THE MORNING AFTER! The candy haul is in, gourds need to be bagged and disposed of, and for those unpopular neighbors trees and lawns have been decorated in long white streamers. Halloween is over, and those post-scary-night blues are starting to hit you.

Some words of advice, get up an hour or two earlier. If anything has been egged, you want to fill a bucket up with hot water, soap, and sponge, and get to work cleaning that stuff up. Raw egg can harden into a terribly hard veneer that can be almost impossible to clean off cars and house siding if not caught early. Also, this will give you some “lead time” to clean up any broken pumpkins, discarded beer cans, TP’d trees, etc. before the sun finishes rising.

What to do with that extra candy you did not give out? Don’t tempt yourself. Stuff it into a bag and toss it onto the counter at your workplace… or your spouse’s workplace. It will put a smile on co-workers’ faces, and will help you to not become a type-II Diabetic!

Halloween is over… time to leave it behind you and get to work on that Thanksgiving Turkey-Stuffing Recipe that never seems to turn out as well as you always hope it will!

After Halloween

by Michael H. Hanson

The Jack-O-Lanterns have gone out,

their candle souls extinguished,

porch scarecrows sit and sadly pout

now that Halloween has finished.

The trees weep long white paper tears,

wrappers drift like small tumbleweeds,

the rising sun dissipates fears

of teenage ghouls and their misdeeds.

The skins of monster, creep, and ghost

have all been shed until next year

and trick or treat scavengers boast

of the sweet treasures they hold dear.

The spirit of macabre delight

slowly begins to hibernate

until the next All Hallow’s night

when creatures once again migrate.

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See you next year!