The next day, it was back to Deal$, where I purchased $5 worth of paper Halloween bags with Happy Halloween and Trick or Treat printed on them in orange and green ink, a dozen smaller plastic pumpkin buckets, four packages of Halloween confetti (bats, cats, ghosts, skulls and such; each bag came with a free pack of Halloween glitter), a few packs of giant Halloween stickers, a few glow sticks and a box of aluminum foil sheets. The previous night, I’d painted the buckets with the black enamel paint, adding large pumpkin faces to each bucket and using the orange fabric tape to cover up some misprinted text. The tape wasn’t exactly the same color as the buckets, but those Halloween stickers were quite handy in covering things up when needed.

I dumped a bag of confetti and glitter in each bucket, then cut open four of the huge bags of mixed candy and poured the entire bags into one bucket. Then I started sorting the candy by type. Hard candy in one bucket, chocolate in another, gummy candy and small boxes of miscellaneous treats went to a third bucket. The funny thing was, there were also small sealed bags of mixed candy corn, a few rolls of Necco wafers, a lot of Smarties and (EEK!) a few sealed bags of Circus Peanuts. Those went into bucket four (the Trick bucket). Then I opened up a package of the paper bags and filled about 20 or each with a mix of every type of candy so when a bag was handed out, each person was guaranteed a little of everything. The small pumpkins were for carrying six bags each and I brought two buckets (one small, one large) to the security booth in the Oval to show to the guards on duty that afternoon.

Everything was approved, but one of the guards told me my skull mask was a bit too scary (boo!), so I pulled out one cute alternate I’d brought and got a thumbs up from him. Another more senior guard told me to just wear whatever I felt like (I’d planned to bring both masks anyway) and to just have fun. The next few days before Halloween was just me deciding what to wear and when to show up. The final outfit was a heavy orange sweater with an orange sweatshirt underneath, black sweatpants and a pair of black Chuck Taylors, plus the two masks, one of which was stored in one of the large buckets. As far as those buckets went, a few of the aluminum foil sheets went into two of the large buckets along with a few glow sticks. I’d remixed the candy selection to be a mix of everything, stuck a few sheets of foil in the bottom on top of the confetti, crinkled the foil a bit and put a few glow sticks in the bottom of the buckets so when it was getting darker, I’d use the glow sticks to give off a little extra light. The crinkled foil made for a nice effect.

Halloween was the next day and I decided to head out around 1:30 PM with two big buckets of mixed candy, some loose paper bags and four smaller bag-filled buckets. The plan was to hand out filled bags and hand out empty bags to those who wanted to take a chance at picking their own goodies. I lived about three minutes away, so if I needed a bathroom break or to get more treats, it was a short walk to get home. When I got to the park, one of the security guards told me I was a bit too early, but I told him we’ll see what happens as it happens. There were smaller pumpkins loaded with paper bags of candy all set to be grabbed from a table when I returned home for a break.

I still remember my first “customers”. At about 1:45 or so, A dad pushing his daughter in a kid-sized wheelchair walked up to me. He wore a harness with a toddler securely strapped in. The younger child was fast asleep. “Is that candy free?” he asked. “The freest!” I responded. The security guard gave me a thumbs up (He was munching away on a bag of candy I’d given him earlier) and nodded as I handed the dad two bags of candy to inspect. He want through both bags and said “Okay, this looks fine.”, before handing one bag to his daughter in the wheelchair. She wore a pink sweater under a small puffy jacket, pink tights with big stars on them and was holding onto a plastic wand of some sort. When she got the candy, she smiled broadly and said a quiet “Thank You.”. I smiled back, leaned forward a bit to ask her name and then, *BOOP!*, she reached out and conked me on the head with the plastic wand she was holding. “Trick or Treat!” she laughed. Her dad laughed as well, as did I.

Dad then asked if I could give him an extra bag for his son, who was arriving via school bus about a half hour later, and of course, I did. I also asked if he wanted to grab a bag of candy for himself, but he declined, saying he’d swipe a little from the other bags. A few minutes later, a person dressed as a clown arrived and joined me. The security guards all knew her well and introduced us. The clown wore blue overalls with multicolored stripes, a blue shirt with stars, a blue fuzzy jacket and a huge blonde Afro wig. The first thing she did after shaking my hand was mime a big sneeze and gold colored confetti flew out of the wig, landing all over the place. “Does that every year” One of the guards said, laughing. “Oh, the team from Maintenance just loves November the first” another guard joked.

(To be concluded… next time)

-GW