Dade Sheriff's Office detective Cyndi Thurman, left, and office manage Carolyn Bradford Lane pose with Jake Harris, proud possessor of a Willie Wonka Golden Ticket, which entitled recipients to enter a special room stuffed with goodies including a chocolate fountain.
If you want kids to learn, give them books. If you want 'em to show up, provide chocolate.
That seems to be the lesson to be learned from the Dade County Public Library's annual Halloween trick-or-treat blowout on Saturday. The theme this year was Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory, and an estimated 1300 kids showed up.
In tribute to Roald Dahl's original plot in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the youth novel on which the subsequent movies were based, the library's treats included 50 hidden "Golden Tickets." These entitled recipients to enter a special room, closed to the general public and guarded by Dade County's Finest, which was jam-packed with extra goodies and in which the 1971 Willie Wonka film was playing. Library employee April Tinker said Tuesday about 26, or just over half, the golden tickets were found redeemed, but she said the treats did not go to waste.
(Depletion of said treats should not, BTW, in any way be attributed to The Planet's rotation through the special room, apart from perhaps one stolen Hershey's Kiss and a nominal sampling of the chocolate fountain. The thing was not for looks, after all, or being saved for Christmas. And in any case the goods were closely guarded by two Dade Sheriff's Office employees, themselves so successfully costumed they could have knocked over the Bank of Dade and no one would have been the wiser.)
Anyway, there were so many trick-or-treat stations throughout the library that no kid got out of there without a sugar high, golden card or no golden card.
It's almost a tradition that the weather never cooperates with Halloween event organizers, so that it would have been almost disappointing if it hadn't rained cats and dogs all Saturday morning. Almost.
One way or the other, the skies cleared grudgingly in
the afternoon and the trick-or-treat booths set up by the Dade Chamber of Commerce and various sponsoring
businesses were able to dispense candy as planned though the air was clammy and the clouds sinister.
Sunday was one of those breathtakingly beautiful golden October days, which may have seemed a bitter irony to cold and damp trick-or-treat organizers but which came in handy for the Trenton Police Department's annual motorcycle ride that day. The TPD uses the event to raise funds for its Silver Bells Christmas initiative for the elderly.
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