-on-run

[gdogslim]

In GPP a BUS full of kids were unloaded on Windmill Pt. to get the good stuff. I assume from some church but I don't know. Hundreds of cars come into the Points then all leave about 8.
I guess I can't blame the parents for wantiing their kiddies to get all that free candy.

[ragnarok1981]

In Palmer Woods the trick-or-treating was nuts. We took the neighborhood kids out early so they could avoid the onslaught coming from all over the place. We had at least 500 "kids" this year. I find myself each year getting more and more annoyed with some of the kids because they have a serious attitude about what they get. I have had a whole bunch of kids look at what I gave them and say "thats it?" or "I want that instead". At one point I almost said be glad you got anything but I held back. Many of the kids are rather overweight and I feel almost guilty giving them candy. The other thing that bothers me is the total lack of creativity and costumes for that matter with many of the kids. I know times are tough but there were a lot of kids without any costume at all. Also I think that a lot of these kids are not getting any of the candy themselves and it is going right to their parents. The parents too should stop going up and trying to get candy for themselves. On several occasions I said the candy is for the kids not the adults. Honestly when someone says it is for the baby in the stroller I almost laugh because there is no way you are giving an infant a snickers bar. There was even this one girl who came up to the door and I said sorry but our candy is for the kids. She was clearly very well developed and did not look like a kid at all. She said well I just turned 18 and eventhough I gave her a piece of candy I could not help but think that an 18yo should not be out trick or treating.
The thing that I find most offensive about the who night is the parents who are screaming at their kids from their car telling the kids what to do and not even willing to get out and go with the kids. It is like they make the night more of an operation to see how much candy you can get rather than letting the kids have fun. There were a couple of parents that I came close to telling them to treat their kids better because they were totally out of line.
Overall I think that when people bus their kids into the "rich" neighborhoods they are making a serious mistake if they think they are getting more candy. The houses may be bigger but they are also farther apart which makes the kids have to cover more ground to get less candy. If they were smart they would go to a place like Lafayette park where the homes are all right next to one another.

[mam2009]

Almost ran out of about $80 worth of candy -- and that was after digging into my private stash! First trick or treater showed up at our Jeff/Conner area home around 5:00. My porch light and decorations went off at 8:30 pm since it was a school night. My daughter and her friends went out trick or treating on our block around 5:30 and said that only three houses were giving out candy. The arrived at Butzel Recreation Center at about 6:30 and were turned away because they were at capacity and had given away all their treat bags. They went over to Belle Isle and had fun on the hay rides. Thank goodness for the Detroit Rec Dpt!

[JBMcB]

My mom's house in GPW is completely nuts. I don't care about people driving in to the neighborhood to trick or treat, what bugs me are the parents who shadow their kids in their car. Just park and walk with your kids for cryin' out loud, street parking is free. What you don't need is more distracted drivers tooling around when tons of kids are running around at night.

[1953]

I ran out of candy in GPW after 1 hour...couldn't believe it!

[milesdriven]

We made 150 bags of candy down here in Toledo, and ran out in just over an hour! When we lived in SW Detroit, we had maybe 20 kids at the most.