Another reminder of the passing of time. Sigh.

It's Halloween.

I don't have to help anyone with their costume this year, not even to the point of taking them to the Party USA store to get fake swords.  I don't have to carve the pumpkin.  I don't even have to hand out candy. The kids will take care of those things.

I was planning to post a long rant about adults co-opting Halloween and making it all about parties where one dresses up like a hooker and gets drunk, but I realized that that might be seen as sour grapes from someone who simply had no party to go to.*

Over the years I have made some very good costumes.  One year in college, I went to a party as I-75. Really. I won the best individual costume; best group award was won by six people who went as the Golden Gate bridge. And no, we did not coordinate our costumes to have some sort of roadway theme.

For the kids, I have made devil costumes (the Red-Headed Menace went as a devil for four years straight -- and a disturbing number of adult friends said, "Yeah, that fits").  I have made hobo costumes.  A few years back, in the last significant costume year for me, both Railfan and the RHM were, at their request, Link from Legend of Zelda.

My best costume, though, was a costume I made for the Not-So-Little Drummer Boy, back when he was in third grade.  He went to school as a mummy: I had taken white sweats, and spent hours hot gluing strips of torn bedsheets in rows to them.  People were generally impressed; so much so that I thought I would simply keep it for the next year.  That would have worked, had I not accidentally gotten it mixed up with a load of whites, and washed it in hot water.  All that was left after the washer was through was a nicely clean pair of sweats and about twenty feet of inch and-a-half strips of bedsheets.

As much as I griped over the years about the stress of coming up with a great costume, I miss it.

I want my Halloween back.

*And yes, there is a fair amount of truth to that.