Letter to the Editor: Does the Decision to Postpone Trick-or-Treat Scare You?

To the Editor:

I'm scared. Really scared. Halloween is here! Be careful of the ghouls, goblins and ghosts out there!

But I'm not scared about that. I'm really scared about the direction our towns are headed in, based on their decision hours ago to "postpone" Halloween.

It's outrageous, uncalled for, and insulting to our collective common sense.

First things first. I feel for all of you out there without power, in harm's way and inconvenienced by the power outage or downed lines in your street. As a tight-knit community, I think most of us know someone who has been affected by the storm, and, most likely we all have offered help. Now that that's out the way, lets dig a little deeper here, and, well, vent.

Page, Heidi and Michelle Bailey have all offered their ideas and frustration over here.

I'd like to take a similar approach by offering additional options, solutions and my opinion.

1. I'm not writing this post as an angry mom or dad who's speaking out on behalf of a kid who is in tears…(but I feel for all of you who are breaking the news now). Our two young boys could honestly care less about Halloween. One of them isn't going to Halloween, the other doesn't even have a costume yet, so we're not terribly inconvenienced by this.

2. I'm frustrated by the last-minute nature of this. With all of the technology, media and information available to us in this day and age, couldn't we have least planned for this a few days ago?

3. I'm most disturbed by the "Decree" issued by our towns to postpone Halloween. Why is it their right to do so? I'm all for safety of kids, but how about trusting us to use our common sense. If a neighborhood was dark, why would the kids want to go there - no candy, right? And, as parents, why would we even bring them to a neighborhood with downed power lines and no power. It's insulting to our collective intelligence. Are you saying that we would purposefully put our children in harm's way?

Why not trust us to do the right thing?

- If you're in a safe neighborhood, why not have a Halloween party at your house? Invite those kids over without power.

- If you're at home without power, why not get creative? Light some candles, tell ghost stories and improvise a bit? Would be a fun memory for the kids - "Remember back in 2012 when we had no power and we played hide and go seek in the dark?"

- Don't do Halloween. If you don't want to go out with your kids, then don't. Chalk the whole thing up to fate, bad timing, and bad luck.

In fact, we're the lucky ones. We weren't in New Jersey, Connecticut or New York. We didn't lose a loved one, a house, a boat, or a car did we? Is no Halloween really that bad?

In the grand scheme of things, I'm getting increasingly nervous about the state of our society now. We're frantic about everything. Everything is deemed potentially unsafe or hazardous to us. We don't trust ourselves or each other. We're bubble-wrapping ourselves and our kids. We need to drink bottled water, have better bike helmets, safer car seats, organic food, prescription drugs, you name it.  And If I'm hurt or inconvenienced, I'm probably going to sue you.

So, I'm upset. The "Hamilton-Wenham Powers-That-Be" don't trust us. And that scares me. Does it scare you?

Tyson Goodridge

Wenham