The times, they say, are changing.

They’re wrong. They changed a long time ago.

Evidence of that is all around in the lead up to — and on — what has become the No. 6 “holiday” per the National Retail Federation for consumer spending to the tune of $9 billion, Halloween.

Go back to the 1960s. For those born before presidential elections surpassed Halloween as the scariest day on the calendar, it was when the three most popular costumes were hobos, witches, and ghosts.

Hobos, of course, are the romanticized name given the homeless when we look in the rear view mirror.

The costume didn’t require a $50 plus per kid trip down to the Halloween Spirit store. You grabbed scruffy old clothes worn by boys or men, made use of your dad’s shoe polish to create a 5 o’clock shadow, and fashioned a makeshift knapsack using red handkerchief tied to a broom handle.

It was almost exclusively a boys’ costume.

Witches were more of the same except they were  for girls.

And even though the Wizard of Oz movie had been around for a few decades, all Halloween witches back then were ugly.

No girls were channeling risqué versions.

In fact, there wasn’t a hint of hyper-sexuality in any costume for kids.

There were also plenty of brooms available to complete the witch look without a single iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner in sight.

Hobos and witches were the deluxe customs. The barebones model was being a ghost. All it required was an old white bed sheet and a pair of scissors for those that preferred eyes.

It arguably was “the absolute most woke” costume of all time, even if it was before woke entered the vernacular.

You couldn’t tell whether the wearer was boy, girl, or whatever.

And if they were under 11 or so, uttering the phrase “trick or treat” often wouldn’t provide a defining clue.

Besides being unisex, it was also a one-size fits all costume.

The matching accessory for a ghost costume was a pillow case.

It was perfect for Halloween.

Yes, it was plain and uninspired. But boy, it was cheap and you could you carry a lot of candy in that pillow case.

Candy that you got the old-fashioned way. You went out, put the time in hitting the proverbial bricks, and knocked on doors.

There were the occasional school carnivals complete with bobbing for apples — a no go in today’s germaphobic world — plus small packs of candy cigarettes and bubblegum cigars for prizes, all courtesy of the PTA.

There wasn’t the proliferation, however, of trunk of treat events.

They didn’t happen until after the world went nuts by buying hook, line, and sinker into urban myths.

You know the drill. Drugs in candy. Razors in apples.

That is not to say how Halloween goes down now isn’t better.

Trunk or treating and such events are all strong community endeavors.

It’s just that on the one day when we treat fear as something we laugh at, we actually have given into it.

And it is no longer an event that brings the entire neighborhood together, save for a few killjoys that turn out every light in the house from dusk to 9 p.m. except for the glow of a black and white TV screen.

But I digress. This is about change. And boy, have we changed.

It isn’t just the fact smelly cheap plastic masks that were held by flimsy strings that typically snapped with a minute of putting them on have been replaced by rubberized masterpieces that cost what a typical monthly house mortgage payment was back in 1964.

Halloween is no longer focused 100 percent on the kids.

Peer pressure no longer makes it awkward for a tween or teen to wear costumes.

And many adults are often bigger fans of Halloween than kids.

What passed as scary for the most part on Halloween depended on one’s imagination.

A darkened, older house that was in disrepair.

Bone chilling night air made worse by flimsy costumes.

Rustling leaves and the skeleton of trees that have already lost them creating silhouettes against moon lite sky.

Common sounds amplified by the fact it was Halloween.

Now we have strings of orange Halloween lights hung along the edge of roofs, miles upon miles of fake spider webbing adorning yards, and 12-foot make believe skeletons for $299 from Home Depot.

As far as the “loot” today, you are more likely to get mini versions — or even regular sizes — of brand name candy.

Cheap wrapped penny candy of dubious origins went the way of the $9.99 oil change years ago.

As far as the one cent pieces of Bazooka bubble gum you might find them on eBay today selling for $15 apiece plus shipping although they would probably as chewable as a rock.

Of course older kids sometimes did a lot of mischievous things that on any other day of the year would be called for what it real was.

And unless you got caught in the act or someone had a real big mouth, there were never any consequences.

Now because social media is the center of an alternate universe, kids young and old can’t resist using smartphones to do something that is not too smart — videoing their mayhem and vandalism and then uploading it to the Internet.

Imagine someone doing today what an uncle and his friends did on Halloween in 1939.

They somehow managed to deposit a two-seater outhouse in the middle of the busiest intersection in Lincoln under cloak of darkness without being seen.

One assumes they embellished the story over the years.

But it was dutifully reported as the most challenging Halloween prank Lincoln Police dealt with that year in the next week’s newspaper.

Today, kids couldn’t get away with such a prank.

The reason is simple.

It is now in the DNA of teens to pose for a group selfie with their handiwork.

Do not misunderstand.

This is not a longing for Halloweens of yesteryear when 14-year old boys felt it was a rite of passage to buy a dozen eggs for 59 cents and damage vehicle paint with direct hits.

Things change.

Even Halloween.

—  This column is the opinion of Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Courier or 209 Multimedia. He may be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com