A WARMED OVER HALLOWEEN

I thought our daughter may have had the best Halloween costume this year. She went as The Undecided Voter. Down the right side, of course, she had McCain/Palin stickers and buttons. Down the left and far left side, she displayed Obama/Biden propaganda. Front and back of course.

But this year's prize has to go to racing star Jeff Gordon (pictured). He, obviously, went Halloweening as A One Night Stand.

Hope your stomach and head are better this morning after a night of candy, apple cider, and ghoulish behavior.

SOME PEOPLE NEVER GET OVER HALLOWEEN

I'm afraid I'm nearly in that category. Not the pagan worship beginnings, if there's any credence to that nonsense. Not the gothic. Not the slasher movies of the movies by the same name. None of that at all.

But the shadows. The long ballooning spider webs. The corn shocks. The pumpkins. The carvings especially. The black cats. The hayrides, the festivals, the celebrating of the season.

And the stories of Halloween past. The trick-or-treating hauls. The popcorn balls, apple cider, and candy apples. Candy corn, too.

The chill of first Winter hint. The fresh burning of leaves. When outdoor games turn to football. Especially spectator high school, college, or pro. The tailgating. Friends mingling around a camp fire. Cold noses of girlfriends. Seeing your breath.

Boris Karloff and "The Monster Mash". Lon Chaney. Vincent Price and his terrible distortion of E. A. Poe's stuff ( which is really pretty boring when read on its own, but a Basil Rathbone oral reading makes it much scarier).

Making pumpkins for your grade school windows. The older students painting downtown store windows. The Halloween parades. Frost on the fields, wiener and marshmallow roasts, hot tubs.

Is there any wonder why I love the holiday? Did I fail to mention sweater weather? Paraphrasing Emily from "Our Town", "Oh, Earth, you're just too wonderful for us at Halloween."

SOME UNTRUTHS

Lightning never strikes twice ( I know a guy that was struck twice by lightning)

High School days are the best times of your life

Starbucks has the best coffee

100 years is long enough. The Cubs deserve a World Championship

Use it or lose it

No pain, no gain

Man is inherently good at heart

An apple a day

There in no more yellow journalism

If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well

Teacher accountability is the problem with American education

Bad things happen in threes

Anyone can learn to dance (or sing or play a musical instrument)

A Democrat White House, Senate, and Congress would be a good thing

MY BLUE HERON

As I've shared with loyalists before, by the way a loyalist is a loyal reader, the older I get the more I love birds. The blue heron is one of my favorites.

A few weeks ago we saw a ton of them on one golf course, Superstition Springs. Some were white. Their huge wing span is one quality I like. When they fly over, if you're shadowed by them, thoughts of Japanese horror films and creatures like Rodan enter your mind.

Another thing I like is how they are constantly watching, hunting for that fish. As suddenly as a flash of lightning, they scoop out the fish and shake it for good measure before enjoying that delicacy.

Another thing is those bird legs. How they can support any weight at all amazes me. Because of my early baseball catching career I built huge calf muscles simply by squatting for my formidable years. Yet I marvel at athletes and birds who have no apparent calf muscles.

Finally, I always feel bad when I shoo one away. I don't mean to, but they don't like people looking at their legs and perhaps shadowing a fish they have their hooks (pun) into.

SOME TRUTHS

I don't buy my wife flowers as much as I should.

Wherever there are dairy farms, there are flies.

Way too many people make Sunday no different than any other day.

Joe Biden has had too much botox in his forehead.

John Kerry, too.

There's too much voter hatred in this election.

The airlines don't get nearly enough credit for the job they do.

Teachers, too. And not enough former students tell them that either.

There are more commercials on tv than there were just last year.

There is more road construction this year and it takes longer.

They, along with Congress, do the worst jobs in the country.

Stupid styles seem to last longer than the good ones.

If April is the cruelest month, October is the nicest.

Paper cuts take longer to heal in the Winter.

It's good to have faithful blogger readers.

THAT'S US ON THE LEFT

In our HOA-ed 'hood, you have to get permission to paint your house. They tell you what colors and what brand of paint you can use. They tell you to submit it to them, and in a day or two they'll get back to you with their decision.

We did. They didn't. We even received a letter telling us to be patient. We were.

The day the painters were to start, over three weeks after our request, we still hadn't heard. I was tempted to cancel the order, cancel the paint job and see just how long it would take for them to tire of looking at stucco sealer and cracks and prime.

Instead I told our painters to plan to begin work. They did, with the power wash. The next day's mail revealed an acceptance of our proposal. So on with the work.

What we found out. You can't fight city hall. We need to be patient, but not too patient to knock workers out of wages. You can't over react. You can't be mean. And baja white is really light yellow.

So if you come looking for us, our house has taken on a different hue. We like it, but not the hassle of HOA dealing. By the way, they also informed us that 4 of our palms need replacing because the look like they will soon die. I wonder what they'll want me to replace them with. I'm thinking of cell phone towers.

SHEDDING SUMMER SKIN

Can be almost snake-like. Upsetting, too. All those sunbaked hours. All those pool time exposures. For what? It fades like sound when Fall rolls around.

"The man with the perpetual tan," he said when I saw him last week. It had been about three months or so since I spotted him driving around MTV on my last visit there. He, too was tanned as a lot of our generation was.

But it was waning as the north wind from the city streets just south of the Ed Dome in STL chilled us as we tailgated. Breakfast style. In the lot just north of Charlie Gittos. Lots of memories. Super Bowl years. Cold, cold times when even a tent was required. Soup cooked out. Wedges of Super Bowl Ram cake.

With one more bite of bacon candy, we left for a short walk to watch the Cowboys. If you've never had bacon candy, well, it's almost worth missing a cooked out brat. We thought the 'Boys would dominate. We didn't know Tony Romo wouldn't play.

We didn't know the suddenly very alive Rams would swarm and fly around on defense. But they did. Silencing the 'Boy fans. And bringing back a little more magic.

It was almost worth shedding than Summer skin for.

THE SECOND BEST SANDWICH

ever invented is the Egg McMuffin. I announce that insight to my wife nearly every time I sink my teeth into one. She of sausage biscuit choice.

She also tried to boil to coffee yesterday. It didn't work too well or taste so good. But I applaud her effort, her ingenuity.

You see we had an early morning pick up of our pastor and his wife who were going to Tucson for a conference on growing our church. Well, that's not right. The whole conference wasn't about growing Scottsdale Baptist Church. Not that we couldn't use that kind of help, but anyway with a 2-2 1/2 hour drive, we had to leave very early.

And, as it goes sometimes, our coffee maker decided to quit. So with a splash of boiled coffee, I headed out on the early morning trek. Of course there were other possibilities; in fact I stopped at a Starbucks for my wife on the way. But I also know my body, and for a drive of that length, I was better off not bladder tempting.

When we returned from a very good conference, we were bushed ( or Obamaed or McCained or Palined, but no we were not Bidened) and not in the notion to go coffee maker purchasing. All fine until this morning.

Off to McDonalds, where the delicious delicacy was devoured by me. Along with their good coffee. So what's the number one sandwich of all time?

The simple hamburger.