CANDY CORN AND MARXISM

I was just thinking back to my chock-full-of hippies formative years on Whidbey Island. For the most part, it was great. You really felt connected to the whole community, there was a creative spirit, and if you ever ran out of pot, you could usually find some in your friend's kitchen, right next to the organic oats.
But it wasn't always fun to have socially conscious, anti-capitalist neighbors:

It was Halloween. I was nine, trick-or-treating with some pals. I was dressed as Groucho Marx, wearing my Dad's huge, red wine stained white tux jacket. It was from his third wedding, when he said "I do" to a coked up Pan Am flight attendant as "Send In The Clowns" swelled on the quadrophonic sound system. Why my mom didn't throw that ugly tux out when they remarried seven years later I'll never know. Maybe she knew it would make a valuable costume. Now that I think about it--I got a lot of use out of that thing. The following year I wore it for my gender-bending role as Abe Lincoln in the school play.

Anyway, we went up to a house with lights on and the TV blaring. Clearly, they were fair game. Everyone knows if you display any signs of life in your house on Halloween, you're ripe for the begging. Admittedly, this house had no decorations, and there was concern they'd be the types to offer up stale fruit roll ups or some such shit.
Still, we knocked. We knocked some more. We continued pounding away with our nine-year-old fists until some angry, bearded man ripped open the door and bellowed:

"WE DON'T BELIEVE IN THIS CAPITALIST HALLOWEEN CRAP! YOU WON'T GET ANY CANDY FROM US! WE DON'T BUY INTO SOME STUPID HOLIDAY THAT BENEFITS CORPORATE CANDY MAKERS AT THE EXPENSE OF CHILDREN'S TEETH. WE REFUSE TO BE PAWNS OF THE SYSTEM! NOW GET OUT OF HERE!"

So despite being dressed as Marx, I didn't curry any favor with these Halloween revolutionaries.