On Halloween night, just showing up is enough

I love Halloween. As a kid, I roamed for miles on Halloween and dragged home a pillowcase full of candy.

As an adult, I had to pull back a little. (Apparently it startles people to open their door and find a full-grown woman dressed as a zombie asking for Whoppers and a red wine refill.)

But then I had a kid, and Halloween was back.

We put up polystyrene headstones in the front yard, drape purple bat lights across the front windows and fake spider webs on the bushes.

Friends come over, and we sit in a line of lawn chairs out front.

Our kids, old enough that they’re not interested in trick-or-treating, though still interested in olive eyeballs and tiny candy bars, climb onto the roof with their provisions and air horns.

We don’t get all that many trick-or-treaters. (Maybe it’s the air horns.)

But the ghouls and goblins who brave the red-brick pathway through the fog hit a bonanza: a half-dozen families handing out candy at a single stop. Whoever shows up gets a treat. We pretend to fear the tiny vampires, ooh and ahh over the princesses and compliment the superheroes on their capes and manners.

We offer cocktails in to-go cups to moms and dads. (Payback for the days I walked these blocks and scored red wine refills.) Babies in strollers get Tootsie Rolls because the shelf life on those is forever. And when teenagers show up hours after the little ones, carrying plastic grocery bags and wearing lame costumes — or no costumes at all — they get candy, too.

Because they say “trick-or-treat” and “thank you” and answer my questions about what they want to study in college. One boy told me no one had ever asked him before.

They get a Junior Mints and Snickers because I figure they grow up fast enough as it is.