I've just finished installing AA batteries in a plastic tombstone. The tombstone now stands in the graveyard that is my front yard, alongside a plastic light-up ghoul that looks to be clawing its way out of hell. The tombstone flashes, revealing the ugly head of Dracula embedded in decaying granite.

On my front porch, a large skeleton hangs from the ceiling. He wears a pink dress, striped ski socks, and orange Chuck Taylor All-Star hi tops. A spotlight illuminates the bony carcass for all the neighbors to see.

Welcome to my world. Avoid stepping in the puddles of fake blood.

I love holidays. I especially love Halloween, when I can dig out the dusty boxes in the far corners of the basement and rediscover the house decorating items purchased at fifty percent off during last year's post holiday sales. I love skulls that glow, witches that cackle, spiders that menace in a dignified, quiet way from the eaves. 

In our foyer, $60 worth of candy sits in plastic pumpkins, ready to be awarded to the kids brave enough to ring our doorbell. The older kids will be greeted with a terrible howl from me, dressed as a horrible, bleeding monstrosity. The youngest children will be spared this fright and will receive candy from my wife, who will be dressed as someone from only suburban hell, not the black pit itself. 

Naturally, there is also a cooler full of cans of beer for the Dads.

Every year, during the last two weeks of October, my wife likes to point out that ours is the only house in the neighborhood featuring a skeleton. "Look at their house," she'll say. "They have a nice painted turkey with Indian corn and gourds." 

What fun is that?

"And there's the pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower! Look honey, see how tasteful it is, with the 'welcome' sign and the dried flowers?"

It's tasteful, all right. Far, far too tasteful as far as I'm concerned.

Every year, my wife and I have this discussion. I want scary, frowning jack-o'-lanterns with fangs. She prefers a pumpkin head with a smile. I want to transform the front yard into a haunted graveyard. She accuses me of decorating like "white trash."

This is not a topic you discuss before you get married. If you're smart, you'll discuss your views on children, religion, money, and maybe any unexplained rashes before saying "I do." Deep, thoughtful discussions about plastic skeletons simply never make the wedding planning books. 

The way I see it, you should never let your desire to appear "proper" and to "be a part of the neighborhood" and to "decorate tastefully" dampen your enthusiasm for having a good time. When I was a kid, nothing was more fun than taping some old bolts to your neck with duct tape, painting your face green, and going out to every house in the neighborhood in the quest for candy. It happened once a year, and it was as much fun as opening presents or playing with puppies. 

The best Halloween houses of my youth had two things going for them: 

1. They were spooky.

2. They gave out good candy.

If houses only could accomplish one of these objectives, good candy was much preferred by me and my friends. After all, who wants to brave the terrors of a haunted ranch house with ugly hedges just for a sandwich baggies containing a chintzy portion of candy corn? 

But the best houses had it all. Creepy organ music oozed from within, audible from the sidewalk as you approached. We'd duck under low-hanging spider webs filled with black widows and tarantulas as we neared the door. A cauldron filled with dry ice would emit fog so you couldn't see your feet. And then…

The door would creak open. Slowly. 

A pale green hand with black nail polish would beckon us in. 

We'd look up into the demented eyes of long-faced witch, with ratty black hair and sallow green skin. There would be a huge wart on the end of her nose and she would be wearing (of course!) a pointy black hat.

Inside it would be mostly dark, with a few candles emitting a feeble flicker. A black light glowed overhead. The dismal groans of a nameless creature floated from deep within. A dark coffin would sit in the foyer, surrounded by dried leaves and more cobwebs. Bats swayed on invisible tethers from the ceiling. 

We'd reach into the bucket offered by the witch, only to draw our hands out hurriedly when we encountered not candy, but cold, slimy noodles. We knew it was only spaghetti, but it still felt gross, and we were powerfully susceptible to the suggestion that it was brains, not pasta, that lay within. 

As a reward for our bravery, we'd collect a handful of candy in our pillow sacks - the good stuff, like Three Musketeers and Sugar Daddy bars on a stick and Bit O' Honeys and Goobers and Sixlets and Milk Duds in little boxes and whole packs of LifeSavers! The tall witch would smile down upon us.

And then we'd - Wait! Oh no, is something in the coffin moving!? It's - it's - it's a horrible mummy, and it's alive! Run!

And then we'd arrive back at the sidewalk - safe, out of breath, and with a story to tell over and over for weeks to come.

That's Halloween, my friends. Not planters filled with pretty dried weeds. Not smiling ghosts that wouldn't scare your little sister. 

Maybe it's the way I was raised. There wasn't a Halloween that went by that my Dad didn't take his cheap plastic fangs to work, to deliver a brief moment of terror to an unsuspecting coworker. Even now, it's a given at my parents' house that an old strobe light is blinking furiously onto an elaborate skeleton out by the garage.

Halloween is the one day of the year we get to celebrate the weird tales of monsters and magic that have been with us since we started telling stories around the hearth. It's a day that makes the heart of an eight-year-old boy thrum with anticipation, glee, and fear all mixed together. It's a day for waxy scars, hunchbacks, and the occasional ballerina princess. 

And I'm going to make sure the neighborhood kids appreciate it, with every white trash plastic skeleton I've got.

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©2000 Matthew Farr