My 11-year-old son came home from trick-or-treating with enough candy to suggest he had robbed a convenience store. At one house, the homeowner had given him most of an enormous package of candy. Apparently, they had been expecting more children. Quite a few more. My son was thrilled. The hom eowner seemed relieved to have found someone willing to take the stuff. Here, take more. Please. Tell your friends. I’ve heard people in Park City talk about the number of trick-or-treaters they used to get. “Hundreds!” A woman told me about Halloweens when the front door barely closed between visitors and she could hardly keep the candy bowl filled. She remembered children everywhere, with parents trailing behind, trying to keep track of who belonged to whom. She seemed puzzled that so much had changed when the houses are all still there. Of course, some of those houses now have porch lights that come on automatically, though the only person likely to visit is the property manager. Nobody lives there year-round. The house, however, is doing quite well. Other houses are occupied by people who have been buying Halloween candy for decades and have gradually found themselves eating most of it. I imagine the annual progression. First, two bags. Then one. Eventually, a handful of candy bars picked up at Smith’s on Oct. 31 while stopping in for milk. I’ve only lived in Park City full-time for four years, so I can’t claim to remember the old Halloweens. But I hear some version of the same story often enough. The children grew up, their parents stayed, and somewhere along the way the houses became worth considerably more than anyone expected. I have three children, and I sometimes wonder whether any of them will be able to afford to live here when they’re grown. I don’t follow real estate prices particularly closely, but you don’t have to be much of a real estate expert to understand that buying a house in Park City is going to present certain difficulties. There is always the possibility that one of my children will marry well, though I would prefer not to make that an official part of our family’s financial planning. They may not want to stay, of course. I didn’t grow up here myself. But I understand why parents who raised their children in Park City would like to have them nearby again, preferably with grandchildren. I was thinking about this after a conversation with a man at Fresh Market. He was probably in his late 30s and had come back to Park City for spring break with his wife and two young children. They were staying with his parents, who had redecorated his childhood bedroom entirely in a lighthouse motif. He had no idea why. I found this fascinating. Lighthouses are not an obvious decorating choice in Park City, Utah. He shrugged. Lighthouses. Fine. He and his wife had somewhere to stay, two children to entertain and a week of skiing ahead of them. Because skiing. The town itself remains beautifully maintained. There are rules about windows, siding, rooflines and what shade of paint is appropriate for a structure that once housed a miner who probably had other concerns. Sometimes I walk past these houses and wonder what the streets will look like when my own children are grown. Whether they’ll live nearby, move somewhere else or come back for visits and discover that I’ve done something inexplicable to their bedrooms. My son, meanwhile, has already identified the house he’ll visit next Halloween. The homeowner who gave him so much candy had presumably prepared for a steady stream of children. Instead, my son turned up and was treated with the enthusiasm ordinarily reserved for a long-lost relative. He sees no problem with any of this. As far as he’s concerned, the fewer children who show up, the more candy there is for him. He’s discovered a system that rewards scarcity. I suspect he’s hoping the other children stay home. Heather Bryant is a Park City resident, writer, longtime educator and mother of three. She writes educational curriculum and essays on parenting, conservation and the importance of place. The post The ghosts of trick-or-treaters past appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less