The plywood castle, Halloween 2005

In 2004, I was caught unawares by Halloween on Crescent Street. I didn't expect many kids to show up, so I figured I'd just not get any candy and stay upstairs for a while. Approximately 300 kids showed up, and I had to hide with the lights off for 4 hours.

This year, Aaron, who lives nearby in Somerville, and I built a castle in front of my house. We've both worked at Camp Chewonki in Wiscasset, Maine, for 10 years, so we have a fair bit of experience with treasure hunts, carnivals, talent shows, and the like. I had some old plywood in my backyard, so on Sunday night, we spent a few hours cutting crenelations and preparing the ramparts for siege.

A guy named Doug from down the street got the city to block of the street from 3 pm to 9 pm. He also made some dummy torsos; some collaborators of his parked their cars as if they had swerved off the road, and then Doug put the torsos inside the cars. It was creepy.

The castle. A guy down the street lent us a fog machine.

Kids taking candy from a stranger with a colander on his head.

In this image, I have a red cardboard box on my head. It turned out that our castle was a little too scary for the younger kids, so I switched the box for a jester's hat.