This is Halloween (in Hamilton)

Leasan Eachdraidh Oidhche Shamhna

And so another October comes to a close. While the rate of daylight loss has slowed from the heady bleed of 2 minutes and 55 seconds per day that we endured from September 17 to October 2, we still dropped another 2 minutes and 42 seconds today compared to yesterday, giving us just 10 hours, 28 minutes, and 17 seconds of solar warmth on our march toward the absolute shortest day of 2024 on December 21.

The ancient Celts marked today as the end of autumn and the beginning of the dark times, as this spookiest of days falls close to half-way point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. It was their rousing festival - Samhain - held on this day that helped influence the contemporary celebration of Halloween.

That more modern and recognizable name comes from the early Catholic Church, which helped set the calendar for peasants, organizing their lives around festivals that coincided with necessary tasks around the farm. In 835, Pope Gregory IV decreed that November 1 - the end of most harvesting - would be marked as a day to celebrate the entire hallowed communion of saints. While we call it All Saints’ Day, it was originally called the “Hallowmas” or “All Hallows’ Day” (get it…because all the saints are “hallowed”, which officially means “made holy and revered”). The evening before became “All Hallows’ Eve” which, when adopted in Scotland, took on some of the old country brogue - “eve” became “e’en” - and eventually got all squished together to become “All Hallowe’en” and then just “Halloween”.

Every night before an important solemnity like All Saints’ Day, the dedicated would hold a vigil where they focused on faith and their place in the world. Because of Samhain’s focus on death (both the end of the growing season and with the darkness associated with loss) and the easy adoption of existing traditions by the Catholic Church, which had only fully Christianized Scotland and the Celtic world around the time Pope Gregory IV established All Saints’ Day, the preceding night - All Hallows’ Eve - became a time to focus on praying for the souls of those lost throughout the years. Some might have held hope that they could have advocated, through prayer, for any spirits not yet secured a place beyond purgatory and that maybe they would send them a sign they were okay.

Vigil days were important in the early church and, rather than eat meat, people would have either fasted or eaten a small shortbread-like food called a “soul cake”. Across England and Scotland, children and the destitute would go door-to-door, offering to pray for the souls of those lost (it was a time when people believed the more prayers said for someone who had died by as many people as possible was how they could secure a place in heaven) in exchange for soul cakes. Thus a tradition of handing out little goodies on All Hallow’s Eve entered into the mix.

Fast forward to the early 1800’s as waves of Scottish immigrants settled in North America. They brought with them some of these Halloween traditions which combined with those unique things found in the Americas to create the holiday we know today.

With the Spec archive cracked wide open and October 31 falling helpfully on a Thursday, I thought it would be a good chance to look at some of the history of Halloween in Hamilton. The end of October was once associated firmly with the city’s Scottish population, but quickly became another important date in everyone’s social calendars. From wild parties to outlandish pranks to dubious moral panics, Halloween in Hamilton has always been a wild time.

Today’s 10 hours, 28 minutes, and 17 seconds of daylight have just begun. But they’ll soon be behind us, and the Hallow E’en shall begin. So let’s snuggle up, hunker down, and take a look at a short history of Halloween in Hamilton.

A Bonnie Hallow E’en

The first notable reference to Halloween in Hamilton comes from an 1854 poem in the Hamilton Spectator by Harriett Annie Wilkins, a local writer. Wilkins was, according to the Spec, “our talented poetic correspondent,” who regularly contributed to the paper’s “Poet’s Corner”.1 The daughter of a minister, Wilkins traveled with her family from England to Hamilton when she was just 17. Her father died shortly after the family arrived in the city and her mother fell into poor health, leaving the young Harriett in charge of the family. Wilkins was able to guide the family while pouring her heart into poetry, which quickly earned the eye of the people at the Spectator. Before she died in 1888, she published five books of poetry through the Spec, which focused on nature, local institutions, and the burgeoning spirit of Canadian patriotism in the young Dominion.

Wilkins’ 1854 poem, entitled “Hallow E’en”, begins with a description of the holiday as a Druidic festival intended to “enliven the gloom” of the darkening days. Among the poem’s seven verses is a harkening to the traditions of yore, intended to illustrate the history of the occasion:

By the 1870’s, Halloween was firmly associated with the city’s Scottish culture. The Spectator’s October 31 edition in 1870 noted Rabbie Burns’ “lively and striking picture of some of the superstitious observances of old Scotland,” during the rollicking Halloween parties hosted by poor farmers and countryfolk, including the infamous “Kale Pull”. This game involved pulling up a kale plant and assessing the root, taste, and overall robustness of the plant, which was supposed to give you insight into the character of your future spouse. A bitter plant meant a bitter partner while a hearty and healthy plant meant a steady and reliable one. The names of everyone at the party were then carved into the root of the plant, which is one of the sources for our custom of carving shapes and faces into a common gourd of the Americas - the pumpkin. That also comes from Irish traditions where turnips would be hollowed out to create lanterns sporting crude faces.

The story noted some of the other common observations of the holiday - bobbing for apples, roasting nuts, and dressing up in elaborate costumes - which had become very popular in Canada by then. “The old people generally take an active part in these yearly pastimes, but often the young people carry their jokes and practice a little too far,” warned the city’s paper-of-record. 3

Hamilton’s Caledonian Society began hosting yearly Halloween dances and concerts, where, for $0.50, you could enjoy a night at the Mechanic’s Hall on James Street North among men in “full Highland Costume” and entertainment from people singing the “finest Scotch Songs”.4 By 1878, the city’s German population joined in the festivities, with the German Social Waltz Club hosting a Halloween dance at the Germania Hall.5

With a proliferation of Halloween parties came opportunities for local merchants. The ever-inventive Mills Brothers, who started a humble hardware store on King East across from Gore Park in 1888, had rapidly expanded their offerings and became a full-fledged department store by 1896. After their original store burned down in 1903, the brothers regrouped and rebuilt, opening the brand new Stanley Mills & Co. a short while later. The store quickly adapted to the Halloween craze and began offering Halloween specials. In 1909, that included deals on popcorn (3 pounds for 25¢ - $6.60 today), figs (1 pound for 15¢ - $4 today), and homemade taffy in maple cream, butterscotch, coconut, and peanut flavours (1 pound for 20¢ - $5.30 today).6

Two years later, they added some spooky graphics to advertise, among other things, their new pumpkin, cat, and witch silhouettes that people could hang up as Halloween decorations, 10¢ a package (around $2.65 today).

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More and more Halloween parties began springing up across the city into the 1900’s. The Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (IODE) began hosting Halloween gatherings which exploded in popularity. Their 1915 gathering for around two dozen local women ballooned to a massive shindig with over 100 participants by 1917 hosted by club president, Mrs. P.D. Crerar (the wife of the man who helped introduce golf to Hamilton). The late-war shindig included afternoon tea, Victrola music, the singing of patriotic songs, a preserves exchange, and a fundraiser to help the club’s efforts.7

Halloween parties took off in popularity through the 1920’s and 1930’s, reflecting the wild and carefree spirit of the times. But, for one local woman, Hamilton’s parties weren’t enough. Ida Clarke, it would seem, wanted a little more adventure than could be found among Hamilton’s Presbyterian youth clubs and in the ballroom of the Royal Connaught. At age 25, Clarke had left our city and, on Halloween night, 1930, found herself attending a wild party in New York City. There, she met 77-year-old Crosby Leonard, a merchant who had long since retired. The two struck up a conversation and hit it off. Leonard was looking to employ a nurse, which was good luck; Clarke was a trained nurse, eager for a new challenge. Leonard hired Clarke right away, keen to ensure some other Halloween reveler didn’t swoop in and offer her a better job. Her performance was, by all accounts, exemplary - so much so that, on June 15, 1933, the two were married when Clarke was 28 and Leonard was 80. But, as he told a reporter after the ceremony, that didn’t really matter: “I never intend to grow old. In fact, I expect to live to be at least 130 years of age - not old, mind you, but of age.”8 Nine months and seven days later, Clarke gave birth to their child, with Leonard telling a reporter he felt no older than 30. The age-gap pair were catapulted into minor stardom by the growing sensationalist press popping up at the time.

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Back in Hamilton, the Halloween party craze continued to provide local merchants with opportunities - some more unfortunate than others. The Zellers across from City Hall at the corner of James North and King William began offering Halloween masks for 5¢ and full costumes for 89¢. While some of the offerings were no doubt fun, others (listed in their October 25, 1939 ad as “Gay Chinese, Mexican and Dutch styles!”) were almost certainly insensitive at best.9

Throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s, every imaginable group in the city and surrounding communities would hold dances and parties for Halloween. There would be slow dances in the basements of Baptist churches, swing dances at the Tivoli, country western jamborees at the Brant Inn, and barn dances at the Ancaster Fairground. Every group in the city, from pharmacist associations and veteran’s groups and Anglican youth clubs, would all host gatherings for Halloween.

In 1943, the Westdale B.I.A. and community groups in the relatively new community held a massive party on Halloween night, including a parade of over 450 children in costumes, a Halloween quiz, and a folk dance for everyone in the community.10 Even while the world waded through World War II, the residents of Hamilton found time to bring the community together and celebrate Halloween as one.

But that spirit of community-mindedness did not persist. Even in the late 1950’s, the number of large gatherings and dances seemed to shrink. As social organizations declined in the late 1960’s and into the 1970’s, there were fewer and fewer groups willing to host formal dances and community events around Halloween. Instead, people’s Halloween parties would enter a more private sphere, hosted by individuals and partners for friends and family at home.

Schools began hosting Halloween events for youth, in part to fill the void left by other groups. But there was also an ulterior motive for these dances: curbing youthful mischief making.

A Cabbage Patch of Tricks

After Wilkins’ “Hallow E’en” poem appeared in the Spec, the paper scarcely mentioned the holiday for another decade. The second major reference to Halloween occurred on November 11, 1863. At the bottom of Page 2 was a reprint from the Gleaner, the newspaper serving the Anglo communities around Huntingdon and the Chateauguay Valley in southwestern Quebec. This story profiled a Halloween prank pulled by a group of young men in the village who evidently led a local reverend’s horse into a school and tied the frightened animal to a railing. The horse - who was confused but otherwise fine - was discovered the next morning by people walking by the school who thought the sounds of whinnying coming from within were out of place.11

A fixation on the pranks pulled by young Hamiltonians became a regular component of the Spec’s festive reporting throughout the years, precipitated by that casual warning from the Spec - about the youth who “carry their jokes and practice a little too far” - in 1870. The very next year, the paper reported on an elderly resident on John Street who, because of his backyard full of cabbage and the propensity of local youth to steal the pungent Brassica around Halloween (October 30, while commonly known as “Devil’s Night” now was once called “Cabbage Night”), was a prime target for mischief. But, armed with a garden hose and the element of surprise, the backyard horticulturalist was able to fend off intruders and save his prize pre-sauerkraut patch.12

The paper’s coverage had, by 1878, become a lament about the waywardness of the city’s children. On November 1, the paper noted that “The boys were out last night in considerable force, ringing door bells, unhinging gates, stealing cabbage and performing other acts for which they think they have a licence on the 31st of October.” By the next year, the Spec called for the Hamilton Police Magistrate to warn the city’s youth that “he will not condone any offences committed under the excuse of Hallowe’en.”

As the years went on, the Halloween pranking epidemic showed no signs of abating. In 1880, the paper recounted the “very bad, and very annoying, and very wicked” pranks played by “the boys” whom they said would not be stopped “unless an able-bodied policeman is in his immediate vicinity.”13 Four years later, local resident Jane Smith accused three local youths - James Sharkey and the Dow brothers - of causing so much damage to her home at the corner of Ray and King West that she was out a whole $6 (around $160 in today’s currency) for repairs. A few weeks later, a judge dismissed Mrs. Smith’s claim for lack of evidence.14

Over the next few years, the city dedicated considerable resources to policing on Halloween, leading the Spec to note a decline in general tomfoolery through to 1889. That year, the paper wondered “whether is was that the small boy is becoming too brainy in these progressive days to indulge in idle pranks or because the policemen were very vigilant, or the weather [was] such as to dampen the juvenile ardor.”15 Despite their aspirational musings, each year’s Halloween coverage in the Spec detailed some of the petty crimes committed by bored local kids.

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Even as the novelty of door-to-door candy collection took off in the 1930’s, the time-honoured tradition of pulling pranks did not subside. In 1949, those pranks turned to violence on either side of Hamilton. In the first instance, a group of youth from Lynden descended on the Gray Farm in Copetown, intending to tear down George Gray’s milk stand. The elderly farmer wasn’t having any of that and, armed with a baseball bat, ran the boys off. Both sides gathered reinforcements - the youth returning with a handful of friends and the farmer rousing neighbours and locals to his side - and once again slugged it out before the police were called and the pranksters were arrested. Despite wielding a bat and getting a few good swings in at the youths, Gray said that he had “no ill will towards any of those in took part in the destruction.”16 Twelve years later, Gray was immortalized in an editorial cartoon in the Spec complete with talking chickens and an MLB-ification of the Copetown farmer. Swing away, Georgie boy, swing away.

Less novel was the incident in Smithville, 50 kilometres to the east of where Farmer Gray was dolling out sandlot justice.

Since the late 1930’s, Mr. and Mrs. McCann had called a small farm home. It was a modest plot, perfect for two retirees who had gotten out of the business of commercial farming and wanted a simple homestead for themselves. Any peace and quiet they hoped for was shattered almost immediately. Each Halloween, without fail, local youths would target the elderly couple’s farm with pranks of varying intensity. Year after year, for twelve whole years, the McCann’s spent October 31 alternatingly frightened, bothered, and infuriated.

On Halloween night, 1949, 82-year-old Edward McCann decided he had enough. As the sun went down, McCann positioned his dated automobile toward the crude outhouse by his barn that was a favourite target for local pranksters, loaded his shotgun, and waited.

Three hours later, two young men from neighbouring farms - Roy Atkinson and Ivan Carruthers - rumbled down his driveway and onto his property. They got out of their car and made their way to the privy, intent on knocking it over and smashing the flimsy plywood commode. Creeping in the darkness and focused on the impending desecration of the old farmer’s outhouse, they did not realize Mr. McCann was slowly raising his shotgun in their direction.

In his recollection, he only intended to scare the boys off. But McCann proved to be a better shot than even he expected and hit both boys with a spray of shotgun pellets. Atkinson made it out with only minor injuries to his ear and neck. Those battle scars were put on display to Spectator readers in the form of an unflattering crime-scene photo in the paper two days later. His only solace came from the fact that it was buried on page 30 beneath photos of McCann pointing proudly to where some of his shotgun pellets were still lodged in the side of his outhouse. Carruthers, on the other hand, spent time at Hamilton General Hospital recovering from wounds in his face, neck, and forehead. The St. Catharines detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police confiscated McCann’s shotgun, but it appears the Lincoln County Crown Attorney declined to press charges.17 Mr. McCann died four years later at age 86, though his obituary omitted his act of Halloween privy defence.

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The 1960’s saw an uptick in vandalism around Halloween. These pranks ranged from silly to dangerous, with some of the most serious being a garbage fire at University Plaza in 1961, a spree across the mountain in 1963 that included windows smashed while people were at home and thousands of dollars of damages from a garage fire, and a near train derailment in Waterdown in 1966 caused by local youth dragging a farm wagon full of garbage onto the CP tracks.18

Amidst the Aquarian pranking, the Spec took time to once again chastise local youth for their japery. Lamenting the rash of pranks that occurred on Halloween night, 1962, the Spec wrote that it seemed “hooligans and delinquents have taken over from the children and now use the festival for expressing their anarchical emotions for rioting, burning, and destruction.” In the spirit of outraged hyperbole, the paper danced close to calling those engaged in pranks ‘subversive communists’, writing “When a sufficient number of individuals no longer exercise restraint then a democratic society ceases to exist.” This point was made all the more clear by the placement of the editorial beside a cartoon of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro.19

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When municipal elections were bumped up to November, campaign materials became easy pickings for local pranksters. During the 1982 campaign, two law-and-order candidates - Ward 2’s William Laidlaw and Ward 6’s Vince Formosi - reported hundreds of dollars in damage on Halloween night. Laidlaw’s office was broken into and ransacked, with 4,000 campaign leaflets stolen and coffee poured all over the floor. Formosi told the Spec he lost around 60% of his signs, blaming east mountain teens and lamenting that he could not get them replaced in time for election day.20 Just over a week later, Laidlaw would place a distant fourth of six while Formosi would come in fifth out of nine candidates, though it is uncertain if their Halloween misfortunes contributed to their electoral ones.

By the mid-1980’s and into the 1990’s, it seemed like the days of reckless pranking were coming to a close. Most news stories focused on pranks committed in neighbouring rural municipalities while Hamilton’s Halloween coverage was mostly about cute costumes and Halloween specials on TV. That trend continued unabated into the new millennium; of the 172 references to “Halloween pranks” in the Spec since 2000, 78.5% of them are discussing movies or TV shows where that’s a central plot. Indeed, the last reference to any local pranking came in a 2004 letter to the editor imploring local residents to show teens that pranking isn’t okay. That, it would seem, has been taken to heart.

But there was a moment in recent history when rumours and pranks became a fixation for worried parents across the city.

Some Good Old Fashioned Moral Panicking

What’s Halloween without a whole heaping helping of pearl clutching?

The 1960’s brought a lot of change to the city and to the world, with people becoming more and more aware of global issues and concerns. With that heightened awareness also came heightened uncertainty and a belief that, as the world grew both larger and closer, it was becoming harder to trust others. We knew more about more people and more things, but, with frightening headlines in the paper and shocking stories on the evening news, who could we really trust?

Some wanted a return to the past. An angry letter writer informed the Spec that they vigourously opposed children carrying UNICEF donation boxes while trick-or-treating. “How are they going to enjoy themselves without giving them a guilt complex feeling when we say ‘while you are eating your candy apple think about all the hungry children in the world’?…Let’s put Hallowe’en back into Hallowe’en,” they implored.21

Some, on the other hand, worried about troubling reports coming from the United States about dangers hidden in common candies and treats distributed at the doors on Halloween night.

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Starting in the late 1950’s, rumours began circulating about children in the US finding things like needles and razors in candy apples and chocolate bars, or mothballs wrapped up to look like candies. Through the early 1960’s, the panic spread across America and into Canada. By the year of the Centennial, the tampered treats had arrived in Hamilton.

Two days after Halloween in 1967, a group of North End children were enjoying recess in the playground of the McIlwraith School on Murray Street West (now the Witton Lofts), just a few blocks from their home on Simcoe Street West. Two local scamps had brought apples to the playground with them, having collected the fruit that past Tuesday, on Halloween night. When both kids went to bite into their apples, they claimed they found pieces of sewing needles lodged deep into the flesh. When they told their teenage neighbour, Dale, about the incident, she too confirmed she found needles in an apple. Rumours spread around the playground of other North Enders getting mothballs dipped in chocolate and other doctored treats in their candy bags.

Dale’s sister Susan recounted a terrifying story to the Spec amidst the panic. As she was escorting some neighbourhood children during trick-or-treating, the group was accosted by a frenzied-looking stranger who told them he would sell them apples that would kill them. “He had what looked like a bag around his neck. He looked drunk and I don’t think anybody took his apples,” she said.22

The North End incident set off a wave of hysteria that crashed over Hamilton the following year. Plain clothes police officers mingled amongst crowds of trick-or-treaters and warnings were issued to parents to be vigilant. By November 1, 1968, there were 54 reports of “booby-trapped candy” in the city, including reports of glass poking out of apples and candies laced with pesticides.23 That number soon jumped to 77 reports of candy tampering.

A week later, the Hamilton Police announced the results of their investigations into the tampered candy incidents of 1967 and 1968. The staggering number of 77 reports in 1968 was whittled down to just 7 legitimate reports. In total, 70 claims were hoaxes - 50 lies told by children and 20 cases of kids putting pins, glass, and razors into their own treats to be part of the trend. Of the remaining 7 claims, 6 cases (all from the same source) were attributed to an elderly candy distributor accidentally mixing mothballs with mints (yum), leaving only one intentional instance - a prank pulled by teens on one of their own friends that the police called “harmless”. And the initial reports from 1967, including the North End incidents, were deemed to be unfounded or, at best, of questionable origin. As a police spokesperson said, it appeared that “children filled apples and candy with razors and pins [because] they were seeking attention and publicity.”24

Despite this, people kept reporting tampered candy. There were 14 cases in 1969 and 10 in 1970, all of which were unfounded or exaggerated.25 

The reality of the situation failed to stop the panic. In 1971, the Burlington Jaycees (the Junior Chamber of Commerce) proposed the town ban trick-or-treating and funnel all local children into a large party at a local arena. Councillor Tom Sutherland, who was advancing the Jaycees’ request at council, told the body that the group would “stage the two-night event…as a safe and enjoyable Hallowe’en celebration, free of the dangers of traffic accidents or such things as razor blades hidden in candied apples.”26 Burlington’s council rejected the plan and placed no restrictions on laissez faire trick-or-treating.27

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As the years went on, reports kept coming in every Halloween, but with little evidence and even fewer injuries. A local mother even called for Halloween to be banned in 1978 after her son reported finding a blade that looked like it was “from an Exacto knife” in an apple, though the police, once again, indicated they found no evidence of actual tampering.28

For a few years, the panic subsided, until late September, 1982. Over the course of a few days, seven people in the Chicago area died after taking Tylenol that had been laced with potassium cyanide either at the manufacturing facility or in stores. The incident, which became known as the Tylenol Murders (here’s a link to the podcast Criminal - one of my favourites - that does an excellent job explaining the events), ended up rekindling the flames of hysteria that had begun to die down.

While Chicago-area parents held indoor and strictly monitored parties for children on Halloween that year, Hamiltonians carried on trick-or-treating as normal. But, by November 1, reports had flooded in about another wave of candy tampering. Children were reported to have suffered burns after eating candy or poked themselves with razors and pins. Hamilton Police told the Spec that a man walked into the Kenilworth station and handed officers a pill he claimed to have found in his child’s candy bag. From what police could tell, the pill was “a controlled drug”.29

But, again, when police finally looked into the claims, they found most were hoaxes or exaggerations. In the few instances that someone was hurt, the explanation was either unrelated or a genuine accident. Only a small fraction of claims were true, and those were all perpetrated by people who knew one another. The Spec chastised the community in an editorial on November 2, noting that, despite the hysteria, mass candy tampering was not an issue. But, while people were fixated on imaginary razor blades and pin-filled apples, there was a real issue being ignored in the community. “On Saturday, the day the Halloween warnings rang out,” they wrote, “the Halton Children’s Aid Society reported an 87-per-cent increase in cases of child abuse during the third quarter of 1982.”30 The panic over imaginary acts of violence created so much static that people couldn’t see the real problem that already existed in their community.

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The foremost expert on the issue of candy tampering is Joel Best, a sociology and criminal justice professor at the University of Delaware. He’s conducted ample research on the phenomenon and has found no instances of people randomly poisoning children. “There's no evidence that this is happening and yet we like the story. We like the idea that it's scary,” he told the CBC back in 2016.31 He’s ultimately tied the issue to a lack of control over a growing, fast-paced world, a desire to protect children, and fear of the unknown. Besides, the profile of people who would want to commit such acts also includes a desire to watch what they have done or take credit for their acts, not hand out goods to children who follow a short route through their own neighbourhood to collect candy. The pieces just don’t add up.

Sometimes, it comes in the form of a Halloween prank that’s gone too far, like when six children accused a Philadelphia man of putting razors in apples and handing them out on Halloween in 1969. Only after being questioned did the group admit they had staged the event to frame the father of someone they knew. But the hoax had consequences; before the children told the truth, the man’s home was nearly burned to the ground by an angry mob and a judge suggested he should be tied to a post and whipped in public.32

Other times, as Dr. Best notes, kids do it to be part of a story they’re hearing about. “It's a very simple matter for a child to take a pin, stick it in a candy bar, run in and say, ‘Mom, look what I found,’ and be rewarded with the concerned attention of adults,” he told NPR last year.33 Or cases could be simple misattribution. Best brings up the case of a Vancouver girl who died shortly after Halloween in 2001. Rumours circulated that her candy had been poisoned but, in reality, she died from an extreme case of strep that developed into rheumatic fever.

Like the Satanic Panic and concerns about youth violence caused by video games (or people experiencing homelessness being bussed into Hamilton), these panics start as urban legends with peripheral connections to situations or extreme events that might have some rooting in an exaggerated real case or may seem plausible when viewed through the lens of “common sense”, but that quickly fall apart when subjected to more rigourous scrutiny. The problem with panics that break containment and become part of the cultural milieu is that the voices of outrage and concern are the ones profiled first and foremost. It takes time to investigate claims and, in the meantime, speculation and gossip can turn the story into something more than it really is. In the case of tampered Halloween candy, it seems that early rumours created a situation where young pranksters and impressionable kids ran with the story, sometimes even turning the myth into reality themselves. Despite no evidence of widespread cases of anonymous candy poisoners and apple pokers, it is still something we assume is true, dumping bags of candy onto living room floors and looking nervously for even the slightest red flag among the candies and chocolates.

It’s the Great Coming Together, Charlie Hamiltonian

That, I think, speaks to something we’ve lost. Each of the elements of historical Halloweens in Hamilton reflect this loss, which seems to become more apparent as we enter the darker months.

Early Halloween celebrations were community events that brought people from many different corners of the city together. They were celebrations of our heritage, opportunities to dance and socialize, chances to come together during a time of seasonal change to remind each other we aren’t as alone as it can sometime seem. Parades for over 450 children and a community block party in Westdale would be a challenge to even conceptualize today.

Youthful pranking even demonstrates community in its own weird way. Nabbing a cabbage and joking around with friends can be a bonding experience people look back on fondly. But, at some point, we graduated up to tuttuting kids who do these kinds of things to swinging bats at them, calling them communists, or opening fire and seriously maiming them. Now, childish pranks are an historical relic, a reminder of a time when friends would seek out community and, in the absence of any more compelling activities, would have a wild night out.

The panics over tainted candy cast a long, dark shadow over Halloween. That background threat was always with me as I went trick-or-treating on the wide suburban streets of the west mountain. The imaginary danger stalked me like a B-movie killer, always a little ways back, always there nonetheless. It ate away at my confidence, my feeling of safety in my community. It was a reminder that you lived around strangers and you lived alone, save for the small group of direct relatives on whom you could rely. Collective anxiety about a changing world, dumped onto the shoulders of elementary school kids. An allegory about not being able to trust anyone.

But, it’s Halloween. It is a time for the community to come together to, once again, remind each other that we’re here for everyone through the coming darkness. It doesn’t need to be a time of fear and distrust and animosity. Save those for cheesy scary movies. Instead, it should be a time to reimagine some of the traditions of the past and strengthen the bonds that unite us.

So let your Halloween be a time of dancing and adventuring and cabbage disrespecting.

From Harriett Annie Wilkins’ “Hallow E’en”:

Cool facts for cool people

• “Concerned Hamiltonians” had their 40th print ad run in the Spec on October 26, once again blaming bike lanes for the climate crisis. They’ve spent close to an estimated $53,000 on advertising thus far. As a reminder, here’s a link to my Google Sheet tracking their ads and spending. In their last ad blitz from Feb. to May of this year, they had 14 ads run. If they match that during this blitz, they’ll likely crack $60,000 in spending.

• Take a listen to this past Monday’s edition of the CBC podcast Frontburner. David Herle and Scott Reid, two of the architects of Paul Martin’s ascension to power in 2003, speak with host Jayme Poisson about how the current Liberal leadership struggle is nothing like the last and how Justin Trudeau has reoriented the entire Liberal Party around himself and his office. With no clear successors and a party organization incapable of existence without Trudeau, the question remains: does the Liberal Party have a post-Trudeau future?

• The Municipality of South Bruce, 147 kilometres to the northwest of Hamilton, held a controversial referendum on Monday. The vote was to solicit community input on a proposal by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) to host a “Deep Geological Repository” or “DGR” in the municipality. That essentially amounts to a massive underground storage facility for spent nuclear byproducts that will require between 10,000 and 200,000 years to decay to the point of low-ish radioactivity. Pause here to remind people I’m a social scientist, but I’m trying my best. The proposal for the DGR has been very controversial, so the referendum was held to settle the matter once-and-for all, with the municipality binding itself to the results if at least 50% of the residents of South Bruce voted. Well, around 70% of residents voted and the DGR plan won the narrowest of majorities with just 51.2% of the vote. As the municipality’s mayor told the Canadian Press, “The results are the results, and it’s what the municipality has to live with now.” The NWMO will now decide between South Bruce and Ignace, between Dryden and Thunder Bay in Norther Ontario, depending on consultations with local Indigenous groups. Needless to say, 51.2% isn’t a glowing endorsement, but only time will tell where the DGR ends up.