EXTRA: Halloweenie creepies! Or, letting the childhood beggars loose!

About the most ominous memory I have of childhood trick-or-treat activity some four-and-a-half decades ago was one time my brother, Christopher, and I were walking around the neighborhood and we encountered a house where no one was answering the door.

'Letting the hounds loose' in my case would probably create a batch of kids wanting to pet the cute puppies, no matter how much they snarled and barked

Then, I happened to look over to the side, and saw the giant sign the homeowner had scrawled out by hand – informing all of us candy-seekers to “Scram!!!” No candy, or anything available at that house.

I DIDN’T FEEL like pushing it. My brother and I got out of there, and quickly found many other places where the local residents were more than willing to cough up the desired chocolates, sugary junk and occasional spare change that would make for a Halloween bounty.

To tell you the truth, I don’t really blame that guy (or whoever it was, I never did find out) who didn’t feel like giving out any candy to the neighborhood freeloaders who felt that Halloween was an excuse to beg publicly.

There’s a part of me that jokes about using my father’s dogs to try scaring away any kids who come near me seeking candy (not that they bite, it’s just that they’ll make a lot of noise toward anyone they don’t recognize). But I'll confess to having a small bowl of Snickers bars and other candy available for anyone who shows up later Tuesday.

In short, I always think of Halloween as something relatively harmless – and something I haven’t really celebrated since the last time I went trick-or-treating; which I think was at about age 7.

SO I HAVE to admit to wondering what the heck is wrong with our society that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan felt compelled to issue a statement telling people to check the state registry of people listed as sex offenders before letting their children loose.

MADIGAN: Warning us all of threat

You might just find out that someone living near you has something in their past they’d rather keep quiet about, but which Illinois law won’t permit them. It seems we’re far beyond the point in our society where we have to worry about that old urban legend about some kid getting cut up because they ate an apple with a razor blade inserted into it.

Which is something I always wondered was just a myth created by parents to justify confiscating some of the candy collected by their kids on the grounds they didn’t need to be hyped up on so much sugar!

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Ridiculously early? Or acceptably tardy? It’s Christmas on State Street!

I realize that many retail-type businesses started decorating for the Christmas holiday over a month ago – just prior to the sugar rush for kids otherwise known as Halloween.

Will this display window remain in use through Valentine's Day? Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

But I have to admit a journey I made Sunday to “that Great street” threw me for a bit of a loop – and I don’t mean the one that circulates el trains around the downtown area.

Is this "A" quality work?

FOR THE DISPLAY windows at Macy’s (the one-time Marshall Field’s) aren’t fully prepared for the holidays. Does this mean Macy’s is slacking off and lagging behind in preparing its holiday window display? Or are they kicking in with something that ought to be complete right about the time that Christmas actually arrives?

It seems the theme for this year is some sort of combination of Christmas with Valentine’s Day – a whole lot of hearts and pink and a combination of the two days.

Which is cute. I’m not complaining. Although it just seems so weak compared to the holiday displays I recall from childhood at the old Marshall Field’s – whose bronze signs remain on the façade of the building, largely because they’re historically significant and Macy’s wouldn’t be allowed to remove them no matter how much they may want to.

The Macy's façade prepares to symbolically blare out the joys of the holiday

Then again, times change. And I’m sure at least a few readers will dismiss me as an old codger for reminiscing about the long-gone days of Uncle Mistletoe.

ONE THING I couldn’t help but notice on Sunday, a few of the windows along Washington Street had special labels indicating they were the result of the Practicum Visual Class at nearby Columbia College.

A leftover sign of the days of old when Marshall Field &Co. would have given the Christmas holiday a particularly-Chicago signature

In the past, Field’s had their own full-time staff dedicated to those window displays – they were a source of professional pride.

Now, they’re just a class project. Let’s only hope we got “A” grade-level work for our holiday this season.

And we'll see how nice the displays look for this holiday season -- which is approaching rapidly, since the city's official holiday tree has already arrived and will soon be on display for all to see.

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Who let the police out on Halloween? Have things changed that much?

I have to admit to paying a little more attention to Halloween this year; it probably was the sight of my niece and nephew taking part in the holiday festivities that prevented this past weekend from being a total mourning spectacle.

My niece, Meira, is still peeved her fangs didn't stick

But just what has become of this holiday that I recall as such a childhood gorge-fest – being able to go around the neighborhood and gather up candy. The good stuff would be wiped out within a day, while the real nasty stuff is probably still tucked away in a jar somewhere all these decades later.

MY OWN HALLOWEEN memories center around one year I wore some costume that supposedly made me Speed Racer – as in the cartoon character, but not the one from that crummy film version made many decades later.

There was a Halloween parade throughout the school building, then we hit the surrounding neighborhood after school until it got dark.

Then we engaged in our sugar rush!

This year, I was at my father’s house in suburban Homewood on Saturday, where I literally saw three different occasions where a police squad car with its lights flashing and sirens blaring went driving down the rather residential block upon which he lives.

THERE LITERALLY WAS one point when the squad car with lights flashing was parked right outside my father’s house – although they weren’t there for us.

When I asked people in the neighborhood what was going on, nobody else seemed shocked. It seems this kind of attention is what they have come to expect.

Which makes me wonder “What the &#$!” I think I literally would still be creeped out at the sight of uniformed police officers having nothing better to do than check out the trick-or-treaters as they were walking from house to house.

And yes, when I checked later, I was told there was no specific incident being responded to by my father’s house. This literally was just the regular patrols through the neighborhood on a Halloween.

IT MAKES ME wonder what our society has become when we feel the need to have the ‘police state’ in force on what is one of the childhood top holidays! The same thing that, in Gary, Ind., has local officials discouraging trick-or-treat altogether in exchange for a city-sponsored party with way too much candy and games on hand.

Not that I didn’t know that local officials pay a lot more attention to the trick-or-treat spectacle than they used to. I have heard many local governments set their hours for when kids are supposed to be encouraged to trick-or-treat.

Although I know of one local government official in suburban Oak Forest who made sure this year to clarify that those “official” hours for candy-gathering are merely recommended.

The police didn’t have the authority to bust any seven-year-old who had the nerve to ask for a Three Musketeers mini-bar at 7:03 p.m.

ALTHOUGH I ALSO noticed while driving through the Mount Greenwood neighborhood on Friday that the Chicago Police were en force along Kedzie Avenue as the trick-or-treat, costumed crowd were out a day early.

And police were there to guide traffic to ensure that there wasn’t a sudden story about a ghost getting run over along 115^th Street by some driver who was clueless enough not to see all the costumed kids and parents suddenly walking all over the place.

I do kind of wonder what these actual police would think of my niece Meira – who at age 12 came up with some girly-type police officer costume that she ghouled up with makeup and fangs to be a sort-of zombie. A zombie cop – complete with handcuffs. But no police baton!

Although in the best memory of a kid upset his costume got covered up with a heavy coat, she was upset that the fangs she paid nearly $10 for wouldn’t stick!

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COUNTY QUIP: Halloween aftershock

SIMS: Voice of reason?

The Cook County Board spent a portion of its meeting Tuesday once again debating an old issue. Furloughs. As in whether or not it is appropriate to expect county board members to take them – especially since the budget proposed by Toni Preckwinkle asks people to take eight unpaid days off to help balance the budget.

Commissioner William Beavers still thinks he was right in refusing to take the time off or accept any financial loss this year, and his backers still back him Commissioner Elizabeth Doody Gorman still claims to be “offended” at such talk, and she has her backers.

THE BACK AND forth of the debate became juvenile and led Commissioner Deborah Sims to express her own disgust at the fact that her colleagues can’t let this issue go. Or maybe she was just influenced by the fact that Monday was Halloween.

For as Sims so “eloquently” phrased her political observation; “This is what happens when children have candy for breakfast.”

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