Happy Halloween Week

I hope you all have a wonderful week leading up to Halloween. It was my favorite holiday when I was a kid.

Growing up in a tiny town, I knew all of my neighbors. It was perfectly normal for them to call me by name when I arrived at their door, held out my jack-o-lantern basket, and said, "Trick or treat!"

My favorite house was that of my next-door neighbors, Ferris and Dorothy. Dorothy made colored and flavored popcorn balls every year, lovingly wrapped them in plastic wrap, and gave them to the kids who knocked on her door to treats. Although I've always loved chocolate, no candy could compare to Dorothy's popcorn balls.

Here in the Ozarks, you never really know what to expect from the weather on Halloween. There was one year when I was so excited to wear my Wonder Woman costume, and we had ice and snow. I cried and cried. I begged Mom to let me wear my costume, but she wasn't about to let me do that. However, she was sympathetic.

Being a clever mother, Mom drew white stars on a pair of my blue polyester pants. I should mention this happened in the 1970s, so polyester was a prevalent cloth. It was everywhere. The one redeeming quality of that stuff is the fact it is extremely warm. No wind gust could even think about penetrating those pants.

All of my neighbors were kind and smiled at my strange costume and plastic Wonder Woman mask. A few even told me how much they liked it, but I knew they were just being nice. I felt ridiculous.

Truthfully, I'm impressed Mom and Dad even allowed me to trick-or-treat that year. Given how cold and nasty it was, I'm certain they would have preferred to keep me at home. They would never let me miss out on Dorothy's Halloween popcorn balls, though.

Did you trick-or-treat as a child? What is your favorite Halloween memory?

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