This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 30, 2011 - So maybe there are two questions you'll get only in St. Louis.
Where'd you go to high school and, for those costumed kids wanting candy on Halloween night, what's your joke?
The joke-for-candy tradition seems to go back pretty far, even if it often stumps newcomers to the area.
That's OK, newcomers. You'll learn, as this reporter has, that in St. Louis, people do things their own way (try asking for directions to Chouteau or DeBaliviere with a bit of French pronunciation. Yeah. It'll only happen once.)
In anticipation of the big night, let's take a moment to explore a few Halloween traditions, from the knock-knocks that come every Oct. 31, to a bunch of goblins that chew down trees in rural Arkansas.
"It's one of the most fun things about Halloween," says Tim Hogan, of Des Peres, about the jokes on all hallows eve. "That's the neat thing about St. Louis. That's the kind of place we are."
Did You Hear The One About The Thirsty Vampire?
He was drinking blood lite.
Jennifer Lin moved to St. Louis last year from Sacramento, Calif. She's also lived in Washington D.C., Chicago and Madison, Wis.
But it wasn't until she was part of a mom's club that Lin learned about the joke-for-candy tradition in St. Louis.
"At a gathering we were talking about Halloween plans and someone asked me, 'So you know about the joke thing, right?'"
She didn't, but thinks it's a great tradition that encourages kids to interact with their neighbors.
Right now, Lin and her quiet 4-year-old are working on their joke, which goes something like this:
Why did the cookie go to the doctor's office? Because he was feeling "crummy."
Buh-dum-dum.
For Lin, the charm of the night all comes in the delivery, "and it becomes extra adorable when a preschooler says it quietly to her feet."
In all the places she's lived, Lin hasn't found any other Halloween traditions, but likes that St. Louis takes Halloween so seriously.
All the family-friendly celebrations around town, she says, are "something pretty wonderful."
What Broadway Play Is A Ghost's Favorite?
Phantom of the Opera
In a Des Peres neighborhood, around this time of year, little plastic bags of candy appear on door steps without notice.
The door bell rings.
But no one's there.
There is, however, a note, informing the person answering the door that "you've been phantomed."
"I think it might be a thing particular to our neighborhood," says Tim Hogan, who discovered the tradition when he moved to Des Peres with his family 10 years ago. In both Dougherty Woods and Dougherty Ridge, Hogan says, people phantom each other.
Hogan thinks the whole thing somehow comes from an illustrator of "The Phantom" comic strip, Ray Moore, who lived in the neighborhood until his death in 1984. Moore and his late wife, Claire, donated 13 acres of land to the Missouri Department of Conservation, and now, "Phantom Forest Conservation Area," sits near Hogan's neighborhood.
Even if it isn't well-known, it's a tradition Hogan and his family all enjoy.
"Stuff always happens around there that you don't know about," he says, "that's totally cool."
What Do You Call A Ghost With A Broken Leg?
Hoblin Goblin
Rodney Cook doesn't usually ask the trick-or-treaters who come to his neighborhood for a joke.
"That tradition's kind of foreign to me," he says.
But growing up in rural northwest Arkansas, Cook's community did have their own thing.
Or ... things.
"We grew up with this idea that there were goblins," he says.
It was the country, there were lots of trees and lots of dirt roads.
So the story went like this: Every Halloween night, the goblins came out and chewed the trees down. Far in the distance, you could hear the sound of chainsaws, Cook says.
And as a child, he didn't think it sounded like a bunch of teenagers up to no good. He thought, wow, those goblins got themselves chainsaws.
The trick-or-treaters would carry them, too, he says, with their families, otherwise there'd be no way to get home with all the trees in the road.
When he got a bit older, Cook discovered those goblins were actually the big kids practicing a little rural vandalism. He isn't sure whether goblins are still in the trees of tiny Mount Judea, Ark., anymore.
But he remembers them well.
"It was kind of creepy," Cook says.