It’s still several days until Halloween but decorations have been popping up all over the neighborhood. Walking the dogs, I’ve seen lots of holiday creativity, not all of it good. Some of it is just too creepy for me.
ELBEE She’s a Halloween Scrooge.
I’m more a fan of cute decorations, like smiling pumpkins 
and happy ghosts. I can deal with spiders if they’re fuzzy and funny.
I have a real issue with clowns. When I was a kid, my dad, who was a Shriner, would take my brother and me backstage at the Shrine circus to meet the clowns. It was supposed to be a treat. They terrified me.
ELBEE They still do.
I can’t believe my youngest daughter Danielle has this clown, who is the stuff of nightmares, hanging from her house and my grandkids like it.
Skeletons and gravestones just don’t do it for me either. And I don’t understand all of those arms and legs sticking out of the ground.
Yesterday, walking with Henry, I 
thought I was dealing quite well with the Halloween craziness. Then I saw this foot hanging from a tree.
It got worse. Someone had put what looked like a dead body on their lawn, right next to the sidewalk. It took creepy to a whole new level.
Fortunately after seeing the “body,” Henry and I had two very positive encounters. We stopped to visit a couple who were doing some major yard work. The wife loved Henry. As he leaned gently against her, she said, “He should be a therapy dog.” When I told her that he was, she smiled and said that he was giving her just the therapy she needed.
As we headed up the street, an elderly man in a big straw hat was coming slowly down. When he saw me and Henry, he called out, “Whenever I see you walking your dogs, the world doesn’t seem as bad.”
Happy Pre-Halloween. And here’s to cute decorations and costumes.
