Only 30 days til Halloween

Halloween in my house circa 1960: Every year my dad would get in the kitchen to cook some weird concoction which we had to eat before we were allowed to go Trick Or Treating. In retrospect, it probably wasn't all that weird, it was likely some kind of stew. We were used to my mother's bland style of cooking and anything out of her short repertoire of recipes seemed "weird" to us. There we sat at the dining room table, shoving things around on our plates, hoping beyond hope that mom would say, "OK you're done". Then Ding-Dong, "Trick Or Treat!" Aaack, the other neighborhood kids were already out collecting their goodies. A few more bites and we were on our way. We carried big brown grocery bags to haul our loot. Back then, we were able to go without an adult, and go we did. My brother who is 5 years younger than me, was in tow. We ran as fast as we could from house to house and I can barely remember any Halloween nights that it wasn't raining. And hot. We always came home all sweaty with a ginormous stash and our bags were soaking wet. Mom immediately pulled out all of the bubblegum. We weren't allowed to chew it. Does that even make sense?! No gum, but all the candy we could stuff in our face. Our dentist loved us.
To be perfectly honest, I can't even remember what costumes we wore, all I can remember is how much fun we had. It was a happy time in our neighborhood. We had lots of children our ages to hang out with and we were all innocent enough to enjoy Halloween for what it is meant to be: a happy, silly, care-free day to dress up and get all the candy you'd need until the next candy holiday. Happy Halloween.
...and, No, those are not my dogs, I don't even have a dog. But I can guarantee you that if I had one it would have a costume.