Happy Halloweeners!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Halloween always brings back memories of trick or treating as a child. I lived in a little town, so a friend and I would see how many doorbells we could manage to ring in our allotted amount of time. I never put much planning into Halloween outfits. Usually my mother would drag some stuff out of the closet and make us up at the last minute. No store bought outfits! Except now I'm looking at my brother in that one black and white picture and he's in a store bought outfit? No fair! I'm in a pair of old workman's coveralls with a nylon pulled over my head? I guess that was my mother's surefire fallback for making me look scary, but Craig wonders if she wasn't pointing me towards janitorial work. Ha! Maybe I didn't want to be a ballerina or Cinderella?

Anyway, my friend and I would run from one end of town to the other, always managing to call on some elderly folks who had no clue it was Halloween. They'd usually donate a rotten apple to each of our bags and we didn't appreciate that at the time. Now I feel bad that I took their food. A little lady across the street made her famous pecan pralines for Halloween, and another neighbor always gave popcorn balls. I really didn't have much appreciation for the homemade. I just wanted the real stuff! Candy bars!

Most of our son's trick-or-treating years were spent in the Seattle area. It usually rained on Halloween, so the designated parent had to walk along with a coat and umbrella. Kids were into the cheap vinyl superhero outfits at that time. That's him in the Batman, Spiderman, and Mr. T outfits in the slideshow.

We'll be hanging close to home this Halloween, manning the door and doling out treats to all the little ghouls!