Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 29, 1993                   TAG: 9310290004
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THEY COULDN'T LEAVE IT ALONE

Do we really want councils and boards voting on which day of the week kiddies should dress in costumes and knock on doors to ask for candy? Do we really need clerks to record their votes, and enter the decisions in the minutes?

Have we sunk to an all-time low, or what?

Halloween, which has been around for a few thousand years, traditionally has required minimal government intervention.

Somehow, children are born equipped with miraculous biological clocks that tell them at dusk on Oct. 31 that it is time to go forth to seek candy corn.

We have all trusted them to follow their instincts. In years past, kids wearing crumpled fedoras and raggedy clothes, their faces dusted with charcoal fake whiskers, carried a pillowcase in one hand, a gigantic fake plastic cigar in the other, and took to the street at sundown claiming to be hobos and hoping for the elusive popcorn ball.

They did it on Thursdays, Tuesdays, Mondays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Fridays and nobody made a peep. Government did what government does best - nothing.

But the calendar conjured a real screwball this year when it plopped Halloween on a Sunday.

Suddenly, kid instinct was not good enough. It was time for adults - and their governments - to spring to the regulatory challenge. Sunday's honor was at stake.

On Monday, Salem City Council voted unanimously - no surprise there - to move Halloween to Saturday. The official reason: Roanoke and Roanoke County did it first.

The primary reason Roanoke County moved Halloween to Saturday? The city requested it.

Suddenly, in a valley of governments that coexist as well as cobras and mongooses locked together inside a dresser drawer, cooperation prevailed.

Vinton and Botetourt County and Pulaski and Rocky Mount moved Halloween to Saturday.

All fingers pointed to Roanoke.

Indeed, it began in Roanoke, where the city manager and the mayor were inundated with phone inquiries - about a dozen calls - weeks ago from callers unclear when Halloween might be celebrated.

Why did they call? Surely not the school-night quandary. That's happened many times before.

And surely not for religious reasons - it isn't government's job to remove a nuisance from one group's Sabbath and put it on another's.

Surely not because police would have more trouble beefing up patrols on Sunday night than on Saturday?

If they couldn't explain, why did government react?

No matter. It did. Government, needed so badly in so many ways, spoke loudly and firmly and utterly unnecessarily on the Halloween nonissue.

It'll be Saturday, Oct. 30.

Kids, obey government and follow your instincts. Trick-or-treat on Saturday to follow the rules. Trust your instincts and trick-or-treat again on Sunday. Mop up on Monday night, lest a single popcorn ball go unclaimed.

And keep an eye on the news. On next week's council agenda: New Year's Day, scheduled for a Saturday, will be relocated to Monday, Dec. 20. Thanksgiving will be moved from Thursday, Nov. 25 to Tuesday, Nov. 23, so it won't conflict with football or choir practice.

And this newspaper, which led you to Fourth of July celebrations on the third of July this year, will petition council to move the Fourth to Wednesday, May 18, next year to avoid the summer heat.