Over the years Halloween has morphed into what has almost become a national holiday.  In times past children donned store bought costumes or perhaps the “made at home” variety and sauntered throughout the neighborhood for an hour or so and then retired to their own residence to review their booty.  Nowadays Halloween consumes an entire week with school parties, park extravaganzas, workplace events, and the usual number of store employees who are dressed in scary splendor.  It’s not so much about candy anymore but about elaborate costumes some costing in the hundreds of dollars.
 
One aspect that has remained intact though is the customary influx of children who with their parents invade the various neighborhoods for a night of excitement and fun.  Tots with their plastic Halloween containers or sometimes an oversize pillowcase traipse up to the door of friendly ghosts and goblins for an outlay of candy and treats.
 
In some families, a trip to a grandparent’s  home in full costume is de rigueur.  It is a night of unmitigated celebration for these youngsters.  And for us adults it is an opportunity to be generous with candy and savor the looks on the faces of innocent, little toddlers.  It is a moment to be cherished.
 
That’s what makes events in Grosse Pointe Farms this past Halloween night so disturbing and unexplainable.   Seems a resident decided to make a political statement on this night reserved for children by discriminating against those tots whose parents supported a presidential candidate not of this person’s choosing.  Evidently a vote for Borack Obama resulted in no candy for cherub-faced children. 
 
Now to understand the rational underlying this ill-conceived, doltish stance,  one first of all has to submit to a lobotomy.  The next step would be to have one’s mental quotient lowered to that of a common tree slug.  Having done that there might be a chance that one would be able to comprehend why someone would disregard all tenets of common sense and common courtesy and punish innocent children for choices of their parents.  To those with any semblance of gray matter in their head, it is unconscionable and inexcusable to punish children for the political views of their parents.   Even the media that covered this departure from decorum expressed incredulity to say the least.
 
There is an element of good news in this mindless, tactless act of political desperation though that may have been overlooked.  At least children who were of Irish or Italian descent, or those whose parents are within a certain income bracket, children who profess a certain religious conviction,  or children over a certain height weren’t discriminated against as far as we know.  But then again that might be the next criteria for candy handouts.   On the other hand this mindless act might just be the fodder for a movie script, namely, “Abbot and Costello Meet the Wicked Witch of Grosse Pointe Farms”.  I would pay to see that since I think auditions for the starring role have already been concluded!