friday was halloween. anthony was a clown. alex was spiderman. and bella wore a self-made costume announcing herself as a star princess. our neighborhood is one of the lucky ones where halloween is still alive. we on average get about a hundred kids. this year marty stayed to dish out candy and i ushered our cadre onto the busy nighttime sidewalks.

in saint louis, the custom states that you must either do a trick or tell a joke before obtaining candy. these days enforcement of the rule varies from house to house but it is best to have something ready should the human with the candy bowl challenge your preparedness. not yet verbal enough, anthony did a trick. it was jumping up and down. sometimes he'd give people one big jump and sometimes he'd give them a flurry of quick bounces. either way it went the little blonde boy in a clown costume hopping for candy proved to be a crowd pleaser. one thing we didn't account for while practicing anthony's trick in the living room is that he'd often be doing his antic while on the top step of a short flight of cement or brick stairs. we had no catastrophes but it did raise the thrill-factor considerably. alex told a joke. his joke was, 'what did the baseball glove say to the baseball?' after people would say i don't know what the baseball glove said to the baseball alex would animatedly give the punch-line, 'catcha later!'. when giving the answer he had this great verbal peak on the backend which always won smiles. a couple of times he forgot the answer. on these doorsteps everyone would stand waiting and alex would be looking at the ground thinking hard. if somebody went to say something he'd hold up his hand and say, 'don't tell me, i know it' which also was grin-inducing. in addition to making her costume, bella also made up all of her jokes. some i can remember ... how do you compliment a cat? you tell her she's purrrfect. or, how do you compliment a cow? you tell him he's utterly awesome. bella left the boys and i in the dust about three houses in to run ahead with some of the neighbor girls so i'm not sure how well it went over but given the size of her haul, she didn't get turned away from too many doors.

the one oddity of the evening was a full-grown man dressed in a spot-on michael myers costume, mechanics jumpsuit and all. (clarification: this is the halloween movie guy and not the comedic austin powers guy). this lumbering, man wandered the neighborhood and was obviously alone. he did not go up to any doors, nor did he talk to anyone, nor did he carry a candy bag. he just roamed the sidewalks and would occasionally stand motionlessly staring at people from a distance. more than once i found him staring at me. i held his gaze from across the dark street until he'd become engulfed by kids and parents racing by or my own kids would beckon me to the next house. when i'd turn to look back he'd be gone. then i would see him several houses later again looking at me or at seemingly nothing. i overheard more than one mom say that someone should possibly call the police about him given his seeming lack of purpose or belonging. i didn't chime in but will say i wish one of them took the initiative. that guy was freaking my chili out.