Halloween In The 'Hood

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

Halloween festivities in our neighborhood began on the night of Saturday, October 29, with a party hosted by one of our wonderful neighbors to which everybody on the block - that is, every grown-up body on the block - was invited.

It had been decades since I'd been to a Halloween party. I believe that last one I was at was one I threw for my children and their friends.

And so I was quite looking forward to this one.
For my costume I figured that I could get away with wearing one of my old piano recital dresses from back in the day when I used to do piano recitals,

...with a witch's hat.
But as I dragged my feet on seeking out a witch’s hat until Saturday morning – the day of the party and two days before Halloween – the Halloween section at Meijer’s was totally grazed over with only a few straggly items left on clearance, among them not a witch’s hat.
I did manage to find a sheriff’s hat, which I thought would make an oh-so-apropos costume for the Lieutenant Colonel (aka my mate Tom) to wear.

So I decided to top off my recital dress with a colorful scarf and call myself a sorceress.
(I realized, when I saw this picture that was taken of Tom and me, that I didn’t end up looking like a sorceress, but rather like a lady in black with a polka-dot headscarf. Tom, however, made a rather dashing sheriff, I thought).

My costume fail did not, however, keep our neighbors’ Halloween party from being a great success,

…with lots of yummy food provided by our hosts and potluck dishes brought by the guests.

I brought a tray of fresh-from-the oven ham and cheese rolls,

…and a batch of Rice Krispie treats that were supposed to be pumpkins with upside-down mini-Reeses cups for the stems.

My Rice Krispie treats looked as much like pumpkins as I looked like a sorceress.
The party was much enjoyed by all the neighbors and friends who came, many in terrific costumes.

And, though Tom and I left after a couple of hours, we heard the following day that the fun went on until 3 am.

Two nights later Halloween once again brought our neighborhood to life, this time with children.

Mayhaps because our street is the long artery through the heart of a dense housing subdivision off a busy thoroughfare, on Halloween night our street is always parked up with cars that come in from other places for, I suppose, the greener trick-or-treat pastures of our locality.