hazelchaz | Halloween: "A trick for a treat"

75 years of a family tradition... When William Wilson Baden was little boy in the 1930s, in a Hollywood neighborhood during the Great Depression, all the kids knew you didn't get something for nothing. Instead, every Halloween they would go from house to house doing some kind of "trick" to earn a "treat."

As a grown man in Costa Mesa in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, the Baden family continued this tradition. A "trick" could be a song you learned in school, or a handstand or a cheer routine, or singing along to a "Pumpkin Carol."

Now his son, Chaz Baden keeps the flame alive in Anaheim. The littlest kids hold up enough fingers for how old they are, or jump up and down for that many times if they can count their age. The bigger kids know the house that gives out the jumbo "Pixy Stix" and many of them come prepared with whatever feat or stunt they've practiced. Or they sing a silly song to a tune they learned in kindergarten with the rest of the gang.

(Text of a little flyer I'm going to give out to explain to the parents what's going on.)