They say you're only as old as you feel.

Its true pholks, I do believe it is true. Add to that the fact that I refuse to grow up after six decades and I have made my decision.

Yes, I'm going to dress up and celebrate Halloween this year.

My costume is a not-so-well guarded secret, but I hope to surprise some people I know who have not seen the get-up I'm planning.

My wife, Kathy, already is making plans for my costume which won a top prize the last time I wore it. This time it will be even better. I don't expect to go totally unrecognized but I think some pholks will be amused and or surprised.

Sure some will say I'm way too old for this kind of stuff, but if they can't take a joke, well you know the saying.

Anyway, I love to have fun and to create a smile for some person each day, especially those people who seldom crack a smile. If you are having a bad day, I consider it an obligation to make you smile, if possible. Most of the time I do, but sometimes nothing seems to work, I know I've been thankful to someone who has helped make my day. But back to the point of Halloween.

I don't consider it a real holiday but rather a chance to have fun and tease others. All laughs and smiles, maybe one or two candy bars will work for me. And, I still welcome a grand kid's offer of some of their Halloween haul but I gave up trick or treating years ago.

This year's outfit is not going to be that outrageous, but it is something I think will be fun.

In recent years I've dressed up for a haunted house in Woodlake and gained a little notoriety for my character. No haunted house this year so I can switch gears, so to speak. If all goes right this Halloween, I may rack up a week's worth of smile inducement in one day (or night, or both). Like making a deposit in the smile account.

Like I said, Halloween is not a holiday where you have to buy cards or give expensive or fancy gifts, but memories of some of my early Halloweens are pretty well etched in my mind, such as it is.

In my hometown of Knight's Ferry the celebration usually centered on a party at the community hall. I recall my grandmother dressing up as a witch and scaring me and my buddies nearly to death. I may have peed my pants or whatever it was I was wearing. I didn't know who she was for quite some time. She was good. And she played it to the hilt.

I remember crying and trying to hide from her. It became part of the family lore. A couple years later, as I recall, I was dressed up like a rabbit. I wore a cute outfit complete with long ears. I carried a big carrot and when I had had enough of my buddies pulling my ears I cracked one of them over the head with that carrot. It broke but I didn't have my ears pulled any more that night.

Perhaps the most elaborate costume was one my father helped engineer. I was a spaceman, probably an alien. Sort of like a robot of the type in "The Day The Earth Stood Still." I wore a cardboard box covered with tin foil, a football helmet equipped with antenna made from two of those party favors you blow into. A piece of copper tubing, from dad's workshop was connected to the party favors and fastened into the helmet so I could blow into it and inflate the antenna. I think I won a prize. My dad had fun making the outfit, along with my mom's help.

It was a neat outfit. Something I might do again, if I can find a cardboard box big enough and enough foil to cover it.

Later years saw me taking stepchildren and grand kids to gather candy. I also pulled some pretty neat tricks at my house, enough to make "older" trick or treaters stop in their tracks.

Well, now it is that time again. My wife Kathy is helping me plan this year's get-up.

I only wish she had known my father. Boy, would they have been a team. No telling what I would have wound up as an adult Halloween character. For sure I would make some good deposits in the smile account.

Miles can be reached at mshuper@valleyvoicenewspaper.com

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