Halloween Part 1

I think I must be a Halloween grump.
I don’t have carved pumpkins by the front door; I don’t decorate my house with witches or tombstones. Spiders create all my cobwebs naturally.
I may have been traumatized by my first Halloween experience in US. We’d only been here a few weeks and on a visit to the bank to get cash (obviously pre-ATM days) a gorilla handed me the money!
Of course I recognized the teller’s voice, but I was scared of the hair and teeth. It was so far from the serious banking experience in UK, where the staidly dressed tellers sat behind grilles.
We were invited to a Halloween party once. I don’t enjoy dressing up so I just went as myself and painted my face with blue theatrical paint. I am, after all, a Pict and all I had to do was to clart myself with woad.
When we moved into the house, twenty years ago, I welcomed the children of our avenue and encouraged them to take candy from my basket. It was fun to guess who they were, underneath their costumes, but those children are now college students or newlyweds and all living elsewhere.
Now, I don’t know the children who come to the door and they don’t introduce themselves.
The wee ones come early in the evening and are sweet and cute. The creative young teens come later, but sometimes teens who are far too old to be knocking on doors for candy, come. They wear no costumes and are aggressive and greedy.
But I am a Halloween grump.
There will be a part 2. I might not be so grumpy then.