Ding-dong!

When I got “too old” to trick-or-treat, my parents assigned me the job of answering the door for trick-or-treaters.

The Worst! Every couple of minutes, I had to get up and answer the door. I was working on my math worksheet, and more importantly, I had a “Quantum Leap” episode to watch. I didn’t even have a pause button back then.

Since my parents were watching their own shows downstairs, I came up with a solution: I turned off all the lights and pretended nobody was home.

Problem solved.

Hear me out: I had a reason for doing this, too. Before I retired from trick-or-treating, my dad would plunder the haul my brother and I brought home. He claimed he was inspecting our candy for razor blades or needles, a fear that made headlines back then. I suspected he was less concerned with our safety and more interested in finding a Snickers bar.

Now that I wasn’t bringing home candy anymore, I knew we would have a sugar shortage. By refusing to answer the door, I reasoned, the candy already in the house could make up for the candy I was no longer collecting.

A perfectly sound plan, according to my teenage self.

Wrong.

I had forgotten one important rule of Halloween: no tricks, then there may be tricks.

And, as it turns out, that’s a tradition with deep roots in Kansas.

More than a century ago, Halloween mischief in Hiawatha was getting out of hand. Newspapers reported uprooted vegetables, gates torn from their hinges and livestock deposited on barn roofs (Don’t ask me how.). Vandals even set a wagon ablaze and hauled it through the streets.

For Elizabeth Krebs, an award-winning gardener whose garden had suffered from Halloween vandalism, enough was enough.

Rather than simply complain about the troublemakers, Krebs helped organize a Halloween celebration that gave local children something better to do.

The event featured costumes, prizes, a parade and a dance. It gave people a chance to celebrate Halloween without leaving destruction in its wake.

The idea caught on. Hiawatha’s Halloween Frolic became an annual tradition, and more than a century later, the town still celebrates.

Mrs. Krebs understood that the best way to curb mischief wasn’t to take away the fun, but to give people a better way to have it.

Over time, that spirit of organized Halloween fun took other forms, like trick-or-treating.

You know the routine. The evening begins with little kids, usually accompanied by their parents, dressed as whatever the character or creature is currently the rage. As the night wears on, the costumes become a little less convincing. By the time the teenagers arrive, you’re opening the door to “my football uniform,” “bag-on-head guy,” or “Wyatt,” which I’m guessing was actually Wyatt.

Of course, Mrs. Krebs’s solution wasn’t foolproof. Mischief-makers are still around, and parents’ worries have changed.

Growing up, I remember hearing warnings about devil worshippers targeting trick-or-treaters and the dangers of walking dark streets alone.

Concerns about children’s safety have helped some families rethink the traditional door-to-door route in favor of organized alternatives.

That’s where Halloween evolved further with trunk-or-treating.

People meet in parking lots, decorate cars, and hand out candy from open trunks as children move from vehicle to vehicle.

I think Mrs. Krebs would have approved. Like her Frolic, it brings people together, gives kids a safe place to celebrate, and keeps Halloween trick-or-treating fun and safer.

No more tricking. Now you’ve been trunked.

My teenage self would have loved it, too. No answering doors. No interruptions. Just me, my math worksheet and “Quantum Leap.”

Instead, my mom, not hearing the doorbell ringing, came upstairs, turned on the lights, and had me sit at the door waiting for trick-or-treaters.

Even worse, the next morning we discovered that someone had covered our garage door in shaving cream — probably that Wyatt kid.

And guess who had to clean it up?

So, this Halloween, don’t be a ding-dong. If trick-or-treaters come knocking, consider turning on your porch light and handing out some candy. If your neighborhood celebrates with trunk-or-treat, pop that trunk.

It seems Elizabeth Krebs knew more than how to protect her garden; she knew how to build a community and bring smiles to kids’ faces. We should keep that spirit alive, one porch light, one candy bowl, and one decorated trunk at a time.

It’s the Halloween way.

It’s the Kansas way.