MORE MEMORIES OF PARADISE by DEVIN

I should have found this for a Halloween posting, but I didn't find it until today, while I was reading Devin's blog. Well . . . . at least it isn't Thanksgiving yet.

"My memories of childhood Halloweens are all very fond. Some general things I always remember are going trick-or-treat at my grandparents farm before we would go anywhere else; the smell of candles burning inside jack-o-lanterns, popcorn balls (oh how the old people loved to give those out!), chili, John Angel's birthday, soaping windows, and those yucky wax lips - what were those all about?!?!
Yes, my childhood was quite idyllic and at times even Rockwellian.
As I got older, making the transition from "treat" to "trick" was something I went hog wild with. Paradise may have been a small town, but you could always count on some type of mischief going on in the wee hours of the night on Halloween. It was usually wreaked by an unlikely combination of older kids, a handful of younger ones who had either snuck out or convinced their parents they were simply going out for candy, an old codger or two, and some of the housewives and moms who were bored after their children were in bed. It was always a really fun time and one tradition we always tried to uphold was blocking main street off by hauling so much junk into the middle of the street that people had to take a detour. One time the morning after, people driving down main street were surprised to see a camper that had been pushed out into the middle of the street surrounded by various "junk" items like tires, barrels, and big old pieces of wood.There was always some point in the night when we either became convinced that a Russell County Sheriff was on his way to town, or we were calling them to try and get them to come out! And sometimes they even did.
One year, I had put together a whole bag of junk that I thought I could use for my trickery. Many of the items were unusable, but unfortunately I had brought some Elmer's glue and a lighter. For some reason, I - or perhaps one of my cohorts - decided it was a good idea to glue pieces of tissue to the windows at school, then light them on fire! It was thrilling at the time, but not so fun the next Monday at school when my friends and I had to clean all the windows with putty knives and ammonia, in front of every one's parents (it was a parent-teacher conference day).
Paradise was a really fun town to celebrate Halloween in. Sometimes just for fun, I try to go back and remember all the houses we would go to, and what we would usually receive from the residents of those houses. Halloween was the only time when you got to go around to every one's house and see inside. There were a lot of old people there, and they seemed to love seeing our costumes. They always knew who I was much more then I knew of them."