Tonight is Mischief Night. It’s funny, as a boy growing up in Easton, PA, tick-tacking was a way of life. Shucking corn and scraping kernels into paper bags, later to be taken by the handful and rained against neighbors’ windows and siding, and the occasional passing car. Only it was never just a night. It was more like Mischief Month.

It was only much later, when recounting these youthful exploits, that I came to realize the looks on auditors’ faces were not so much reactions of disgust as they were disorientation, and that tick-tacking must have been a regional pursuit. I assume kids in other communities still rang doorbells and ran, soaped car windows, and draped trees with toilet paper? Recently, I was amused to discover the now-faded practice of stealing gates off fences, something I gleaned only from its representation on vintage Halloween cards. Presumably, the gate would be left somewhere inconvenient but retrievable.

Of course, now you would be prosecuted or killed for this sort of behavior, but back in the day, it was all just good clean fun, and largely taken as such – except by the angry farmer who shot at us with rock salt.

One thing this article left out is the blockbuster in the tick-tacking arsenal – the “doorknocker,” a corn cob soaked in water, then kept in the freezer until showtime!

Throwing corn kernels (aka “tic-tacking”) is a long-time Mischief Night tradition for our region

An opposing viewpoint from a writer who grew up in the region and aged into someone very cranky:

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1993-10-29-9310280433-story.html

Long live Halloween!

My trick-or-treat anthem, “Dance of an Ostracised Imp” by Frederic Curzon: