For what it’s worth, the Halloween census seemed down in our South Tampa neighborhood this year. No vans dropping off kids and no teens in civvies looking for free stuff. Maybe word was out that Snickers had downsized yet again.
And for the first time in recent memory, there were no girls costumed as popular-culture strumpets. Nice to see that good parenting and Halloween envelope-pushing can co-exist without any more Britney Spears knock-offs. There were more Harry Potters and Jokers – and at least one cell-phone chatting princess, who didn’t even warrant a down-sized Snickers.