During a recent visit to my hometown, I awoke on Halloween disappointed to find no toilet paper draped from our trees and none of our car windows streaked with soap. Mischief Night apparently is dead.
Many adults, I’m sure, are glad for its passing but their relief is mistaken. It’s a worrisome sign when so much of our younger generation appears uniformly well-behaved.
For those of us who grew up in Media, Pa. during the 1960s and early 1970s, Mischief Night (called Devil’s Night in some parts of the country) was a highlight. On the night before Halloween, kids would sneak out of their houses with bars of soap and rolls of toilet paper and ransack the neighborhood.
Glory came the following day, when on the way to school we’d slyly admire our deviant handiwork or that of others, or hear tales of even more egregious mischief elsewhere. All the talk would be of the most daring pranks, the most reckless stunts, and of dodging the police.
What happened to childhood pranks? Our lives were full of them. We’d knock on the doors of neighbors, then run away. We’d pile leaves up in the middle of the street, forcing drivers either to stop and clear the road or drive through them worrying what was underneath. We’d throw snowballs at passing cars.
One legendary prank – often discussed but rarely seen in practice – entailed filling a brown paper bag with dog poop, lighting it on fire on the front stoop of a house, ringing the doorbell, and scramming.
Mischief Night was the climax of pranking, a night when kids could fantasize that they owned the streets, running around after dark, committing benign crimes. Occasionally the most daring would push the envelope, throwing eggs at passing cars or spray-painting a stop sign with a curse word.
Police cars would cruise our neighborhood and perpetrators would disappear down window wells or up the bushy limbs of trees. Committing some transgression – then eluding the authorities – was a singular thrill.
For parents and police, I’m sure Mischief Night was an aggravation, but it offered an important and necessary lesson: You can flout authority. You can do the things you’re not supposed to do, and doing them is more than fun. It’s thrilling.
Pranks, practical jokes, tricks, sleights of hand, all involve pushing the envelope, breaking the rules for a laugh or for some more somber, important cause, often involving exposing truths. Comedian Bill Cosby didn’t face justice for his attacks on women until another black comedian joked about it on stage, breaking a dam of false etiquette and fear of possible retribution.
Even good kids who grow up following the rules learn later in life they must sometimes break them. The advance of human progress requires a willingness to challenge, break and discard norms established by the previous generation.
Mischief Night served as a crash course in naughtiness, providing some real-life experience in disruptive behavior, one day of the year when, in a small and benign way, a kid learned he could break the rules, beat the cops, and win.
You needn’t be an anarchist or miscreant to appreciate that such a lesson might be an important part of growing up.