This is what happens when we have our Trick-or-Treat Night on an evening when nobody else around is having theirs: Lots o’ strangers showing up at our front porches, that’s what. Wowzah ! There were packs of ghosts’n’ goblins, dragons & dinosaurs, police and prisoners making their way up and down my street (It’s a great street for this sort of thing–sidewalks on both sides, some streetlights, not a whole lot of traffic [ though a few Gators & go-carts did make the scene], the Y is at one end and the GUMC right next to it, lots of lighted decorations of one sort or another [ the cow being transported upward by a UFO is a hoot], there’s a park where the beggars can stop to check out their loot if they need to.) And plenty of candy.
So, of course, everybody came. And I do mean everybody.
I spotted at least one trailer with kids on it coming down the street about halfway through the “Beggars Hours”; I think that somebody may have been trucking them in from PA. Everybody seemed to be pretty well-behaved; almost everyone managed to speak up and say “Thank you.”. This is good. Some of the little ones did not know what any of it was all about but they were cute and they liked the candy. Any costume with a tail was a challenge to maneuverability, ditto for oversized nails, claws, feet or fangs. Some of them I actually recognized–they…or their parents…had been to my house before–some of the others, I am pretty sure, had never been in town before.
I managed to remember to get cider & doughnuts this year (Last year, I forgot) but the throngs were such and thirsty enough that we finished off two-and-a-half dozen of the pastry offerings in less than an hour. Solved any leftover problems that I might have had. There was some candy left–not much, and it will go to my QuizBowl stash. Cider I can finish off on my own, thank you very much.
I never did get an actual count of the scaries, more than usual is just my best guess; maybe somebody else on the street has got a better estimate; right across the street treats were being shot out of the stair rail…while smoke blew off the porch; they were pretty busy too but had several individuals on cannon duty, maybe they counted.
Nice night. November coming up. Time change on tap.
