One for you, Two for me

Bill and Ron creepify their front yard

For this years Halloween I volunteered to help out in the distribution of candy to the neighbourhood kids. I thought I'd be hard nosed with the attitude "No costume, No candy!" but in the end most of the kids were dressed up as something so I really didn't have to come down on some poor teary eyed kid. Plus what if the child came from a poor family that couldn't afford a costume? Yeah, that would go over well.... plus they'd know where I live.


Jack and Sponge Bob as carved pumpkins


Heather, the next door neighbour, gives kids treats

I made sure the store bought candy was stuff I would eat. In fact there were times I thought I'd just turn off the lights, lock the doors and hide behind the couch eating my stash of gummi berries, tootsie rolls, and aero bars. "Get your own jobs and candy you costumed free loaders!" but then I'd remember the times as a kid I'd get those hard orange and black wrapped candies that everyone wanted to trade you for so they could get anything else. Those things sucked.

You didn't have a lot of options as a kid. The bags of candies we'd score and sift through was a big deal for my cousin Bryce and I. Trading the stuff we didn't want for stuff we did want. It was like a commerce of candy that would last for a month or so with the other school kids. I even remember trading a bunch of rockets (those small colored tablets of sugar) for a comic book. Poor sucker. I'm sure karma has come back to bite me in the ass since then.

As for those orange and black wrapped candies, I'm not sure what they were made of or how old they were. I knew that if you threw them at someone it would hurt and biting into them was out of the question. I seem to recall geting my teeth stuck in them thinking that I might loose some teeth just by opening my jaw. Giving that candy to old people with dentures might be funny. "Let's see your denture adhesive work now!" Evil, but funny and again there's the karma thing coming back to kick you in the ass.

Kind of like the Christmas fruit cake that makes it's yearly return, these nasty hard candies were probably made in the sixties and recycled every year since then by a bunch of candy bastards that hated kids. I was not going to be clumped into that category. So no hard orange and black candies for the kids on my street.


Bill and Ron's Jack O Lantern

I never actually found those things this year. Perhaps the company that made them (I think it was Allan's) got wind of them being used as projectiles rather than food and stopped making them for Halloween safety. Whatever the case may be kids today can rest safely knowing that these candies aren't on the streets.


Hilary as Bacon


The backyard Halloween party