This weekend my girlfriend was telling me that a former governor lives near her family’s home in Mililani — and passes out ice cream cones for Halloween.
“People would drive up to drop off their kids,” she said. “They knew.”
I would do the same, too, if I knew he was doling out ice cream!
It made me think about the kind of Halloween candies I used to get when I was a kid.
I grew up in Kalihi Valley — and even back then, it wasn’t the safest place to walk around for treats. We would get the usual booty — Milk Duds, Whoppers, Snickers, Smarties, Tootsie Roll Pops, Starburst and little boxes of Nerds.
My favorite were the packets of Sixlets, the candy-coated chocolate balls that, it seemed, was only available in October. I would trade anything — Skittles, Twizzlers, Peanut M&Ms — for these!
But there were definitely better treats out there, namely the homemade cookies, fresh fruits and Rice Krispie treats some houses would hand out. (Of course, when I was growing up, there was the razor-in-the-apples scare, and we weren’t allowed to accept fruits or anything homemade. But I digress.)
I remember one house — and I bet he was a dentist — would give out travel-size toothpastes. He wasn’t a very popular house.
So what were your favorite Halloween candies — the stuff you would trade your Lego for — and got any memories of trick-or-treating in your neighborhood? Share here!
11 Comments
Never have understood why but those chocolate bars with the rice or whatever it is in them. I never bought them ever, Krackle or something like that, but ate them like they weren’t making anymore. Same with fireballs, couldn’t get enough of them but I never bought them during the year.
bottle caps. those were money
CAT: Mary Janes were popular in my era. As well as licorice candy which nobody liked but me.
Hey Cat … loved Halloween night … frollicking around the neighborhood practically unsupervised … munching on candy while we walked around (even though we were told to wait until we got home) … and ending up with a large bag full of loot … and this was those large paper bags like the ones you get from Long’s … damn that was a lot of candy …
… I can’t really say which was my favorite … I loved anything chocolate!!! … and anything fruity … and tart … but I can tell you which ones I hated … you know how you sorted the candy … one treasure pile … and another pile of sh … stuff you didn’t want … like …
… the Brachs (?) type candies … I just really remember the red and white swirled or striped one …
… the butterscotch candy … yeah I know many people loved these … I didn’t … for some reason … I’d always end up swallowing it whole because it just slid down the back of my mouth …
… and the blue, yellow and red (?) wrapper gum …
… but really, who cared right??? … free candy!!! …
Anything chocolate, but something that seemed to be available only for halloween was the candy corn, loved them. Back when I was growing upp you could go anywhere and we did. We covered about a 5 block area sometimes coming home to dropoff one bag and get a new one. Back then some stores had large paper bags with handles, weused to save those thru the year so we had them for haloween.
This was in the 50’s just for a point of reference.
A house in Manoa would pass out comic books. We lived on a steep hill so we either got money or the whole candy bar. Those were the days.
I liked dum dums and never could get enough of them. Sixlets tasted weird and I would eat a couple and throw the rest away. I suppose I was expecting an M&Ms type of flavor and got surprised with the different taste. Jolly ranchers was another favorite of mine.
Sweet tarts almost forgot those. I would buy the “Lik-M-Aid” with my lunch money and loved that. Also those pixie sitck straws.
Hello Cat,
I don’t really eat candy or sweets but when I was young there was a house that gave out ice cream too, like popsicle, creamsicle and fudgesicle
I’d trade for any of the Snickers that you may have, thank you very much.
I remember small kid time we had pillow cases to carry our candy in. Well somethugs stole my younger brothers bag and left him crying; he was in third grade at the time. We all had to divvy up our bags to compensate for his loss. Poor thing.
I loved Sixlets too, more than M&Ms. (Sorry M!) My favorite candies as a kid were the malted milk balls. Second were the Hershey’s Special Darks. Then the hundred thousand dollars bars (until I got braces and those got too difficult to eat). I never liked candy corn or any of those hard candies.