Cobwebs and spiders adorn railings and doors; jack-o-lanterns and painted pumpkins are lined up against the windows; candy corn and skeletons make their annual appearance.
It's that time of year again.
Little girls dressed up as princesses, teenage monsters determined to scare everyone they run into, mountains of chocolate, unexpected (and unpleasant) jokes -- along with Halloween comes the potential for both tricks and treats.
But no matter which prevails, nearly everyone enters November with many a memory to share in later years. And no memories are sweeter or funnier than those of bygone years when the prospect of trick-or-treating elicited grins for weeks before the much-anticipated Oct. 31.
"My dad always used to make a haunted tunnel through our backyard [where] there was a row of bushes and shrubs," second-year College student Lindsay Jones said. "We had a bunch of kids on our street, so they'd all come through."
First-year Nursing student Brooke Giles also has fond memories of Halloween in her neighborhood.
"When I was little, I though I saw a witch going across the moon when I was trick-or-treating one time," Giles said.
While some students such as Giles enjoyed knocking on neighbors' doors in hopes of treats, others had just as much fun playing tricks.
"For four years, my friend and I would dress up as scarecrows and sit on the porch and act not alive," second-year College student Andrius Kelly said. "When people came, we'd jump out at them. We've had people sit there for five minutes trying to see if we're real or not. And then one time, we sat on the roof, and threw a dummy attached to a string down whenever people walked by."
In addition to scarecrows, University students have memories of costumes ranging from rabbits to pumpkins.
"My brother was a pumpkin [one year]," first-year College student Courtney Winston said. "He had a really big head when he was a baby, so he had a pumpkin head anyway. And he was in all orange."
Second-year Architecture student Chrissie Sherman has memories not of pumpkin and rabbit costumes, but real pumpkins and rabbits.
"We went to the Pumpkin Festival and my sister got bit by a rabbit," Sherman said.
Although many University students went trick-or-treating with their friends on Halloween night nearly every year, others did not take the opportunity for granted.
"I lived overseas [when I was little], so my Halloween was kind of limited," fourth-year College student Max Scott said. "We just went around the American compounds. When we came back, I went trick-or-treating in Northern Virginia. Getting to go on my own was exciting."
Indeed, especially at this time of year, many University students enjoy looking back upon the memories of Halloweens gone by.
At the same time, Oct. 31 is just around the corner, and it's time to create new memories. If students have half as much fun this weekend as they did traipsing down their neighborhood streets in their costumes and stuffing themselves with chocolate until they were ready to burst, Halloween 2005 will be a rousing success.
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