Jolly Pirates, photo by Harold Davis.

Happy halloween 2005, jolly pirates, bumble bee and all other revellers!

Halloween is a pretty quiet, family event in our neighborhood. The teenagers mostly go off to private parties or to the Castro in the city. So it’s trick-or-treat for the under ten set.

Even so, the whole thing was overwhelming for our bumble bee Mathew.

I promised the rogue pirates that I’d take them around collecting candy until they’d had enough. “Really, Daddy, really?”

As I was counting on, fatigue kicked in pretty early. By 7PM Nicky wanted to be dropped off at home. About an hour later I stumbled home with a weary and somewhat sticky Julian pirate.

The M.O. here is for the little kids with one or more parent to trick-or-treat in small packs. One of our neighbors, a dentist, was handing out tooth brushes in lieu of candy. I heard a kid saying, “That’s illegal!”

All in all, a good time was had by all!

Of course, we had our much-admired-in-the-‘hood fiberoptic pumpkin lit!