Black & Gold Tonight

Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween. Children go in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money, with the question, "Trick or treat?" The word "trick" refers to a (mostly idle) "threat" to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given.
Not where I come from!

Back in Scranton, Pennsylvania, children went “Halloweening”. We would knock on a neighbor’s door, or ring the bell, and shout in unison to the person who answered, “Any Halloweeners?” Usually, if someone answered the door, they were accepting spooky guests and we were invited into their home.
We worked for our treats. We performed a poem or a song or told jokes before receiving nuts, apples, candy or, preferably, cold hard cash – nickels were nice, dimes better, quarters, better still. We scoffed at pennies. After performing and before unmasking, the host family tried to guess who we were. Each visit lasted five minutes or more.

No particular hours, nor, indeed, particular nights were set aside for Halloweening. Often, we spread our visits over two nights. In school, we would have been taught the little ditties that we recited or sang. Here is an example

Black and Gold

Everything is black and gold
Black and gold, tonight;
Yellow pumpkins, yellow moon,
Yellow candlelight;

Jet-black cat with golden eyes,
Shadows black as ink,
Firelight blinking in the dark
With a yellow blink.

Black and gold, black and gold,
Nothing in between -
When the world turns black and gold,
Then it's Halloween!

One Halloween, my brother and I took our guitars with us and performed Beatles songs. We made out like bandits that year. Actually we made out well every year. We were part of a neighborhood tradition that enveloped us in warmth and love and community. It was great.