My One Halloween Memory

Like most folks I have a few Christmas and Birthday memories. When it comes to Halloween I have just one and it still makes me smile when I reflect back on that day.

After renting apartments and parts of houses I had finally taken the plunge and purchased my first house. Along with that would come my first Halloween where I might get trick-or-treaters. I had no idea what to expect. The town had designated Sunday from 3PM till 5 or 6PM for trick-or-treating. In other words, right after the Packer game the kids would be out. I had purchased I believe 3 or 4 bags of candy.

Right on cue as the Packer game drew to a close I looked outside and it was like a Twilight Zone episode. Swarms and swarms of kids coming down the street. No way those few bags of candy were going to hold out for 2 or 3 hours. I could have gone down in the basement and waited it out. Instead I locked my door, hopped on my bike and handed out candy as I pedaled away from my house weaving in and out of the waves of trick-or-treaters.

I reached my destination, the city park down by the creek. Wait. A surprise. It's Bruce and look it's Carol and over there is Dan and Jeannie and more and more folks I knew. It was probably like a homeless camp. All these folks I knew had done the same thing; gone to hide in the park till trick-or-treating was over.

I still get a kick out of that. I remember as a kid we had neighbors that would hide in the dark of their house to avoid trick-or-treaters so I certainly wasn't the first and won't be the last to hide from little munchkins and gremlins.