“Don’t Talk to Strangers”: Hostility or Hospitality?

Laura VanDyke Thoughts for the Week

Every year during the flurry of Halloween preparations, it strikes me how unusual this event is. For one night of the year, people open their homes to strangers, cheerfully welcoming them with candy and a type of hospitality that is almost extinct in today’s world. Children, who have had the maxim “don’t talk to strangers” drilled into them by well-intentioned …