Halloween - the scariest night of the year

I have a date for tonight...it's the same date I've had for the last 12 or 15 years, but more about that later.

We really don't live on the edge of town, but people seem to think we do so we get very few trick or treaters. While our house is lit up and our front yard is decorated with orange inflatable pumpkins and electric illuminated jack o' lanterns, you would think that there's a no trespassing sign on our fence.

We see trick or treaters across the street, but for some odd reason, they won't venture to our block. Instead, most get into their parent's car and head off for greener pastures.

I know there's candy to be gotten on our block. Our boys used to get it when they were younger. But for the 22 Halloweens that we have celebrated in our house, I don't think we've ever gotten more than 10 trick or treaters. And as the years have gone by, the number has dwindled.

Grandpa has come to believe that people in Mandan don't have children. He remembers the "salad" days of living in the booming metropolis of Roundup and making home-made goodies for the trick or treaters -- like carmel popcorn balls. Car loads of kids would stop at his house. Never mind that most of them were nieces and nephews or that he lived in the nicest house in town so people would think that the treats were better at his house than others.

But alas, we live in the city across the river from North Dakota's capitol. As such, we know better than to make anything homemade because it would automatically get thrown out because it poses too much of a safety risk. In our town, families can take -- and do take -- their bags of Halloween goodies to hospitals to have them x-rayed to make sure they don't contain any unwanted items, such as stick pins and razor blades.

So tonight, like so many before, I'll be home with my date -- a VHS copy of the Don Knott's movie, "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken."

No slasher films for me. Nothing says Halloween better than Luther Heggs' wild imagination as he spends a night in a haunted Simmons mansion, which was once the sight of a spectacular murder/suicide. The blood stains will still be on the key board of the organ, just like they were last year and the year before. And some old lady will once again proclaim, "They couldn't remove the blood stains. And they used Bonami."

I'm not sure they even sell Bonami -- which for younger readers was a lot like Comet. And Luther's car will still be a Ford Edsel, which I know they have not made since the late 1950s.

The characters in the movie are generally familiar faces. Like Knotts, many of them also appeared in episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show."

One thing about watching the same movie over and over again is that you don't mind getting up and going to the bathroom or getting another can of pop from the fridge, or even answering the door for a youngster dressed up as a witch or the tin man...because you've seen the movie and you know that in the end, Luther gets the girl.

Atta boy, Luther!