Lucky Man

I am a lucky man.  I have been married 22 years to the woman who still makes me happy.  I have a 15 year old who will turn 16 way too quickly and he only drives me nuts less than 20 to 25% of the time.  I have a daughter who is going to be the reason that I will get to buy guns.  She is eight years old and is a strong young lady, with a definiteness that is rarely matched by kids her age.

Today is halloween.  Which I have never really been excited by.  I don’t like the “haunted houses” and I am not much into the horror aspect.  I remember when we used to dress up, but we would go as clowns, hobos, and the occasional wicked witch.  You didn’t need to have $100 costumes, and definitely did not need to spend over $20 to give treats to the neighborhood kids.

We live in a neighborhood that has always been a good place to trick or treat.  Most of the homes on our street participate, and there are some good folks who live there.  Some of them really get into the crazy parts of the day.  It has been fun.

Last year we had over 100 kids come to our house.  We ran out of candy and we were called names, had people banging on our door even though the lights went out when we stopped handing out treats.  It has become a nightmare in our neighborhood because people have knocked on our door as late as 11PM.  Just so you know, there are about 20 kids on our street.  It has become a dumping point for candy shoppers.  Parents come to one end of our street drop off their kids, then drive around the block and pick them up at the end of our street.

Today, the reason that I am a lucky man, in addition to the aforementioned family, I don’t have to be home for Halloween.  I am going with the High School band to The Woodlands, Texas, just north of Houston, for a band competition.  My wife and daughter are going to go to another family’s house and they are going trick or treating there.  I have set up several streaming webcams to take pictures of the house, and I have turned on our alarm system, and I have released the highly protective Boxer and Border Collie dogs who will be on guard duty.

I am a Lucky Man.