Halloween night in the 70's/80's was a different beast...
...You damn kids, with your skinny jeans and rock n roll music...you have no idea what Halloween was like in the 70's/80's! Certainly a lot different than today.
You see, back then, our biggest fear wasn't children getting abducted or raped or anything like that...it was that someone might put a razor blade in your candy! My mom didn't fear that one that much, but I knew families that would take their candy to the police station so they could scan it under a florescent light! Seriously.
It's amazing to me now. My mom would let me - starting in 1979 with me at 5 years old and my brother at 8 years old - walk the neighborhoods in the dark for hours by ourselves, knocking on the doors of strangers asking for candy! And this was very normal behavior. I didn't know any kid who's parents wouldn't let them head out essentially alone (or with another young friend) on Halloween night.
I think now...that night would have had to of been like the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the Lower Oakland Roller Derby Finals all rolled into one for a pedophile! Kids knocking on your damn door, alone in the wee hours of the night, asking for candy for crying out loud!
We actually never had any problems though, never really even heard of any issues. I think neighbors were just generally more trusting of each other than nowadays. I really didn't think twice about being out late at night at age 9 knocking on random doors. Seems odd to think of doing that now, letting a kid out at night alone. But it was just normal back then.
And EVERYBODY participated it seemed! Even if there was a random odd house without their lights on, we went and knocked anyway...you're participating in Halloween in my neighborhood, damnit! Nowadays entire blocks are damn near dark on Halloween night, no trick-or-treating in sight. Makes me kind of sad thinking about that aspect. It seemed every house on every street was lit up and participating back then. Our trust for our fellow neighbors is very low nowadays (and probably deservedly so actually).
Now parents in my apartment complex do a "Trunk or Treat" where they open the trunks of their cars and give out candy in the parking lot. Most kids don't even dress up. It's pitiful. The old days were better I tells ya!