{"id":298,"date":"2004-10-31T22:53:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-31T22:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=298"},"modified":"2004-10-31T22:53:00","modified_gmt":"2004-10-31T22:53:00","slug":"298","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=298","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Halloween night<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Halloween storm seems to be traditional in the Wet Mountains. The forecast calls for rain turning to snow. I finished digging up and separating the day lilies and then turned to Halloween preparation.<\/p>\n

As a little boy I lived some years on the outskirts of Rapid City, South Dakota. Our house was just a little too far a walk up the hill for trick-or-treaters, so we got very few. Nor did I get to go out much: I don’t remember why. When I was 10, we moved to suburban Denver, and for a couple of years I made up for lost time.<\/p>\n

Here in the foothills, we have all the atmosphere: spooky shadows, the leathery leaves of cottonwood trees clattering down by the creek, cool moonlight–but very few kids. One neighbor called to say that she and her husband were bringing their 5-year-old and some other kids. They’ll probably come by car, too, which to my mind really cuts down on the experience. (Maybe the neighbors will think the same way and come on the path through the field instead, but I doubt it.)<\/p>\n

Some people spend lots of money making their homes look scary for Halloween. I feel like my job is to make the place look less<\/em> scary. Are there too many bunches of drying plants hanging from the front porch roof? Are the stairs too creaky? (Can’t help that.) The dogs will have to be locked up, so they don’t go berserk when strangers arrive. And all the porch and under-stairs clutter of stacked flower pots, tomato cages, buckets, garbage cans of compost and manure–all I can do is superficially tidy it up. And then I can hang some candle lanterns, which M. thinks offer some sort of Halloween aesthetic effect.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a Catholic priest tries valiently<\/a> to reclaim Halloween. It’s about the Black Death, you see. Now that’s spooky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Halloween night A Halloween storm seems to be traditional in the Wet Mountains. The forecast calls for rain turning to snow. I finished digging up and separating the day lilies and then turned to Halloween preparation. As a little boy I lived some years on the outskirts of Rapid City, South Dakota. Our house was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-298","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3369,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3369","url_meta":{"origin":298,"position":0},"title":"Did You Contribute to the Halloween Economy?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It is worth more than $2 billion annually. Not really that big in the overall holiday picture, though. Halloween's haul was the smallest, accounting for a mere 2.6% of holiday spending. But for a few industries, October 31 is the night to shine. According to the National Confectioners Association, sweets-makers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1245,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1245","url_meta":{"origin":298,"position":1},"title":"Free-Range Kids Have a ‘Scary’ Halloween","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"One last Halloween post, and then I'll shut up.Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry speaks truth to power and rejects the nanny state on October 31.If you want to see something really scary on Halloween, come to my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0470471948","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3331,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3331","url_meta":{"origin":298,"position":2},"title":"A Parent’s Choice at Halloween","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"On one side, the \"Occupy Halloween\" movement, advocating for free-range trick-or-treaters, whose spokeswoman, Lenore Skenazy, reminds us that\u2014urban legends to the contrary\u2014no kid was ever deliberately poisoned by homemade candy. But that idea isn\u2019t just wrong, \u00a0it\u2019s corrosive. Start thinking of your nice neighbors as potential killers ONE day a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1846,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1846","url_meta":{"origin":298,"position":3},"title":"Today Show Goes Silly on Halloween","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's more than silly to Lenore Skenazy, who calls it the \"outrage of the week.\" She is the feisty author and blogger at Free-Range Kids. Anyone who has any contact with kids under 12 ought to be reading her. Imagine if the Today Show guidelines had been in place when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1246,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1246","url_meta":{"origin":298,"position":4},"title":"Organizing Halloween Ritual","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I said that I was not going to post any more Halloween items. I take that back. Here is one more. One decision we've made is to rebuff curious friends who ask to join our Halloween rituals. It seems like half the people I know want to be pagan on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13049,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13049","url_meta":{"origin":298,"position":5},"title":"The Creeping Triumph of Halloween","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 3, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I went into Pueblo, Colorado on the 1st for the usual biweekly shopping spree. The weather was sunny and hot \u2014 \"state fair weather\" is the local term for a hot break in the late-summer rains that bring the August mushroom flush. Halloween displays were in the stores. 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