Once upon a Halloween...

These days, I try to spend Halloween with my friends. They live in a great neighborhood, and the parents and kids there get together for pizza (and beer) and then head out for group trick-or-treating (with a wagon holding an ice chest of beer). We walk for a few hours, watch the kids do their thing, visit, it's a whole lot of fun. Plus, I don't have to give out candy at my house. So much pressure to do that. Have to have enough candy, don't want to give out too much, don't want to give out too little. I either run out or have too much left, so now I just go to someone elses house. No pressure!

When I was a kid, we lived in the boondocks. Seven miles from one town, three from another. No neighbors, certainly no trick-or-treaters. We would "go into town" for trick or treating. Everyone went to all the same houses, as it was a small town, and we'd compare what we got where. There were always the relatives that gave us special stuff, or the nice old lady who made us candy apples or popcorn balls. I was never allowed to eat one (razor blade scare of the 70's), but it was so great to get the "special" stuff.

One year, I think I was in the sixth grade, my folks got this amazing idea (they always had great, amazing ideas). Dad brought home a pumpkin on steroids, stood a good three feet tall. He painstakingly carved the scary face. He then rigged up a light that was wired into the top, and down into the cigarette lighter of the car. "Jack" sat on top of the car. Testing was fun, we'd shut off all the lights and plug in the cigarette lighter. He lit up big, bright, and very scary, especially in total darkness with no street lights or city lights.

Mom's job was the music. We had (still do somewhere) the original "Haunted House" record. Yes, RECORD, round black thing that needs a needle and speakers... She put my little tape recorder next to the record player and recorded all the scary sounds and music.

Halloween arrived. We kids piled in the car, oddly enough an orange Malibu, same color as the pumpkin. We went into town. We didn't really get much candy that year, because it was more fun to ride in the car, up and down the streets, lights off, sneaking up on unsuspecting trick-or-treaters...

We'd see them. We'd drive up, then WHAM! Lights, music, screaming, running of children down streets, it was fabulous. We scared about every kid in town that year, and a few adults and drunk teenagers. I think my parents had way more fun than we did, dad driving along at a snails pace plugging in the pumpkin, mom hanging out the window with the tape recorder...