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I love Halloween. I love handing out candy, seeing all the great costumes and talking with parents. I even keep up with trends.
_For a few years there, you never saw smaller children without their parents. I noticed this year less parents as they stayed in the cars. What few adults I did see mostly stayed along the edge of the road. I realize adults are tired but its still a good ideal to stay close to your children. If nothing else, you can grab their hand and hold them back to keep them from darting back out in the road. Not to mention when I was taking my daughter trick or treating, I liked to visually check out the people who were giving out the treats. I could usually remember which house gave out what treat. People nowadays tend to treat at houses they know which is a good ideal but I saw quite a few I did not know so obviously not everyone was following that ideal.
_I noticed this year no flashlights much. A few adults carried them is all. When I was a kid you could buy these orange cones that fit over the end of a flashllight and lit the area in front of you. (Then again, when I was a kid, flashlights were made of all metal, and made in USA.} This was the stuff in my book because as well as looking Halloweeny when you dropped your candy you had a way of finding it in the dark. Not to mention approaching traffic could see you. I did see glow sticks. They help you to be seen but not see where you are going.
_Reflective tape has dissappeared. God I hate that, because as well as flashlights, reflective tape helps children be seen. Only one costume had reflective tape this year. He was dressed as a fireman. His partner was a policeman. I didn't realize he had a partner in the dark until the dark blue police uniform stepped on the porch. All I could see was the reflective tape from the fireman. In every town I have passed thru, police have vests with reflective tape just like firemen so where was this guy's tape?
_Stores and the news said Micheal Jackson costumes were popular this year but I only saw one MJ costume. Speaking of costumes, the best costume I saw was a 1 year old wearing a blue cow costume. Her older brother, 2 years old was wearing pooh bear, which is a timeless favorite in my book. I thought they were home made costumes but the mom said they were from Wal-Mart. The best adult costume was a dad dressed in drag. The hooker dress, army boots, and real looking wig. {Army boots?!??} I didn't know he was a dad until I got a good look at his face. The beard was a dead give away.
_This year our local hospital did not X-ray treats. They used to do that around here looking for hidden objects. There was a big scare around here a few years back with someone saying there were broken razorblades found in children's apples, and tainted candy. It was a Halloween hoax and a scare story but a terrible one to be sure. A good many shook up parents wanted their children's treats checked out. This is why our hospital did that.
_There was a time was when my mom was the only one I knew of that was fixing treat bags. She would put 4 or 5 little treats in each bag and we put a little sticker on the outside of the bag. We still do that. This year I noticed 2 or 3 other treat bags. One very fancy type bag indeed that kept showing up. One upmanship I suppose. Mom always used brown paper bags. Mom did it to be sure she was giving out the same amount of treats to each person.
_I guess this year's highlights besides the drag queen dad was 2 clown cars. I call them that because so many people come climbing out. One Volvo station wagon had 8 kids and 2 adults. Not to be outdone, a Jeep Liberty had 9 kids and 2 adults. It was quite a chore getting the kids out and back in. Then of all the oversized vans that came thru, I saw one or 2 kids get out of each of those. One of mom's neighbors came thru in a golf cart. It was raining most of the night so I bet that was some ride. One neighbor had a chainsaw and started it up every time he had a trick or treater. That got really annoying as the night wore on. I am glad he didn't get many. A couple years I saw big trucks with hay piled on the bed and kids riding on back. I have seen tractors pulling trailers with hay and kids as well. The rain stopped that this year I am sure. It would seem to me those behemoth vans would be the ticket for carrying kids out to trick or treat but of all the ones I saw, none had more than 2 kids.
_The weather had everyone turning out their lights by 8:30 and mom followed suit so I went back over to my house and noticed the fire department handing out treats and giving information about "learning not to burn" which they do every year. The fire department usually keeps up shop until 9PM.
_It was still a good year with 113 trick or treaters. Sometimes we get more, sometimes less. I am always sad to see it end. But I learned a trick or two myself so next year might be a little more interesting. You can bet I won't have a chain saw however. :P
