Having successfully slain a few dragons – not all by any means – Cecil Poole is now able to continue with his look at Halloween in the US.
Halloween House
Previously we looked at the ‘Trunk and Treat’ held mid afternoon at the local child care, lets see what else happens. There are in this town two aspects to the day, the local neighbourhood ‘Trick or Treat’ for the kids, generally pre-teenagers, then there is the party on Main Street where dress up costumes, laughter and noise rule.
In our neighbourhood nearly all of the houses are decorated with cobwebs, spiders, ghosts, pumpkins, witches and tombstones.
The neighbours all agree to a start and finish time – usually starting at dusk, finishing two hours later. At this time the children, often accompanied by even more eager (or is the odd case a reluctant) parent – usually the female partner – trick or treat as many houses as possible. These children and parents are dressed up as part of the trick. At the various houses the fathers, grandfathers, uncles and other hangers-on sit, sipping beer and distributing treats after being suitably ‘scared’. 
This arrangement, with skeletons, tombstones and other child deterrents allows the home owner to place the treats in the top of the chute (white storm water pipe) and slide them down to a bucket at pavement level. Thus the home owner is undisturbed on his porch. Our next door neighbour, the one with the ‘Cotton-Candy’ (Fairy Floss) machine set it up right out on the footpath. The queue was ten or more deep all night.
Costumes – well, see for yourself from this small sample
CREEPY OLD MAN
And the Creepiest of all:
