Trick Or Treat Memory

I used to full a big bucket with cents and let each kid get a handfull after I gave them some candy or for the smaller kids I would grab a handfull and throw it in their bags for them, everyone seemed to think they were getting a fortune but I actually had less than 30 bucks in the bowl but it just looked like allot

Very neat of them to do that.

And expensive.

Then you better not give out zinc pennies, just in case they swallow them!

I remember getting some pennies and nickels in my trick-or-treat bag long ago!

I grew up in a small coal mining town in southern Illinois where everyone pretty much knew everyone else. I remember one old man who used to drop five wheat ears in my plastic jack o'lantern and a few other people who hand made caramel apples, popcorn balls, and fudge bites. Homemade Halloween candy was far better than anything you could buy at the store but I still got some of that prewrapped stuff too.

I always wanted to go to the wheat ear guy first every year. He had a five gallon stoneware jug of wheaties that was his Halloween supply and unfortunately, my mom would never let me ask him if I could search his jug The best finds I had over the years from him were a 1909 VDB, 1926-S, and a good number of BU late 40s and 50s. From what I remember, the contents of the jug were pulled from circulation by him from the mid 1940s onward(started the jug when he returned from WWII). He was not a collector of any sort, just a guy that had set aside all of his wheat cents over the years. To him, it was just five cents albeit five cents decades older that the recipient.

When did I grow up, you ask? All of this occurred in the 1980s- yep, I lived in one of those Norman Rockwell kinda towns

Oh yeah, I remember collecting money for that Halloween disease called "UNICEF". At least, that's what I thought it was...I was all of five years old at the time. Do they even do that any more? That was too much for me to remember. First you knock on the door, yell "trick or treat", then you get your candy, then you get serious for a moment and wait while the person rifles through their cup of change to deposit into your UNICEF holder that you also carry along with your pillow case or paper grocery bag full of candy. It was quite a process.

I took my little girl out trick or treating this year and one old guy was actually handing out quarters. My daughter was pretty excited since she likes to feed her piggy bank with loose change I give her (after going through it myself, of course). At least coins don't cause cavities, right?