Halloween

We used to turn out the lights and bring in the Pumpkin a bit after 8:00 PM, but this year I kept the operation going until 9:00. We had too much candy, I'm afraid.

Oops, just got three more.

We've noticed a lot of changes from twenty-some years or so ago when our kids were in the demographic. Fewer local elementary school age kids, for example - probably because the neighborhood has aged. Many more older kids, 11-16, who wouldn't have been caught dead trick or treating back when.

Our neighborhood has always gotten a sort of late surge, hordes of kids coming in vans, ten or twelve at a time, not sure from where. It's gotten smaller lately, and less concentrated - a van with five to seven kids instead of ten. Maybe the big vans, whom I sort of facetiously imagined being dispatched from candy stores in Juarez, have moved on to more lucrative neighborhoods. Or families and vans have just gotten smaller.

The costumes were pretty good this year. Several kids said they had gotten theirs from the internet.

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