Each Halloween for the past
five or six years, we drive over to wonderful and picturesque Shepherdstown
West Virginia, a delightful village in the northern panhandle that is home to Shepherd
College.
The area surrounding the town
is rural farm land mostly and the houses are often spaced a good distance apart
so the local children and their parents parade through main street in
Shepherdstown where the homes are closer and the shop owners stay open late to hand
out candy to the kids. And the local college
students join in as well.
Every year the celebration gets
bigger and bigger and now the town officials close down Main Street at around
dust till 9:00 PM. Most of the costumes are fantastic and very inventive and
clever and the celebration itself is generally a safe, family friendly event.