So we did our thing for Halloween last night (or Hallowe’en if you want to be pedantic in an enormously stupid way, because who makes a contraction like that anyway?) and I have to tell you, we won’t ever stop doing this. I’m referring to All Hallow’s Read (or is it A’allo’ead?) where we give out books at Halloween. Not instead of candy, though from the reaction of the kids we could have easily, because The Girlfriend led off with the books and just about every kid was prepared to ignore me with the candy dish. The past few years were lean with the trick-or-treaters because of weather and COVID, and so we were trying to deplete our stockpile of books and gave out more than one on many occasions, but this year we had more kids than we’ve ever seen before and they all left happy, as did the parents – one dad in particular made it a point to come back and tell us how cool it was and that we were his daughter’s favorite house. This was great to hear, certainly, but we’d be happy with them getting books even without that. One girl seemed quite reluctant to pick one out, rejecting every offering, and we started to believe that we had a ‘vidscreen kid’ on our hands. Then The Girlfriend found the right choice and the girl’s face lit up – it just takes a little effort with some.
Each of them got a 3D printed bookmark too, as did any of the parents that thought they were cool. And several complimented the skeletons out front, so overall, a very nice night. Seriously, if you have the kids coming to your door, I cannot recommend enough getting into this habit; the parents may have to start traveling with a rolling cart for the book haul, and this is no bad thing.
The moon wasn’t out during all of this, unfortunately, but at least the rain held off, and while it was pretty chilly, that doesn’t slow the kids down (says the guy who used to trick-or-treat in NJ and NY, often with a winter jacket over or under his costume.) So I’ll leave you with the lovely pumpkin moon from sunrise on the 28th instead, rippled thoroughly with the atmospheric distortion from being so close to the horizon. You may also note a dark semi-distinct band extending halfway through from the top, which is in several frames in the same location, indicating that I had a hair adhering to the inside of the lens I believe – it was gone from the other shots of the day, after swapping lenses back and forth. But with that kind of distortion, I wasn’t going to get anything sharper than this.
Now get them books for next year – I’ll expect photo proof.