The Front Porch

The brick red color of the porch was familiar, but, this time of year it was always different. Looking up there were black bats, hand-made cloth ghosts, styrofoam filled jack o' lanterns, and huge black spiders with long creepy legs. One side of the space was filled with leaves freshly raked from the yard. Hiding among the yellow and brown and auburn shapes hid rats with glowing green eyes, dismembered body parts seemed to reach out from under the floorboards. Sitting on their child sized chairs were "Pete and Willy", the dolls Grandma made out of old pantyhose and dressed in costume for the season, a devil with his red face and horns and a clown with rainbow hair and scary eyes. On the other side of the porch, jack o' lanterns sat in a row under the picture window. At a patio table covered in a black table cloth and animal organs a werewolf, a witch, a large ghost and a vampire sit playing pinochle.

It was like this every year, with some variation of course. Then the unthinkable happened, Grandma passed away and her daughter moved into the house. The following October trick-or-treaters came to the porch. If you didn't know any better, you would think the same person had decorated. Things have evolved over the years, but every Halloween that brick red porch is dressed for the season.