Sam Hayne

If you're reading this on Tuesday, happy Dia De Los Muertos (that's "Day of the Dead" in Spanish, Gringo). The coolest holiday of the year, though not celebrated in America, this day is — among other things — a time to truly celebrate, rather than mourn, the lives of dead loved ones. Plus, it comes along with some damn cool art to boot.

Today being Halloween, we figured we'd try to get in the spirit of things and we went to an old-fashioned, downtown Halloween carnival...apparently Stacey didn't like my idea of putting black lights up all over the house, turning the heat off and listening to Norwegian black metal really loud for a few hours. Sounds like a party to me.

Being that we live in the wilderness (gee, have I mentioned that before?) we had to drive about 25 minutes (40 if you count the slight detour we took when I went West instead of East on the interstate. I wish I could say I'd never done that before. You wouldn't believe how many times I got lost when I first got my driver's license.) Uhh, where was I?

Once we finally got to the carnival, the shindig was beginning to wind down — many parents were already trudging back to their cars with their sugar-crazed kids trying to drag them back for more— but there was still enough going on that Connor was plenty entertained...or scared, we're not sure which. We did overhear some teenagers talking about "hittin' up a rich neighborhood." I hope they were talking about candy but, either way, it means they weren't coming to our house later.

At the carnival, there were plenty of kids in costumes — Batmen, Spidermen, football players, ninjas, princesses, witches, and even a Power Ranger or two. There were also the obligatory I'm-really-too-old-for-this-but-I-just-can't-let-it-go teenagers in masks trolling for candy as well. But, what I noticed the most was the abundance of babies and toddlers dressed up, most sound asleep in their strollers or parents' arms. Connor was sporting his grey hoodie, but if we had a costume that he'd tolerate, I'm sure we would have suited him up in something ridiculous as well.

It struck me how odd it was that many of these parents with little ones didn't have other kids with them — just their sleepy babies. Science, and experience, tells us that the human brain doesn't begin to form permanent memories until somewhere near age five.

I guess the tweens and teens aren't the only ones not ready to let go of Halloween.