Was just thinking how during the 1980s my grandmother would make these ornate Halloween displays and place them on the front porch.

She made a life-size witch one year that was a very credible simulacrum for a person. In the semi-darkness of a moodily-lit porch, it was indistinguishable from a real human. With papier mache and other tools, she was an artist of rare skill.

One year a woman came to the door semi-politely but adamantly admonishing my grandmother for her Halloween decorations being “too scary,” and enjoining her to take them down for the kids’ sake.

She sort of had a point, though the kids actually loved them. I think they just scared the woman in particular and as always “for the kids” was just an excuse. What bothered the woman in particular if I recall was a spider three feet across my grandmother had made that looked so life-like that it seemed it’d skitter across the porch at any moment.

The witch, though — it was rigged with fishing line in such a way that when the trick-or-treaters were standing in front of the door hands out for treats, as my grandmother opened the door, the witch would rise up behind them, unseen.

Then of course when they turned around the witch would be there, levitating in the air behind them where nothing had been before.

That was a very effective scare, I can tell you.

Ah, the joys of terrifying witless some six-year-olds. At that, my grandmother was a master.