I suspended a ghost made from a sheet to a wire between a tree and our porch that I could pull across the yard when kiddies approached...

My wife would answer in a witch hat and black cape.

I soaped windows with a friend one year. I figured his father was a popular doctor in town, so we probably wouldn’t get in trouble.

of water, lean it against the door, then knock and run.

just where people would see it when they came out of the bathroom as the hand/fingers moved (hanging by the railing - sticking out of an arm of my jacket).

It would be safe to say that noises were made but not by me.

It was a great party.

I soaped windows

The kids thought it was a display. When they were about to leave with candy I stood up and made a weird noise and walked towards them. Scared the you know what out of them. I can still hear the screams.

1234 hit the fan. Ha ha heh.

The other joke I played on him was one night it was getting cold (and predicted to get even colder), I sprayed his car w/ the hose, for about an hour or so, letting the ice buildup. Ha ha heh. That was a good one too.

I grew up in the Oakland hills so we definitely had a very steep driveway and a deck that hung over the top of it.

My dad would run a string from the corner of the deck that ran the length of the driveway all the way down to the bottom where people would trip the lights on an electric eye. Mind you this is early 1980s so not very high tech lol.

So then my sister and I took a coat hanger and some of Dad's old clothes and fashioned a dummy with newspaper and straw and put a head on him and hooked him onto the wire.
We played the spooky record of classic Halloween sounds and when anyone tripped the light at the bottom of the driveway we would let go of the dummy and he'd go flying down the wire and scare the bejesus out of people!! (Then we had a rope attached to his belt and we'd pull him back up and re-rig it for the next person)

We carried the tradition for a couple of years... My dad was a great jokester!! 🤣

I might still have the sketch. Hmmmm

This was at Astro John Glenn's return to space when he was age ?80 - ticker tape in NYC, along with younger astros.

I was just a bit north of Trinity Church, and across the street, and it was Fall after the leaves were gone.

Ticker tape parades would have similar, and different papper type stuff being thrown out through the decades!

The church grounds had trees, and yes, not the first time toilet rolls were launched during one of these. If they fell close to the buildings - they looked like big streamers!

But this time, must have been a gentle breeze, and this one made the prettiest, big circular loop around the tree branches! 😄 👍

I would set up things and do lighting and make it more than just right at the front door. My parents loved it since they didn't have to do much to make it happen. I started when I was twelve. I have scared some kids so badly that they ran past their parents cars and into town to try and make it back home. I once scared three dudes who were way older than I was and were going to steal all of the candy from my stash on the porch. When my fake head rolled from my lap and I stood, they took off like scalded cats. (They were sure I was a yard decoration until that moment. I was thirteen.)

When I was trapped in Texas (24 long, long years) we had a park bench in the front yard. My spouse at the time had life sized seasonal figures she would stage on the bench for the season - Mr. & Mrs. Clause, pilgrims, Easter Bunny, etc.* For Halloween, she had a Frankenstein and Dracula figure on the bench. On Halloween night, I would sit slumped between them in a trench coat and a terrifying, bloody mask with a wide brimmed hat pulled low over my face. The candy was in a witches cauldron at my feet with a sign that said “help yourself.”

As the trick or treater’s reached for the candy, I would stand abruptly and say “can I help you?”

In my defense, if I saw younger kids or children with their parents come up the driveway, I would stand and remove the hat and mask and greet them well before they approached. No reason to warp a little tyke for life!

The older kids would always stay and chat for a bit after they got over the shock (we had a great neighborhood (for Texas)). It was a lot of fun.

Whenever we would travel or run errands, the neighborhood kids would pose the figures. You can guess…

He was a stern, authoritarian guy who preached against celebrating Halloween even though the denomination did not forbid it. He lived 5 blocks away from us, across from a city park.

I was trick or treating with my brothers and did not know their plan until we got to the pastor's block. One brother pulled out a block of wax from his pocket. The other pulled out a roll of tp from under his costume. The pastor's house was dark, no lights, curtains drawn shut, as if no one was home. But, once on his porch, we could hear the TV playing inside.

One brother waxed the windows and I held the tp roll for the other one while he wrapped it around the porch pillars. As we were leaving the porch, one brother stayed back to stick a thumb tack in the doorbell.

We raced across the street, hid behind a big tree in the park, and watched him come out to remove the tack.

(My brother chose wax instead of soap because wax is harder to remove.)