All Hallow's blog.

One thing I'll say about Halloween. It gets people out of their houses, here in the suburbs. That isn't a bad thing, especially for the kids. Which is my operative opinion about Halloween, anyway -- for the kids. So if you're an adult, a grown human being, still dressing up on Halloween, knock it off.

There's a soapbox I feel comfortable on: Adults should act like adults.

On the other hand, my ideas about adult behavior are fairly broad. Halloween costumes didn't happen to make the cut. That may be because there was a clear line between the last year I went trick-or-treating and the first year I didn't. When I was in the 7th grade, I remember discussing, the day after Halloween, the previous night with some friends. We had all trick-or-treated in our different neighborhoods. At some point in the discussion, a couple of them broached elaborate ideas about what they were going to wear the next year.

Then it hit me -- though I didn’t say anything -- that there wasn't going to be a next year. We were done with it. Trick-or-treating was for kids, and by 8th grade, we wouldn't want to do something so childish. It turned out I was right.

Of course, things have changed in the 30 years since I made that judgment. Now I see high school kids at the door every year. When I was in high school, that would have been sure to evoke from some of the households, "Aren’t you a little old for this?"