Pumpkins, candidates and other scary things

Last year’s Paul Lo Duca jack-o-lantern might have been a little too scary, so this year we just resorted to pumpkin cannibalism to greet trick-or-treaters — and to kick off the Deezo Friday Five.

1) The scariest thing that ever happened to me on Halloween occurred a couple years after we moved to Grand Rapids and I had the infamous "Bus Stop Gang" on my lawn every morning.

One of the kids in particular was difficult.

I was walking with a neighbor, taking all of our kids trick-or-treating around the subdivision, and we came upon the house where the difficult girl lived. They had what appeared to be one of those stuffed scarecrows sitting on the bench by the door with its head down.

So as we were walking up to the door, I said to the neighbor, "This is the house where the pain-in-the-ass kid lives."

And, and the last word left my lips, the scarecrow’s head picked up and said, "Boo." It was the father.

I felt bad, at least when my heart started again.

But my neighbor suspected that the father already knew his daughter was a pain in the ass, and that we just learned that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

2) We’re heading to see the Grand Rapids Griffins on Saturday night because the team is giving away bobble heads of John McCain and Barack Obama wearing Griffins sweaters.

Supposedly, the team has 1,000 of each, and people will have a choice of which one they want. When they run out of a bobble of a particular candidate, he is declared the winner, allowing the team of lawyers to immediately call for a recount.

There is no proof that ACORN is trying to get people to buy multiple tickets and return to the line again and again.

But to be honest, I’m bringing along my son so we can snag one bobble of each candidate.

I thought this was really original until I saw that another minor league hockey team doing the same thing. Doesn’t make it less cool, though.

We haven’t gone to too many Griffins games since the infamous Napoleon Dynamite incident, so this will be an opportunity for redemption.

3) Speaking of bobbles, I pre-bought the latest Hawk Nelson CD back in March because it came with a special four-headed figure.

But when I went to get the CD, I was told that every single bobble arrived broken, and that the company was replacing them. That was April 1. I asked about the bobbles every time I’ve been in the store since, and was told each time that the replacements had not yet arrived.

Finally, on Thursday, I was able to take home what is a better bobble than I thought. Usually when there are multiple guys on one stand, they get shrunk down. But this is pretty sweet.

For the unfamiliar, Hawk Nelson is sort of rock band with Christian leanings and puts on a heck of a show.

4) The Crane Pool Forum has been debating a Times of London listing of U.S. presidents. I thought Theodore Roosevelt was a little low at No. 5, but it’s hard to argue against Abraham Lincoln at the top.

Driving home from St. Louis, I passed through Lincoln, Ill. The town’s claim to fame is that Abe christened Lincoln in 1853, with watermelon juice, and the town's colors are red and green. It’s the only town named for Abraham Lincoln before he became famous.

The town once had a grand plan to built a 10-story statue of Abe spilling the juice that people could climb into, like the pre-Sept. 11 Statue of Liberty.

Apparently this plan is on hold, but I did find this neat fiberglass Abe at a big intersection.

5) I was aware the Mark Knopfler made a CD with Emmylou Harris a while back. But I did not know that they made a live version that included some of Mark’s other solo work and even two of my favorite Dire Straits songs.

It was a CD-DVD combo, which was pretty expensive. But I pounced when I saw iTunes made the CD version available.

"Romeo and Juliet" is spectacular and "So Far Away" is simply stunning, with Emmylou’s voice drifting into the chorus.

Happy Halloween!