I volunteered for a deployment to Vietnam and arrived just in time for the Tet Offensive. Don’t get too excited. I got hit by shrapnel my third day in country and was sent back to the US without having led any troops or even firing my own weapon. I did stay long enough to help heave some bodies into a mass grave. That was my introduction to the reality of war. There was one VC pinned to a tree by flechette rounds. I helped rip him off but had pry out the some of the flechettes first. Flechettes are like big nails fired out of a cannon all at once. Some went by my head once. It sounded like a swarm of bees. If it was not possible to bury bodies, they were simply burned in massive funeral pyres. Bodies were stacked with alternating layers of dry bamboo and doused with gasoline or aviation fuel. The smell was like a combo of bacon and burnt hair. I had read once that in parts of Polynesia where cannibalism is practiced, human flesh is called long pig.
I decided I should study Vietnamese as there were very few Army officers who knew more than a few words of it. I spent the next year at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) learning as much Vietnamese as I could. My interest in foreign languages began when I was young and obsessed with dinosaurs. I wanted to know what the names meant and ended up learning a fair amount of Latin and Greek. Dinosaurs are such a great way to get children interested in reading and learning.
DLI is in Monterey, California. It’s a beautiful with wonderful weather, beaches, and night life. It was very difficult to enjoy any of those things while I was studying Vietnamese for 50 hours per week, plus doing physical training and keeping up with all the other demands of the Army. The bright side was as an officer, I had fewer obligations and more freedom than most of the students there. Because of my good grades and the recommendations of my teachers, I was volun-told to join Army Special Forces, AKA the famous Green Berets.
Before I could deploy, I had to complete the Q course. It seemed mostly silly to me, but by this point I had learned the Army was full of overgrown juvenile delinquents and other mediocrities. I heard a lot of bragging about run times, pull-ups, and push-ups, but very few about education or language knowledge. I saw that as a troubling omen. I passed the course, got my Girl Scout hat, which I never wore after graduation and got on a plane bound for Vietnam. On a side note, the beret is meant as an homage to the French Resistance who wore such headgear. The Office of Strategic Services, which later became the CIA, worked closely with the French Resistance in the build-up and aftermath of D-Day. The French word for woods or brush is maquis, and a person who lives in it is called a maquisard, or woodsman. Later, the word came to mean a French resistance fighter. In a similar way, the French called the people who lived in the highlands of Vietnam “Montagnards”, which means “moutaineers”. The motto of my home state is Montani Semper Liberi, which means “mountaineers are always free”.
I was sent to an outpost in the Central Highlands where the Montagnard people live. Most spoke Vietnamese as a second language which made it easier for me to communicate with them. I worked closely with a volunteer fighter named Binh Nghia which means “Just Cause” in Vietnamese. His parents gave him a Vietnamese name instead of Montagnard name in the hope it would make his life easier. He had a tattoo on his arm that said SAT CONG, which means “kill reds” (communists) in Vietnamese. There’s a myth that American soldiers spent a lot of time teaching the friendly locals about things like weapons and tactics. That’s bull because by the time I got there, Vietnam had already been wracked by 27 years of war. The Japanese fought there from 1941 to 1945, then the French came back and fought until 1954, and then the Vietnamese turned on each other.
Partly for my own safety and partly for style, I did not wear a name tag on my uniform. If I got killed, they could always check my dog tags for my name anyway. I remember once watching a western movie where the main character was never called by his name. I think even in the credits the character was listed as “the man with no name”. Being anonymous adds an aura of mystery which can be useful.
Unfortunately, most of the Americans sent to fight in Vietnam knew nothing of this or would have cared if they were told. For them, they were all just gooks, and they were either scared of them or thought they were worthless. I knew from my time at DLI that just wasn’t true. On a side note, I will add that the term gook entered GI slang during the Korean War. Miguk means American in Korean and whenever Koreans saw American troops, they said “miguk” a lot. The GIs though they were say “me gook”, as in “I am a gook”, and so gook became Army slang for an Asian person. Vietnam is a much older country than the US and has had to fight off invaders many times. They even fought off Genghis Khan, one of the few countries that was able to do so. While I was learning Vietnamese, I also studied the writings of Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the communist Vietnamese. He spent a lot of time overseas, taught himself French and English, and studied the works of the French and American Revolutions. He did that because understanding your enemy is the first and most important step towards defeating them. By the way, Ho Chi Minh was not his real name, it means “bringer of light” in Vietnamese. Very few Americans knew this or bothered to learn it.
Firsts before swine.
Before I could deploy, I had to complete the Q course.
The narrator had to learn about big tits?
I was expecting more John DeLancie.
One task in the Q course was making an A-frame to make a big wheelbarrow. The trick is to lay the poles parallel so that the lashing tightens when you spread them. It’s something every Boy Scout learns.
I saw that in a documentary. At the very beginning, they have the candidates doing exercises in a sand pit. At one point, they tell them to spin around in circles for as long as they can. It looked silly. One guy got so loopy that when they asked him “do you know where you are?”, he just said “uh, hashbrowns?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EsILCtsl4Q
Vietnam is a much older
Vietnam: A History – Stanley Karnow: just excellent
Technical Sergeant Richard Bernard Fitzgibbon Jr., USAF (June 21, 1920 – June 8, 1956) was the first American to die in the Vietnam War.
He was murdered by another American airman on June 8, 1956.
it started as it ended, set to full stupid
I liked The Village by Bing West a lot. That’s the book where I learned about Binh Nghia (the name of the eponymous village) and Sat Cong.
In real life, I tutored a woman who escaped with her brother from the Khmer Rouge, who confiscated her family’s jewelry business and forced them to work on a farm. She, her mom, and her brother escaped and hid in the jungle on the border with Thailand for a few weeks until they were rescued and given asylum. Her family was ethnic Chinese and her first language was Teochew. She could speak English OK but had trouble reading it. Once I made her practice the line “once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary” so she wouldn’t confuse r, l, and w. When she got it right, I showed her the clip from My Fair Lady about the rain in Spain.
Cambodian food is crazy spicy. She grew her own peppers and cooked for me a few times and once took me to this really great Chinese restaurant in Chicago. I was the only white guy in there and everyone was speaking some dialect of Chinese.
Also in real life, I spent a few months living in Borman Hall at DLI. Borman trained as a linguist and was killed in Vietnam. On the lower part of the base near Soldier Field, there are all the old classrooms for languages like Vietnamese and Thai, which are not taught currently. The faded paint is visible on the signs.
I miss the Russian T-34 up on the hill. Supposedly, they welded the hatches shut to keep students from canoodling inside. When I was there, I heard stories about people having sex on the roof of the dining hall.
Once I asked her what Buddhists say instead of Jesus Christ or God damn it. She said sister-fucker, brother-fucker, etc. There was not a great variety in the preferred epithets.
We, my wife and I, used to go to a Laotian restaurant like that in West Sacramento. Go in and everyone is Asian, the menus had nothing in English, and they could try to tell us what the dishes were, but good luck with understanding that. Ended up just going “one beef, one fish, one veg, rice” and they would bring stuff out.
Some restaurants had pictures in color, of the menu dishes.
In 1970 DLI, VN was at Biggs Field, Ft Bliss, El Paso.
Cambodian
This afternoon I went into a plant I worked in 30 years ago. The only guy there from my day was Chan, one of three Cambodian guys then. The other two are retired; I remember their enthusiasm for being in the US and the work we had; both had been sent to Russia to study mechanical assembly (tractors) and were much more qualified than working for me indicated.
Very little has changed in the building. The guy showing me the equipment he needed modifying wasn’t born the last time I was in there.
A lot of folks from all the countries in that region settled in my hometown (Rochester). I went to school with many of their kids. The hippie teachers must have had a field day with some of the tongue-twister names.
Same. Number of boat people families here.
a few audiovisual aids for tonight’s installment
compare and contrast
Napalm Sticks to Kids
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9eybY9qFfY
Viet Cong song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRZUoaJR5ns
ARVN soldier shows off SAT CONG tattoo
There were also SAT CONG death cards prepared for psyops as well as SAT CONG morale patches.
I went to Sat Cong Village a few times in the 80s including a couple times with Army recruiters.
I played paintball a few times near Hollister, not too far from Monterey. TAG paintball. Good times.
If I may go off topic, that was a hilariously stupid couple of plays on MNF – Detroit fumbles the ball, Raiders recover. Garoppolo promptly throws the ball to a Detroit defender.
Go not-Raiders!
This clip nearly caused testosterone to leak out of my eyes.
World War II America (Battle Hymn of the Republic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR7HPQM0Jgg
Young me enjoyed this cartoon intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hmvLIXBJsQ
at the 1:27 mark, you will see that a Harvard psychologist named Robert Selman was a consultant for GI Joe.
***
Selman collaborating with his wife Anne who holds an MA in early childhood development served as educational consultants on the popular 1980s cartoon G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero; Selman was responsible for the educational content of the And Knowing is Half the Battle PSA’s.
***
I went to high school with a kid who’s mom had been married to the guy who wrote I’m OK, You’re OK..
He was shot to death in a trailer park.
I read that for a Psych class. Can’t remember the author though
Richard Harris.
G.I. Jooooooe!
Pork chop sandwiches!
I knew this was coming, and I approve.
I chose to go a little deeper in the oeuvre.
“Oh, you boys look so lovely in your little outfits!”
I spent a year and a half at DLI. It was quite a shock going there right after BCT and then going back to drill sergeants at AIT.
There were no drill sergeants at Goodfellow when I was there. That changed a few years ago. Did you study Arabic? If not, my 2nd guess is Korean.
I went for Russian. It was only 47 weeks but I got to stay five extra months because the Army misplaced some paperwork, a regular event for me. Casual duty at POM was quite pleasant.
Goodfellow had drill sergeants but they were pretty lax on the linguist company. The two drill sergeants assigned to the night shift analysts hardly interacted with us when the voice interceptors were on day shift. They told us not to miss class or get in trouble. They only came out for PT.
On the other end they instituted TRADOC phasing at DLI after I graduated. I recall they were also bringing in drill sergeants. It was only a two-week restriction (weakly enforced uniform and restriction to base) when I got there.
I should have guessed. Based on your apparent age, you went during the time when 80% or so of military linguists studied Russian.
That was back when 35P (cryptologic linguist) was called 98G (low level voice interceptor).
It was the late Cold War. There were 2 and a half companies for Russian at the time (C, F, and half of D). I was in C, The SovBusters – “Мы изучаем русский чтобы вам не надо.” My class started with 120. I don’t recall how many graduated.
I was an analyst with the linguist option (98CL). Most were voice interceptors with some analysts and interrogators.
These days, 35M is for interrogators.
When I was at DLI, B was the only Russian company. A was for Spanish and French, C for Arabic, D for Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Indonesian, and F was for Farsi and Pashto.
“We study Russian so you don’t have to.” Huh, those flashcards did the trick. At NSA, sometimes I would review Chinese or Russian flashcards on slow nights. I wanted to be versatile.
On the talk about war atrocities and someone calling them war crimes earlier.
There’s no such thing as war crimes. The very nature of such a thing requires a legitimate belief in international law which is utter bullshit. You know who the war criminals are? The losers. You know who isn’t a war criminal? The victors.
History, written, victors
“The strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must.”
-Thucydides
***
Though the Melians had ancestral ties to Sparta, they were neutral in the war. Athens invaded Melos in the summer of 416 BC and demanded that the Melians surrender and pay tribute to Athens or face annihilation. The Melians refused, so the Athenians laid siege to their city. Melos surrendered in the winter, and the Athenians executed the men of Melos and enslaved the women and children.
This siege is best remembered for the Melian Dialogue, a dramatization of the negotiations between the Athenians and the Melians before the siege, written by the classical Athenian historian Thucydides. In the negotiations, the Athenians offered no moral justification for their invasion, but instead bluntly told the Melians that Athens needed Melos for its own ends and that the only thing Melians stood to gain in submitting without a fight was self-preservation. It is taught as a classic case study in political realism to illustrate that selfish and pragmatic concerns motivate a country at war.
***
Crime or not, unnecessary violence is stupid. Oh yeah, and Athens lost the Peloponnesian War.
I discovered these at the overpriced hippie market near my new home… best potato chips I have ever had.
6 servings per bag? Looks more like 1 serving and a couple beers and 1/2 a football game. Hopefully they come in much bigger size for week end football
lol I just had maybe two servings. With vodka and some X-Files alternating with football.
My waistline might argue otherwise but there is no way I can eat six ounces of chips in one sitting.
I had Beef Wellington potato chips. A Lay’s product! Those are the best potato chips I have had.
https://umamicart.com/products/lays-potato-chips-steak-wellington-flavor
Would eat. I have never had a beef wellington but damn it looks good every time I see it on one of Ramsey’s programs.
And… umami cart? Jeebus take my money!
I think I’ve had Beef Wellington just once – tasty but I suspect not the best example of it.
I’m going to London in about a month – perhaps I’ll seek out a top-notch example.
when I was at uni in Scotland in the 90’s – my favorite potato crisp was Roasted Chicken. So yummy. I don’t know why the US (lay’s) is so against ‘meat’ flavored chips generally, Especially when Chili cheese fritos exist, so it’s not like the flavor hasn’t been around a long time.
Somewhere I have a photograph of the bag of “crisps” that was served as part of lunch at a convention in Nottingham. It was 100% identical to a Lays bag except the brand name “Walker’s”
Favorite potato chip flavor…hmm…hard for me to decide.
I like salt and vinegar as well as jalapeno. I like Zapp’s chips, though they seem to be a southern thing mostly.
Crab (seasoning) chips are a nice change of pace. They go well with khlav kalash.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NFv5IGP2uA
Zapp’s are common in better establishments in the Northeast, too. First saw them at Quizno’s. Their BBQ is pretty darn good.
The British enjoy a wide variety of chip flavors:
https://www.tastingtable.com/1086634/british-potato-chip-flavors-ranked-from-worst-to-best/
Prawn cocktail flavor? OK, I’ll try anything once.
Hot and Sour Lemon Chicken Feet Flavor
https://umamicart.com/products/lays-deep-ridged-potato-chips-hot-and-sour-lemon-chicken-feet-flavor
Sounds nic— feet? Oh hell no.
Twiglets
for no reason at all:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom plows into child while playing basketball in China
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjm-KB_X4Lg
The news reader’s singy-songy narration is cringeworthy.
Saw that on “The Five”. Gutfeld was like “cool”. I was like “cringe”. Dude tried to show off and tripped over his own feet.
I will forever bust my friend’s balls over him fracturing his ankle while trying to showboat with a soccer ball in front of some kids.
The new Rick and Morty has been so-so – though E1 was very, very good, E2 was a bit weak.
But goddamn do I love Keith David as The President – a near guarantee to make me laugh.
“Some kind of alien goo-gah has infested the Kennedy Sex Tunnels.”
Haven’t watched in a few seasons.
Rick and Morty writers are a cancer that have spread throughout Hollywood. The show is now a machine rather than a product of its original creators and the people who replaced them are typical hacks.
I’ll take your word for it, couldn’t name a writer.
Tomorrow, I will buy an onion so I can wear it on my belt for Halloween. I will also get a bag of candy in case any trick or treaters come to my door. That hasn’t happened since 2012.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t like leaving intrepid kids empty-handed. Trunk-or-treat is an anathema to me.
Tomorrow, I will buy an onion – to cook it with Liver.
What the *bleep* is “Trunk-or-Treat”?
Wait, you’re bagging on tuna in oil but are cooking liver?
It’s a nostalgia thing for the liver.
Plus, tuna should be packed in water. It is the objectively correct way.
I like sardines in olive oil, though tuna has less salt. Anchovies? Oh, how I love those.
You misspelled “subjectively”.
A bunch of parents park somewhere, and their kids circulate amongst the cars. The trunks are full of candy and have Halloween decorations. It’s standard on some military bases and other places where it is perceived to be unsafe for trick-or-treating.
🙁
Yeah. Sad indeed.
***
The trunk-or-treat origin story is actually a Christian one. The event began in the late 1990s when churches wanted to provide a safer, less “evil” alternative to traditional Halloween activities like trick-or-treating, Halloween historian Lesley Bannatyne told NPR. Many churches don’t approve of the devilish Halloween celebration, Bannatyne continued, so in order to make the holiday more palatable, they watered it down. And thus began the idea of collecting candy from decorated car trunks in daylight.
***
The Flanderization of America continues apace.
We have some in our area although they are normally not on Halloween. The local elementary school had theirs on Friday. The ones on Halloween tend to be in areas where homes are far apart along rural roads.
I’m going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of Graham Hancock (Ancient Apocalypse) and Randall Carlson’s work. I’m to the point where it is entirely more plausible to me that there was some ancient advanced civilization that could travel the Earth at a minimum than not. And that the ancient world had a far deeper knowledge of this history now lost to us.
350,000 years for anatomically correct humans is a long fucking time for us to still be hunting and gathering until roughly 10,000 years ago. And even mainstream archaeology keeps pushing the timeline back further and further.
Saw some people on here dismiss Hancock outright after saying they watched one episode of Ancient Apocalypse because he doesn’t have concrete answers. As if such a thing would be possible for one guy with no resources to do on his own.
There’s an interesting idea that there could have been an industrial civilization in the Devonian period 350 million years ago, and nothing of it would have been preserved for archaeologists or paleontologists to find. The counterargument is that the fossils of that period are known to be of animals that don’t use tools.
I am in agreement with much of that in principle. I doubt any kind of long lost industrialization but I also doubt there were no civilizations lost to the ebb and flow of glaciation that we today would not recognize. Fun to think about but kind of useless as we have very little evidence one way or the other. Who knows? The ink is still drying on the oldest records we have available to us but it is worth noting that the most ancient civilizations we know of make references to what they considered ancient lost civilizations.
Humans dont change much. As long as humans and proto-humans were around (~1,000,000 years) they would have taken advantage of survival techniques, ‘civilization’ being one of them. There is no deep, dark, mystical wisdom lost to us…just peoples doing people things.
I have heard it speculated that the Atlanteans had flying cars. I am kinda pissed about that. I still want my goddamned flying car promised to me by George Jetson. Don’t tell me that was all a lie, I will have nothing to live for.
Maybe we should spend more time and energy stamping out evil and looking forward instead of speculating about the past. The past, more so than the present is mostly full of horrors. Let’s build a future without those.
Sapiens by Yuval Harari is a good read on human evolution and spread over the earth. He doesn’t have all the answers but I found the book well worth the time.
One thing he points out is that the classic drawing of hominids walking single file in silhouette starting with a chimp like creature and working up to modern man carrying a spear or stick has subconsciously taught us that it was a smooth continuous process of development in which “we” collectively advanced to modern man.
But, he continues, in reality there were multiple species and subspecies living on earth simultaneously
Much like the Bronze Age isn’t a fixed period of time; when peoples in a given geographic area went through their Bronze Age might be a thousand years later than another people went through it.
Hominid migration and language development are fascinating.
This guy scares me.
Isn’t this guy a WEF stooge?
I haven’t worked since April, though I’ve had interviews and applied for jobs. I don’t really want another one if I can get an income some other way. Fortunately, I will not need a paycheck for a few years as I’ve always been frugal. I don’t see the point of working another job I have no interest in. Another teaching job? I could do that.
I’ve been slacking off on writing lately, though I have written more this year than any other year of my life. I need to write another 37 short stories to hit the quota for Bradbury’s rule of 52.
I don’t really feel like moving again or having a long commute. Still, I should be thankful for my stress-free existence, though I spend too much time in bed, much like Rossini.
***
Rossini loved to write music in bed. One morning, he finished writing a duet and then dropped it on the floor. He couldn’t reach it without getting up, so he grabbed a new sheet of blank staff paper and wrote another duet. A friend dropped by later, and Rossini asked him to retrieve the first version. Comparing the two, he liked both of them, but preferred the second. Not wanting to waste all the effort he put into the first version, he added another part to it so he could use it for a trio in the same opera.
***
For this reason, my mattress is on the floor.
Chris Hedges has often bragged about his Arabic knowledge. Finally, I found a sample of him speaking it, and was unsurprised to hear his terrible pronunciation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpU-Sbxg01A
yom fil mishmish =
***
Fil Mishmish في المشمش is an Arabic term meaning « in the time of the apricots » or « when the apricots bloom », which is taken non-literally to mean the equivalent of the English phrases « wishful thinking » or « when pigs fly. »
***
I’m enjoying the series, Derpy. Another week I guess.
Preemptive good morning early risers.
I dont know what the yootoob algorithm is that chooses videos is but I do know it is seriously fucked up.
I dont watch sports. I dont play video games. I dont watch late night commie propaganda masquerading as comedy.
That is all I get for suggestions.
I watch wood working, forestry, beekeeping, guns, cooking, history, occasionally Ozzy Man and Joey B Toonz
None of that comes up in my suggestions. WTF yootoob?
Currently viewing and considering for tonight….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-NQ7-CExeE
Good morning all.
Silly Suthen, they aren’t suggesting things you want to watch, they’re suggesting things they believe you should be watching instead.
Yeah, I know. I dont need to be told what I like by those booger-eatin’ morons so no thanks.
Just give into the algorithm Suthen, it makes life so much easier. If you really want to give up move on over to TikTok.
Remind me again why I should be afraid that AI will conquer the world.
People will give it the keys and go to sleep, making it even more difficult to break out of the stagnation and decay until it breaks down.
AI is the new boogeyman. Some here will remember the great subliminal advertising panic.
https://www.aaaa.org/great-subliminal-advertising-scare/
Subliminal advertizing has been so successful you don’t realize it’s still in effect.
If we didn’t have government to invent boogeymen we would do it ourselves.
Just give up and win victory over myself? Let me ponder on that for a bit…
I have never looked at tik-tok. I had been warned and I took the warning at face value.
Happy Halloween, Glbs!
🌄☕🎃
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WGt-8adyabk
🎶🎶
🙁
Happy Halloween everyone!
Scary tunes tor today:
The Adverts, Gary Gilmore’s Eyes.
Jim Carroll Band, People Who Died.
Share and enjoy!
Oingo Boingo – Dead Man’s Party
Image being in the 80s as a ska/punk/pop/new wave band only to be approached by a Hollywood director that will set you for life if you agree to only produce the same score for 100 films.
That and your uncle ties down a hottie
Good morning, Beau, Roat, U, Sean, Stinky, Suthen, and certainly-asleep-by-now GL!
Today’s big holiday plans: duck out to Culver’s for an early dinner to hide from trick-or-treaters and stock up on Double Strawberry frozen custard (Flavor of the Day!)
Morning.
Today’s big holiday plans – either write something or paint something.
🙂👍
I hope to duck out early to avoid the afternoon carnage on the interstate. Good Morning, GT!
Good morning, TARDy!
Around here, with all the road construction, there’s afternoon carnage on the interstate most days. 😑
Ah, Jim Carroll. I used that tune in my one and only contribution to this site two years ago.
I can’t find that. What was it called?
Don’t remember, but should be 9/11/2021
Found it. Thank you.
Mornin’, reprobates!
Got a whole bunch of candy which we will be putting out for the costumed rugrats. Who will mostly be wandering around some school parking lot for “Trunk or Treat”. We usually get two or three kids come to the door. I expect I will be gaining a few pounds over the next few days.
Good morning, ‘patzie!
I just need to make it through a week, and I can have vacation.
This calls for a spreadsheet using the DATEDIF function!
Or…you can probably just count the days yourself. But what fun is that?
I got 5 weeks again as a bachelor while we finish up loose ends in Nevada.
Deck folks are coming today and tomorrow to work on the decking first to make it stable and usable. Later this week the household goods truck should be arriving and Ill have to unload it. We saved money, so we will probably use some of that to hire someone to help with the big items.
Dreading early December as that is when I have to fly to Vegas to drive the last vehicle and our trailer out to Kentucky. Father in-law will be joining me for that trip while the Mrs. flies to KY to watch the dog.
If I ever move cross-country again it won’t be like this.
Yikes. Moving across the Hudson River was an ordeal. I am not looking forward to our next (and hopefully last) move.
If you go to the middle of nowhere and continue on for a bit you might find our house.
We are only endangered by three children. I bought one large sized bag of assorted tiny candy bars. I will probably be eating most of them myself.
Our decorations consist of one tiny carved pumpkin with a tea candle in it.
Decorations are up. Ready to pass out candy. Will be a slow Halloween, being on a Tuesday.
The forecast is temps in the 40s. Most costumes will be hidden under coats.