The morning after…candy wrappers strewn about, healthy granola treats angrily stomped into the carpet, a comatose child lying face down in a tattered costume with a sticky hand clutching the remainder of the bounty. A once proud jack-o-lantern looks on wearily as the last remnants of candlelight light flickers through its drooping sneer and dreary triangular eyes.

The entire scene reminds me of several college parties I “heard” about during my lengthy undergraduate career. The candy wrappers replaced with bottles and cans and a comatose individual of legal drinking age, of course, lying face down in tattered $90 jeans clutching a garbage pail. A once proud host looks on wearily as the last remnants of his apartment deposit flickers away through droopy blinds and a triangular hole in the wall.

The similarities are frightening.

I hope you had an enjoyable Halloween and got your fill of Almond Joys, Mounds, Dark Chocolate, and all the other candy that children find repulsive. You of course also have to eat anything suspicious or questionable looking. Putting your life on the line for your child is yet another adult duty on Halloween. I don’t know how many times Grandpa Ardell saved my life.

My daughter loves Halloween and claims it as her favorite holiday. She likes to make all the Halloween themed foods like “Severed Finger Cookies” and “Witches Snot Slush.” She did such a wonderful job on the cookies that I couldn’t bring myself to try one.

My vivid imagination doesn’t allow me to enjoy Halloween themed foods without feeling the nausea one might experience from eating an actual severed finger and washing it down with witches snot. Even having a 10 year old girl call me a “sissy” wouldn’t change my mind. I like pumpkin seeds; they qualify as a Halloween themed food don’t they?

You may have read in last week’s paper that my daughter won the drug free billboard competition here in Rapid City a few weeks ago. To be the one picked out of 4,800 elementary students is quite an honor for her. I think she enjoyed her week of celebrity status, giving two television interviews, one newspaper interview, being a parade marshall, getting a pizza party for her class, and a $100 dollar savings bond made for an eventful week.

Despite her father’s influence, she’s a good kid and well deserving of the honor. Her brother is of course handling it all without a tinge of jealousy. He was very happy for her, especially when he found out that she wouldn’t get the $100 for about 8 years. Somehow that helped ease the pain of a sibling’s success.

I know my brother Jarvis would have been happy for me if I had won something like this when we were kids. He would have been all smiles…as he pelted my billboard with eggs.

Enjoy the candy and possibly the rutabaga if you stopped by the Doc Stevens household on you trick-or-treating rounds. Oh, and if you’ve noticed that my Aunt Mary has been on time or possibly early for things the past few days remind her to set her clocks back.