Peggy likes Halloween.

When she was a kid her family used to decorate the house and scare the trick-or-treaters when they came to the door. All in good fun, of course.

My family never really did Halloween. My mother would answer the door and hand out candy, but we didn’t decorate. As I became an adult I tried to make it a point not to be home on Halloween. When we lived in Katy it became a moot point — we were the last house on the street and virtually no one ever came all the way down to our house.

Here in Baton Rouge, though, we are right in the heart of things. Our neighborhood is old and quiet, so it is a safe place to take your kids. We get kids from all over town coming to trick-or-treat and each year a group brings a bunch of kids on a hayride to let them trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. Now Peggy has a reason to decorate. She also decorates me.

Each year I hide in a different place dressed as the Grim Reaper. The first year I was in the bushes next to the door. This year, with the recent ankle injury, I was inside the house in the window looking like a statue until a child would come close to the window. Then I would bang my scythe on the window and scare the living daylights out of them.

The best part was the parents who got scared. Then they would bring the kids back in front of me to make sure the kids got scared, too. Parenting 101.

It was a fun night. We had a ton of trick-or-treaters. And I had a good night of reaping.

Now I have to figure out where I am going to hide next year.