Is this a trick, or a safety treat?

Tonight is Halloween, when all the trick-or-treaters will pound (with their tiny feet) the pavements in search of candy. If Kailua resident Joy Gillan had her druthers, the second part of that statement wouldn’t be true.

Gillan has posted a website, usakidsvote.com, and a USAKidsVote Facebook page as her part in a national movement to leave the official Halloween where it is — Oct. 31 — but move trick-or-treating to the last Saturday of every October. It’s safer for the kids to hit the roads on a weekend, advocates say, rather than on a weeknight when people are rushing home at dusk.

And the weekend event allots more time for parents and kids to use their creativity on homemade costumes, she said, rather than buying the mass-produced kind.

This may not appeal to traditionalists, but she said the site will stay up to convert more people. Those already on board with Gillan will know where to find kindred Halloween spirits, online.

High hopes for Manoa at Manoa

The choice of gridiron by a California football ace named Manoa should come as no surprise: The University of Hawaii at Manoa.

David Manoa, a defensive end from Aragon High in San Mateo, Calif., has links to Hawaii: His father is a Kahuku High graduate whose family was raised in Laie, and his uncle, Penn State grad Tim Manoa, was a running back with the Cleveland Browns and Indianapolis Colts.

"He’s freakishly athletic," says Steve Sell, Manoa’s high school coach. "He could probably gain another 50 pounds and still be athletic. Hawaii is getting a great one." Let’s hope so.