Trunk dunk! Ashland calls off ‘trick or treating’ in favor of trunk event

The local socials have gone wild.. still weeks to go before Halloween, Ashland PA residents are abuzz about the decision to call off this year’s trick or treating in the town .. replacing it will be the ever-gaining-famed ‘trunk or treat’ …

The Ashland Recreation committee made the announcement on social media September 16 — and hours later dozens of comments on the the official Ashland Facebook page and Skook News have debated whether the decision is sound or based on fear.. opinions have been divided..

Some proclaim the safe environment a trunk or treat event will produce.. others herald it as an insult to tradition..many commenters pointing out that Ashland has lost its ABA parade, its fireworks.. and now its trick or treating..

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What is trunk or treat?

Originally started by church groups with the aim of providing a safer environment for trick-or-treaters on Halloween, trunk or treat involves a community coming together in a parking lot, either on the 31st or shortly before, so that children can trick-or-treat out of the decorated trunks of people’s cars.

This type of event has been a growing trend across the United States for a decade–the original notion was that it provides a safer and less occult Halloween for your children to be invaded by evil spirits in the darkness of the night.. when the fabric of the paranormal becomes thinnest of all…

But it also suggests fear beyond the goblins and ghosts..

To some, embracing a trunk or treat is a retreat and white flag.. Detractors of the church-themed event will argue that trunk or treating means your town has fallen victim to crime.. to danger.. that the worst of the worst came to your village and you’re only way to exist is in the safety of a pre-registered trunk or treat event.

Some have even argued that trunk or treat promotes a whole other kind of danger: Making it ‘normal’ to accept candy out of strangers’ cars as opposed to knocking on doors and ‘trick or treating’ for candy…

The early appeal

In the early 2000s, some small rural communities ate up the chance to trunk or treat.. with houses separated by miles, one communal location made it easy for kids ..

But as time marched on, and certain neighborhoods across America become less and less lit up on Halloween night, they moved away from the normal tradition of walking streets in favor of the trunk or treat event..

This is how the New York TIMES reported on it in 2006:

In Graeagle, Calif., an unincorporated town of 800 residents northwest of Lake Tahoe, trunk-or-treating has been a Halloween fixture at a local church’s parking lot for at least a decade. “My wife got the idea from an article in a Christian magazine,” explained Mike Preston, pastor of the Graeagle Community Church, “and we thought of it as a way to reach out to the community and scratch an itch.”

Here in Garrison, a Putnam County hamlet 50 miles north of New York City where unpaved roads snake through thick woodlands, across steep ranges and along rushing streams, parents had for years resigned themselves to driving their costumed children for miles, trolling for treats in sparsely populated towns. Then, last year, the school — which has about 200 students from kindergarten to 8th grade — offered its first trunk-or-treat, drawing a modest, subdued crowd.

“We had about 15 cars, and not nearly as many decorations,” said Cyndi Westerhuis, 36, the P.T.A. secretary who helped spread the word about this year’s event.

The history of Halloween urban legends

We have all been treated to the urban legends of the past.. those old notions that razor blades and poison candies were handed out to children in the 1970s and 1980s.. Perhaps this rumor became popular with the real “Candy Man.” He turned Halloween into a true nightmare ..

Ronald Clark O’Bryan was an American man convicted of killing his eight-year-old son on Halloween 1974 with a potassium cyanide-laced Pixy Stix that was ostensibly collected during a trick or treat outing.

O’Bryan poisoned his son in order to claim life insurance money to ease his own financial troubles as he was $100,000 in debt. O’Bryan also distributed poisoned candy to his daughter and three other children in an attempt to cover up his crime; however, neither his daughter nor the other children ate the poisoned candy. He was convicted of capital murder in June 1975 and sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection in March 1984.

His poisoning created the national panic on Halloween night.

Horror master John Carpenter was able to capture this fear in his movie HALLOWEEN 2.. during one particular scene, we see a boy with a bleeding mouth–a scene that signified that the child became a victim to the scourge of razor blades in apples.

The part of all of this that makes it an urban legend: There was never any concerted and widespread effort to poison kids’ candy.. either in modern times, or even in the times of the Candy Man.. His crime was person. It was directed at his own family.. it was horrific, but did not translate into any national epidemic. Despite the fear..

Dunking Halloween

Enter the modern era of kids’ Halloween nights..

Many faith-based websites tout the popularity and purpose of trunk or treating as a “safer” form of Halloween, where children and parents are comfortable with their community and “walk less.”

More details on the trend from this 2016 article in the Federalist:

Rural communities have been practicing a faith-based version of Trunk or Treat for decades.

“We grew up in the Southwest, and our homes were not on paved streets and we had no lampposts,” said Ruth Moritz, a mother of two who lives in Alexandria, Virginia. “So it didn’t make sense to go from one house to the next; we would have to cross acres. So we just went to a few closest homes for trick or treating, and we did the church thing.”

Many such gatherings replaced Halloween-themed décor with biblical characters and concepts.

ASHLAND ENTERS THE TRUNK

So as the debate now rages, another town has become a part of the trend.. Ashland joins in …

Ashland PA’s crime stats actually show a decrease in crime, at least when looking at the latest data.. There were more rapes in 2017 compares to previous years, but less assaults.. there was less auto thefts, but more thefts in general..

And finally, though crime decreases from 2016 to 2017, it remains higher than it was in the previous ten years..

So why trunk?





Proponents point out that there are few houses who have keep front porch lights on.. While Centre St may be busy, side streets remain relatively quiet … So why not trunk? It’s safer.. it’s filled with candy.. and filled with fun.

Opponents are fighting a losing battle. Halloween has changed a number of times in history. And lately. Modern society, post-war and post-9/11 have been unkind to the traditional trick or treating.

Is it more boring..? Maybe.. Is it really waving the white flag? Maybe.. But is it realistic to imagine this replaces trick or treating in dying towns? Absolutely.

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