What is Your Fondest Halloween Memory?

I was laying in bed last night thinking about the fondest Halloween memory that I had.

It was when I was young. Can't remember sure how young, somewhere between 9 and when you stop trick or treating. (I guess some never will stop trick or treating, but I felt like I had to go with the pack back then.) I was young enough to be still trick or treating.

It was back in the day where I was scared to go trick or treating because if you ran into the "bad boys" of the neighborhood, there was a really good possibility you would get egged for sure!

For those not in the know, egging is when someone throws an egg at you and you're a mess.

Lot's of houses would get egged at that time of year. Or least the houses that the bad boys didn't like. Unless you were cool, then they would leave you alone. I wasn't "cool" but I knew who to be friends with, at least a little bit.

Ok, back on track.

This is back when I lived in Houston. The weather would be fairly warm. No jacket was needed for Halloween. You could be out all night and not worried about getting too cold.

This was when majority of the houses would have their lights on. Almost every door would have candy to give to the trick or treat'ers.

There was this one house near the end of street where I lived that when you got to their door, you would go in. Now I know that's is a HUGH NO NO now but then, things were simpler to some degree. It was a time when there were the 'razor blades in apples' scares but these people I knew of from the church that I went to.

Anyway, when you go inside the first thing that would hit you was the air smelt like cinnamon. Looking around you would see some Halloween decorations on the walls. Mostly the paper pictures of witches and ghosts or black cats.

You would look over to the right along the wall. There would be this huge spread on the table. Punch in a glass punch bowl, hot chocolate, cookies neatly lined in a tray, caramel apples, popcorn balls in saran wrap with ribbons tied on them and, of course, the cornucopia of Halloween feasts, the CANDY BOWL. Grab at your will!

You'd go in there and knew you were spending time!

We would eat and drink as much as we could handle but we knew there were lots more houses that had to be treated!!

This memory wasn't anything extreme, I know. It brought a smile to my face. Just a nice warm feeling.

How Many Haunted Houses?

How many haunted houses do you visit each year?

I remember one year my daughter, Amber, was still in school, not sure if she was in high school or in middle school. I told her that she could be bring a friend. Amber brought her friend, Shanna. We drove all over town checking out haunts. I believe we probably saw about 5 haunts that night.

There was a couple inside a mall. One was outside in a strip shopping center. One was near a racetrack. One was out in a farm like yard. I believe I got them all.

I can't remember all the details of all the haunts. There's just a few things that I really recall. I do remember when I went through the haunts that when I got back to the car, I would write down all the really cool stuff that I saw inside that haunt.

Inside one haunt, there was a person that looked like they didn't have a bottom half of their body. They had this person up high and in back of a room so that the guests couldn't mess with her. I remember stopping, staring and wondering, "how in the world was that done?" My daughter would just say "hurry up MOM!!" She was scared and wanted me to go but I couldn't help myself and had to look. I know now how it was done but back then... it was amazing (still is actually).

There was another haunt that had all this fog and you felt like you were walking through a swamp. All gurgle-ly and murky sounding with the cricket sounds and "plant life" around you. The scare-actors would hide behind the walls and get your feet as you walked by. That was pretty cool because you always expect someone to jump out in front of you so you don't think about your feet all the time.

The haunt that was outside in a farm like setting. I really liked that. You wandered around their yard on a path. They had a wagon with their skeletons in it. I can't remember some of the other stuff but then you get to a small building. You had to go up some stairs and there were a few scares in that and then back outside. I loved the outside part but it gets really cold here in October (sometimes, not this past year though) and outside could get pretty miserable. But the adrenaline was pumping pretty decent so you don't think about it too much.

Another one in the strip shopping center had a TV playing for the people in line to watch. It was the original 13 Ghosts!! I saw that when I was younger. It was one of the first scary movies that I can recall. I was ohhhhhh about 8 or 9 then. (Oops, did I just date myself?) Anyway, funny how that's what I really recall from that haunt.

The best part, I also remember between haunts that the girls would be asleep in the back seat. Even though they were tired they still trudged on!