Have a great Hallowe'en weekend

Once again, my neighborhood was a war scene. The difference this year is that we had 3 cops walking the streets trying to keep the teens from getting too psychotic. I had 30 pounds of candy... about 1000 pieces... and 32 microwave popcorns for well done original costumes. We started out giving 3 pieces per kid, then when the bucket was only half full it dropped to 2. When it was getting low we had to break out the household reserves and knock it down to one per kid. Approximately 450 kids drifted on by in a 90 minute period of time. At three points, I distinctly remember packs of kids 9 wide and 6-10 deep swarming up the driveway and knocking my straw bale walls over and trying to swarm the candy bowl. I had to yell at the crowds at least three times to back the fuck off... which never worked. When the packs swarmed like that, all light got blotted out. That seemed to ignite 1 in 6 to try and get away with something. I had to heavily swat at least 8 hands that were grabbing by the fistfull or trying to sneaky double and triple-dip. Tonks knew one of the cops. He hung out for 15 minutes. That gave us a certain measure of civility for a moment.

I had to make 2 trash runs this year to clean off the lawn and street. The major article this year was soda cans. It seems that one of the nearby neighbors was giving out Sprite and Coke as well as candy... which was begging for trouble. I think I picked up 15 of them. Candy wrappers, shaving cream, silly string cannisters, and discarded inferior candy were in the usual amounts.
 
Leslie said:
Wow. What shitty, ungrateful kids.
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On an individual basis they are mostly a pretty good group. Theres just something about a crowd scene that does something screwy with the human mind. Something primitive seems to swell up and all discipline dissolves as most people don't feel accountable for a 'group' act. It's just like the looting in the middle of a blackout or the aftermath of a natural disaster.
 
Now see, we probably got 120 kids over an hour, and it was well-mannered, calm, and fun. Where the fuck are these little shits' parents?
 
I was out in it, not home, but there was none of that here, not that I saw, anyway. Mind you, when I said I was worried about Zach going out on his own, it was exactly that pack mentality that concerned me. I wasn't worried about his safety, more that he'd end up arrested. But I gotta trust him sometime.
 
HomeLAN said:
Now see, we probably got 120 kids over an hour, and it was well-mannered, calm, and fun. Where the fuck are these little shits' parents?
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At no point were there less than 50 parents in sight on the street. Not many would come up the driveway with their kids. They mostly were swarming along the street with the other parents chatting it up and dodging cars. The little kids were not the problem though. It was everyone above the age of 10... the kids too old to be shadowed by mom and dad.

My trouble stems from setting up on the driveway to keep the kids from trampling the yard and vandalizing anything in reach. A doorway is a natural crowd control element, an open driveway is not. I need stronger walls arranged in such a way to funnel the kids into a natural wedge shape. I need to invest in sawhorses and barbed wire.
 
K62 said:
pfft,

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You're just too damn cute.

Anyways... all was calm in my neighbourhood. My oldest went out to the rich neighborhood and scored massive amounts of cavities.
 
i was writing a post and somehow.... it dissappeard :(

but no one cares about halloween here, almost no kids trick or treat. it sucks.
 
Here's Bishjr. :)

*ps. He looks chubby because of the t-shirt, sweatshirt and fall-coat underneath the suit. Wasn't a horribly cold night, but it was windy as all hell.
 
Hopefully, within a few days pictures from the halloween party I was at will get posted and I can show you my pirate costume. I found a stuffed parrot for $1 so I safety-pinned it to my shirt over my shoulder.
 
Leslie said:
Avery told me I should dress up as a mummy and then laughed his ass off.

:blank:
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:tomato: After all...It's funny coming from a child, but when it's repeated by an adult. :p
 
MrBishop said:
HL...does the trick or treatin' start that early??!? There's still light out!
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The parade starts at 5:30 sharp. Figure the parade, the pizza afterward, they hit the houses starting about 6:15.
 
HomeLAN said:
The parade starts at 5:30 sharp. Figure the parade, the pizza afterward, they hit the houses starting about 6:15.
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Parade? Damn but that sounds fun! Local people organize it or is it a mayoral thing?

We don't have a parade here...just semi-organized chaos. At least the cops are constantly making the rounds, mostly making sure that nobody's driving too fast down the neighbourhood's streets. Too many kids don't use reflective strips on their costumes and many costumes are made of dark fabric. Makes for a bad combination especially if the kids in question crisscross the streets instead of doing one side then the other.
 
Organized by the neighborhood Association, and runs right down my street. It's not a huge deal, runs from the circle up to my house, so a quarter mile max. Lots o' kids, dogs, wagon-pulling parents, etc. It is a lot of fun. Ends next door, so we get HAMMERED by trick-or-treaters as soon as the pizza's gone.

No cops in my hood - we don't need 'em. About 1/2 of the residents have kids and are therefore careful on Haloween, and most of the other half are retired - they don't go anywhere after dark. Our only potential issue is that since we have a nice atmosphere for Halloween, a lot of folks in surrounding apartment complexes drive on over. In past years, that's been a borderline menace, but it was cool this year.
 
We have too many long and straight roads in my area. Lots of people speeding along, some of them don't live in the area. A few times/week...there's a cop car parked across from my house fishing for people who burn through the stop sign on the corner of my street. We also get drag-racing that happens not very far from here, and the occasional fast-speed chase. You figure that living across the street from a High School, like I do, would almost guarantee safer driving practices but that's not the case :(

Hell, even the jumbo 3-pack of speed bumps 2 streets over still claim the underside of someone's car at least once per month. I like to walk over there and pick up the odd muffler, hubcap and the occasional drive-shaft that gets sheared off :D
 
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