Here’s a picture of my two younger kids last night before they went trick-or-treating.

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Harry Potter and a Rastafarian – quite a contrast. My two older sons are in high school and therefore too old to go trick-or-treating. Which reminds me of November 1st, 1978, when I was a freshman in high school and had “aged out” of the Halloween goody-grabbing process. However, my sister who is two years younger still was allowed to go with her friends. We lived in the sticks of Arkansas so my dad had to drive her 10 miles into the sprawling metropolis of Clarksville (population 6000) in order for her to get any decent trick-or-treating done.

The next morning my older sister, older brother and I had to get up before daylight and make the 60-mile drive to our high school. (There were only four Catholic high schools in the entire Baptist Bible Belt state of Arkansas, and that was the nearest one for us.) While my older sister drove and my brother rode shotgun, I sat in the back seat of our Ford Pinto. (Deathtrap! Actually ours was a Pinto stationwagon so it wasn’t as dangerous, or so I thought.) When we arrived at our high school, I started walking toward the building and my brother, who was walking behind me, said “Whoa, what happened?”

Apparently my younger sister had spilled a Milk Dud… a single, solitary Milk Dud… in the backseat of the car. And yours truly had proceeded to sit on aforementioned Milk Dud for more than an hour, giving the choocolate-coated caramel plenty of time to warm up and ooze into my pants. My tan corduroy pants. The resemblance to a “pooped my pants” accident was uncanny.

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Oh, and did I mention that November 1st was First Quarter Awards day? The entire high school student body assembled in the gym and anyone who won an award had to make a long, solitary walk to the podium at center court to claim their certificate of achievement. I was slated to get two awards.

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I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to scrape “a delicious blend of smooth milk chocolate and chewy caramel” out of the wales of corduroy pants, but it’s virtually impossible. Thankfully my older brother had an oversized jacket and I wore that thing the entire day, even though it was about 80 degrees outside.

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Ever since that fateful day, I have flashbacks every time I go to the movie theater. 

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