And not one single episode of dog poop in a burning bag

Last night was Halloween which is always a fun time in our neighborhood. For the past two years my grandkids have come over and gone around our area so that's been really fun. Last year was their first Halloween ever and this year they could hardly wait.

Ed decided to dress up last year in all black. For some reason (probably better that I don't know) he has a Zorro cape and hat. So he donned these along with black pants and shirt, and put black (clean) nylons over his face. Then he sat on the bench on our front porch. As kids came up you could hear them asking, "Is that really a person or a statue?" If they were older kids, he'd wait until they got right to the door and then put out his hand and ask for candy. Lots of screaming! Of course, when Vika and Eamon came back from their rounds, he was sitting there very still. They saw him and ran up yelling, "Deydushka!!" Didn't fool them for a second.

When I was a kid Halloween was so different. (No, I didn't walk to school through the snow, thre miles, uphill.) Every house on the block was open and waiting. People baked cookies and made candy apples. One older woman (she was probably 50 at the time!) used to collect pennies all year and put them in a big jar. Then we could reach our sweaty little hands into the jar and take a handful of pennies. Of course, back then teenagers didn't go trick-or-treating so the pennies lasted all night.

The police officers would drive slowly through the streets and hand out whole bags of candy to us kids. I would take a grocery store shopping bag and fill it up at least three times. Each time it got full, I would run home and dump it in the middle of the table. It was a glorious mound of joy. My mom would say that she was just going to check it for dangerous things and throw out any unwrapped candy, dirty stuff, etc. Somehow, at the end of the night, I would have one big bowl of candy. That's it! Three huge shopping bags full of loot and I wind up with one bowl. It wasn't until I was an adult that I found out she was giving most of it back out to the kids who came to our door after her stash ran out. I mean, really!

But she did make me an angel costume when I was six. Complete with gold wings and a gold halo. I remember wearing it to school and being so proud of it. My daughter actually wore it once or twice, then it just fell apart from old age. Sadly I don't have any photos of that costume, but these are two of my favorites of Jenni and Joe at Halloween.

Hope you all had a fun evening.