Halloween 2011 on our street

The munchkins began knocking at our door before 6 p.m. on Monday. Not quite ready, my husband raced to the bedroom to finish dressing for the evening while I dropped candy into bags and baskets.
We turned on all the lights at the front of the house to invite the parade of kids in costume to come and share the 200 pieces of candy we had waiting for them. I figured that would be enough. We had had to be out of town last year, but the neighbors said they had handed out 150 bags before they had to turn off their lights.
Dragging his rocking chair outside to the end of the drive, my husband pulled out the encyclopedia of magic tricks that he has been studying lately. He snapped on a ball cap advertising the circus.
I like seeing the kids come trick or treating as much as he does, so I checked often to make sure he had plenty of candy in his basket.
He barely noticed when I came out with more candy. Surrounded by half a dozen children and their guardians, he was in his glory, “What do you say?”
“Please?” the littlest kid answered.
“No.”
“Trick or treat,” an older child piped up.
“You want a trick or a treat? All right, I will show you a magic trick,” he announced to their bewilderment. “I have been studying magic so I can join the circus,” he said, touching his hat.
“Now see this ordinary dime?” he held it upright between his thumb and forefinger.
“Now I am going to put it through my head. Watch,” he said and stuffed the coin into his right ear, tipped his head over, pounded his head, held his other hand under his ear and the coin appeared in that hand.
Astonished little ones wondered how he did that.
Sometimes he leaned forward and made a show of putting the coin into a child’s ear, “Now spit it out.”
Totally puzzled, the child would do a fake spit only to look down and discover the coin sitting in my husband’s open hand under their mouth.
One kid worked up the saliva and did a real spit – and still got a coin.
“Now I am going to do one more trick. I am going to make you disappear,” he declared.
“Yeah, do it!” they eagerly yelled.
He handed each child a piece of candy. “Now turn around. Now start walking down the driveway.”
They turned and walked. As they neared the dark end of the drive, he announced, “You are disappearing.” One boy returned, refusing a second helping of candy … he just wanted his dad to see the magic trick.
Most kids disappeared across the street to our neighbor’s drive lit with a path of plastic pumpkins and a well-lit display of scarecrows. Like us, they plan and prepare for the annual, spontaneous block party.
The accompanying adults laughed. Before one man left he asked, “How long does this go on?”
“Until the treats are gone,” my husband said.
For a couple of hours, my magician kept up his one-man show as the candy supply dwindled. Around 7:45 p.m., I looked in the basket, and I could see the bottom. I did not have any more candy, but cars still lined the street. I went inside, pulled out the big kettle and began popping up a bushel of popcorn to put in first paper and then plastic sacks.
By 8:10 p.m. I had made up four or five pans of popcorn and the last three of my stash of individual microwave popcorn bags I usually save for work. With only a handful of treats left, I began turning off lights.
The magician closed down his act, handed out a couple more bags, moved the furniture back into the house and negated any further ideas I might have for treats. “That’s enough. Turn out the lights.”
The streets still hummed with the sound of pick-up trucks, vans and hay wagons, but only one child ventured to ring the doorbell of our darkened door. Because I really do enjoy my annual evening of philanthropy, I found a treat for that child.
The next morning, I saw the lady across the street gathering up her row of plastic pumpkins. I walked over and asked her, “How many trick-or-treaters did you have this year?”
“Right at 300. I made up 120 bags of treats. I had a big bag of 85 treats and a bag of 100 suckers. We had a few suckers left, but they come in groups of 10 to 12 and we would not have had enough for everyone in a group. We really like doing it though – the kids are so cute in their costumes,” she smiled as she tucked the last plastic pumpkin into her hand.
As do we – once a year – for a couple hours.

(The cheap philanthropist, Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)


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