Coronavirus pandemic recommendations and decisions are a mixed bag. You never really know what you will pull out.
Reach in and you might get a real treat — something fact-based and commonsense that everyone should be able to realize is the way to go. Don’t cough on Grandma, for example.
You might also pull out the wormy apple of a contradiction that flies in the face of the last thing you were told.
Buckle up, because Halloween is coming and things are already getting tricky.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced this month that trick-or-treating should be avoided because of covid-19 and the need to social distance to stay safe.
Some local governments are already saying “smell my feet” to that idea. West Deer, for example, has stepped up and said trick-or-treating will take place from 6 to
8 p.m. Oct. 31, with standard turn-on-your-porch-light protocols in place.
And it makes sense.
For months, people have fought about wearing masks in public. Halloween is the day they will do it willingly.
Halloween can be less a celebration of ghosts and goblins than it can be about creativity. People who can find a way to make a kid a Transformer costume out of cardboard boxes can probably figure out a way to not just hand out treats in a socially distant manner but to do so in an innovative and entertaining way.
And kids need this. Communities need this. We all need this.
We have lost a lot since March. Easter and birthdays and graduation and prom and a whole summer’s worth of festivals. More than anything, we have lost people — over 206,000 deaths to date in the United States, more than 1 million worldwide.
But this could be one piece of normal that kids and families and neighborhoods could take back as long as they do it safely.
It just has to be approached that way.
If we want this treat, we can’t play tricks.
