Halloween in my neighborhood

You're all going to think I'm exaggerating because it sounds a little like, "When I was young, I had to walk two miles uphill both ways to school," but Halloween in my house was crazy.

Don't get me wrong. We had a blast. My two brothers and I always had homemade halloween costumes. One year I was a lightening bug (made out of scratchy brown burlap) and our neighbor, the electrician, rigged up a cool blinking headpiece for me. Another year we picked up a huge cardboard box from the local appliance store and I made gigantic monarch wings out of it. I forgot to consider the wind factor though and almost was blown off a few porches that year while trick-or-treating. The only halloween costume I can remember either of my brothers wearing was when Greg went as a goblin and decided to flip his eyelids up the whole time we trick-or-treated. The neighbors thought he was insane.

We also carved pumpkins every year, or rather, we would draw the face we wanted our pumpkin to have, and during half time of the Packers' game, Dad would carve our designs. My crazy brother Greg again, not known for his patience, had to be driven to the emergency room two years in a row to get stitched up.

And I know you'll think I'm exaggerating, but the nearest house was a 7 minute walk up the steepest hill in the county - and that family never handed out candy! So it was literally a 10 minute walk before we could start the fun. It didn't last long though because back then, we only had a total of 12 neighbors up the hill and 2 down the hill. It wasn't even worth it to go down.

I think that's why my parents always bought alot of candy to hand out. No one ever came to ring our door, but they stocked up to be prepared - to fill our pumpkins when we came home nearly empty handed!

It might sound like a kid's worst Halloween nightmare, but like I said, we always had a blast and looked forward to Halloween coming every year.

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