Awe, that sounds like my Dad. When we were just little brats! we lived on the beach south of Santa Cruz.(you could see the ocean from our living room, it was awesome, now all the houses are torn down and mansions are built there, no poor kids live anywhere near our old neighborhood) It wasn't completely remote but the houses were quite a ways apart, so my Dad, having 8 kids decided to have a neighborhood harvest party, everyone would bring all their candy "treats" in buckets and set up stations, like the school carnivals are now days. And we had lots of games and scavenger hunts and food! tons of food.
The trick or treating was a element all in it's own. Some people would ask for tricks to be preformed, others asked for stuff like sing a song, solve a riddle... It was great fun. This all took place in a huge barn that belonged to one of the hay farmers in the area, all we had to do was clean up the mess so the workers could get back to work the next day! We had hay rides if the hay had not been delivered, but if there was hardly any hay we made a haunted house.
Halloween meant good times when I was a kid. And a lot of the "candy" was actually homemade popcorn balls, caramel apples, Oranges, Quarters, pieces of cake, homemade fudge. and full sized chocolate bars! I know growing up in the 50's and 60's was not always perfect, but the things we worried about were a lot different than they are now. Oh yeah and NOBODY had a store bought costume, they were all hand made, a lot of time we made our own, might be why I started sewing at an early age.
Thanks for taking me back to that age of innocence, Halloween was not about devils or horror movies, it was about fun, sometimes scary fun, but it was clean fun.
I guess I need to put away my soap box now
oops almost forgot I received a block from Pink Lotus, I am going to post pictures right now, before I forget again!