Happy Halloween

It began as the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, with people dressing in costumes and lighting bonfires to ward off ghosts more than 2,000 years ago, but over time its developed into a night of fun for the young and young at heart, complete with tricks and treats.

It is Halloween.

Along with costumes for the kiddies, 20 percent of the population is now buying costumes for their pets, too. Its a lot of fun to see entire families dressed up together to take the young ones door-to-door looking for goodies.

We don’t see much of the “tricks” that used to be popular a few decades ago. Things like egging cars, soaping windows and filling trees with toilet paper are fortunately, for the most part, a thing of the past.

Of course, if you’ve lived in Thermopolis any length of time you know the costumes have to be large enough to cover the winter coat underneath, and if Wednesday morning’s temperatures are anything to go by, those ghosts and goblins are going to need everything from long underwear to parkas to hit the streets tonight.

There is no doubt the evening will end with a sugar coma.

As our treat to our loyal subscribers, the first paid subscriber to call our office with the location of the matching pumpkin located elsewhere in this edition, will receive one month added to their current subscription. Contest ends Friday, Nov. 1 at noon.