trick or treat

Trick or Treat, alive and well in Galesburg, at least at the corner of Broad and Mary (in picture). Again, we got bags and bags of candy, and ran out.

During part of the hour, I drove around town on unrelated errands. Other neighborhoods were virtually empty. Some had a few scattered kids. One house that had a huge display - over a dozen balloons and statues - seemed to have plenty of kids. Maybe the whole neighborhood went there for its entertainment.

At Broad and Mary it was a madhouse. Cars came from all over and parked near the corner. It was also busy two blocks over, on Prairie. Between Mary and Losey there seemed to be several shows put on by the houses, with lots of kids milling around outside. It was definitely a festive atmosphere.

Our own approach was to get four or five bags of candy and give two to each kid; as I said, we ran out in a couple of hours. OK no problem, we did the best we could. We couldn't put on a whole show or out-candy the splashier neighbors. I'm not sure if the Losey-Osage-Mary set of houses is organized or not but it seemed to me they were "THE" place to be or at least one of the premier attractions of the evening. They were raking in the customers and the "likes."

We rarely have cars parked on Broad; tonight, there were cars all up and down Broad, and on all the side streets. One kid after another came up our walk, which is kind of overgrown, creepy, difficult to navigate. They were troopers. Many of them had been at it for a while. I don't know about the late-night crowd; we missed them.

And my 16-year-old came home with an entire bag. Whether it came out even or not, remains to be judged. These days, I suspect, we're handing out more than we're hauling in.