Happy Halloween to everyone.
Although my parents were born and raised in a small town. I was born and raised in Milwaukee. This may be a huge clue as to my age but I don’t care. I remember Halloween to be a time of making our own costumes, with scraps around the house. We would then go around two to three city blocks, at night and unescorted, trick or treating.
This involved knocking on every door and proclaiming ‘trick or treat’. The treat was candy and I believe the trick, when denied candy meant some sort of prank. Toilet paper the trees in front of the house or rub soap on the windows. Nothing really destructive.
We would then go home and sort through our huge bag of candy. My parents would only allow us a few pieces that night. Partly because any more and we would be on a sugar high all night and partly because, I suspect they wanted the candy for themselves.
For the most part my childhood was one of trust. Trust in everyone. The exceptions seemed few and far between.
Naturally as I grew older I stopped trick or treating but I do remember hearing on the news about people putting razor blades in apples. The trust I mentioned began to erode.
I also remember walking to school, about a mile, thru the streets of Milwaukee. During snow storms I had to walk uphill both ways with no shoes…..oh wait that’s another story. The only problem I can remember is being chased after by high school kids. But this only occurred very rarely and never resulted in anything serious.
How many parents today would allow their kids to walk a mile to school, snow or not, unescorted?
Past President Ronald Reagan is quoted as saying “Trust but verify”. We may never get back to my childhood belief in trust but hopefully we can begin to ‘trust but verify’.
Ok, what does this have to do with investing? Nothing at all. It’s just me remembering how different the past was and what Halloween meant to me.
Happy Halloween everyone!!!!
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