I'm Halloweeny

I have great fun getting ready for Halloween. I love to prepare lawn displays, well in advance. I make all kinds of junk for Halloween. (One thing I have planned to make for years is a squashed up witch with broom smashed against my chimney where she obviously wasn't looking where she was going. I didn't get it made this year either) I have a two wheeled cart filled with straw and a bunch of the silliest hay-riders you ever saw (pulled by a couple of mini-scare-crows and guided by a traditional lawn jockey wearing a mask and carrying a lighted jack o lantern.)

There is one problem about Halloween that is almost the same as the problem about Easter. On the day after the holiday there are vast amounts of chocolate for sale in the stores for almost nothing. The day following the holiday always gives me such a sugar rush. I promise myself I am not going to buy this stuff and eat it this years. I lie a lot when talking to myself.

I was wandering through the Wal-Mart Halloween section and found another thing that was a bit disturbing. As a walked through the costume section there was about a ten foot segment of costumes for pre-teen girls that looked that a catalog or wish book for pedophiles. Many of the costumes seemed totally appropriate for college women but totally inappropriate for pre-teen girls.

I walked on quickly and admired the full length talking witch and tuxedo clad skeleton with lighted eyes that had a movement sensor so that anyone passing by would be chatted with in Monster tones. (At just under a hundred bucks a piece, I was not tempted, but I thought they were fun)

All the Halloween stuff is getting crowded out by Christmas, which gives me the HO HO's because I like Christmas too, and the Halloween stuff should be half price by the end of the week. I can buy more spooky stuff, and maybe a really elaborate make to wear when greeting the trick or treaters.

As a an early teen-ager I was a pretty evil trick or treater myself. We were often (I was not, of course, alone) serious about the trick deal for those who were not generous. We sometimes--- I am going to change this and not admit a thing-- I heard of kids that sometimes moved outhouses (not available any more) a few feet backward so that the unwary might stumble in, others would take a paper bag, insert a shovel full of outhouse contents into it, place it in front of a door set it on fire and ring the doorbell, running off into the distance to watch the householder come to the door, see the paper bag on fire, and stomp on it. (truly yucky, I am ashamed of those who did such a thing).

One of the milder "tricks" involved taking an old wooden thread spool, cutting notches in the edges, the putting a pencil through the center hole and wrapping the spool with string, placing the thing against a window and pulling the string. If I haven't described it well enough, it would make a really ugly noise, without damaging the window.

Of course for the timid delinquent, just soaping a window or two would satisfy. (the truly naughty would sometime use paraffin wax which was really hard to remove)

Of course, all of these who did such things eventually became gangsters and spent their lives in and out of jail, but not those who just heard of such things happening and reported them on blogs.