“When did we get so paranoid?” was more-or-less the topic under discussion during the Coffee Hour this morning.  You don’t need much imagination to realize that our conversation had begun with fanciful predictions of how this election day would play out.  Somehow, we landed on “doctored” Halloween candy as the beginning of the country’s obsession with (what we used to tell our kids) the Meany People.  Or maybe, we thought, it started with that Tylenol scare back in the… when?

So I did a little research, as in which came first.  It was the “Halloween Legend,” as it is now being called, and it began in 1958.  Marta was four; Charlie, two.  I remember that we had to spread their “treats” out on the dining room table and throw out any home-made stuff — no candied apples,  no fudge or divinity, no popcorn balls or chocolate chip cookies — all of which were favored “staples” in my day.  It wasn’t long before the commercial companies swooped in and everything was store-bought and wrapped up tight.  Where had the fun gone, anyway?  Trick or Trust?

Interestingly, in a 2019 report by Adam Miller of CBC News: Razor blades, sewing needles, even poison – police forces across North America have reported cases of nefarious objects in treats for decades. But how many children have actually been seriously injured or died as a result? The answer – given the available data on the topic – seems to be not a single one.

As for the Tylenol scare?  Based on seven (yet unsolved) murders in the Chicago area in 1982, that frightening episode came more than a generation later.  Just in time to assure that every single pharmaceutical (or cleaning or cosmetic or…) product that could possibly be ingested is locked in its container so those with arthritic hands (those most in need of many of these very products) canNOT get into them without some sort of assistance.  Or a hammer.  Fear of Faith??

And today… we are facing election results that we’ve been primed to suspect.  For years (not days, not weeks not months, but YEARS!) we’ve been lambasted by the media with information about voter fraud, foreign intervention, intimidation at the polls etc. etc. ad nauseum.  All of which is exaggerated to the max because no longer is there an “election day” — a time to take pride in exercising one of our basic democratic rights.  Now, with Covid precautions and USPS paranoia, this election has become a month of mail-in votes and long lines at the polls and looking over shoulders for the protestors and rioters.   Responsible Reporting or Media Manipulation?

What have we come to?