The Slice: Waiting for a new Halloween memory

Back in another century, my wife and I lived in a Browne’s Addition apartment.

It was a ground-floor unit with a balcony perched on the edge of a woodsy ridge. Raccoons used to clamber onto that balcony and polish off any snacks we might have put out for the magpies that frequented those woods.

Sometimes, when those big birds would hop down onto the balcony floor, they did so with a pronounced thud. There was no “alight” about it.

My wife began referring to them as porch turkeys.

But back to the raccoons. Once we started putting out a buffet of doughnuts, grapes and what have you, the ringtails began to arrive in ever increasing numbers. I realize now that putting food out for them, especially junk food, was poor wildlife management. But it happened.

Anyway, this was the setting for my second-favorite Spokane Halloween memory.

At that time, before they moved to Spokane in the fall of 2000, my parents used to call us from Vermont every year with a trick-or-treat head count. Seems like they always got more than 100 kids.

And so one Halloween, I was on the phone with my dad, getting the annual report. After he had passed along their Eastern time tally, I told him we had not had much trick-or-treat action. At least not the usual kind.

While we were on the phone, my dad could hear my wife’s insistent voice in the background.

“No! No! Stop that. No fighting!”

He asked me if we had gotten a late rush of young hooligans.

No, I told him. That was his daughter-in-law sorting out some rambunctious raccoons on our balcony.

Not much in life amused my father. But that did.

My favorite Spokane Halloween story? It’s the little lion who came to our house not long after we moved there about 20 years ago.

That blinking child in a homemade king of beasts outfit was so small and so utterly baffled about just what trick-or-treating involved, there was a temptation to laugh.

But watching the little lion slowly ascend our porch steps on all fours, you had to wonder what was going through his or her mind.

There was a sense of resignation, a weariness about that kid. It was as if Halloween was some grim childhood duty.

“Look at what they make you give,” I imagined the lion thinking. “All for some candy we could have bought at the store.”

Today’s Slice question: What’s your favorite Halloween memory?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Do you dispense doggie treats to canines accompanying trick-or-treaters?