My trick-or-treating days were over decades ago, and my kids are now past them as well, so for me Halloween is more about nostalgia and enjoying the beauty of autumn than costume parties with naughty nurses or sexy she-devils.
This has been an usually mild October. The temperatures have steadily fallen, but other than a few days of heavy rain and storms, the weather has been mostly sunny. The forecast for tomorrow is clear, but cold. In past years we had snow or freezing rain, but we also had balmy temperatures. That’s part of what gives the season its charm: one never knows what to expect.
I think that’s what makes the fall so profound – it provokes reflection, but every year is different, often markedly so. The colors of the leaves this year have been washed out, a function of a dry September. For a while things feel like summer, but then changes become more rapid, and in the space of a couple of weeks we go from blazing color to bare branches.
In years past, tonight was Devil’s Night, a time when Detroit burned in a grim reminder of urban decay. It was no accident that the original version of The Crow was set on that fateful event.
Happily, there are people who have reached adulthood without any idea of what tonight used to mean, which is a very good thing. It’s now just the night before Halloween, and in Catholic circles, the sacred nature of the event is being aggressively reasserted.
This is a good thing, and hopefully it is a harbinger of better Halloweens to come.
Chateau Lloyd 
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