Halloween Glowed, Even With The Rain

By Shannon Hicks

Rain may have dampened some of the spirits that traditionally accompany that manic time called “Halloween on Main Street,” but thousands of revelers turned out for trick-or-treating this past weekend, doing their best to ignore the rain that fell sporadically by late Saturday afternoon and into the evening. Pirates, bumble bees, Transformers, and Star Wars characters were among the most popular costumes seen this year, although Newtown was also visited by Michael Jackson, Octomom, and Kate Gosselin, among countless others. There were living, breathing packs of candy corn, and even one girl Smurf.

Astronauts and USPS mail carriers rubbed elbows with princesses, skeletons, bunnies, and chickens. Sumo wrestlers competed with oversize pumpkin costumes for sidewalk space. Mermaids and girls in poodle skirts shared the spotlight with Super Girl and Spider-Man.

The Bee was open for trick-or-treaters for a few hours on Saturday. With a Hawaiian theme for decorations and Jimmy Buffett’s music playing in the background, employees and friends welcomed at least 200 costumed guests at their front door between 4:30 and 7:30.

As always, however, it was the residents of Main Street who saw the biggest crowds. At 32 Main Street, Lina and Gordon Williams began handing out their candy at 4.

“We had 2,216 pieces of candy, and we ran out at 7:45,” Mrs Williams said this week. “I’m sure there were more people than that, but we just didn’t have enough. For donations we had more than ever, though, and that was great.”

Richard and Dorethy Mulligan, the owners of Hillbrow at 74 Main, also appreciated the collections that helped with candy this year.

“We went through 30 bags of candy, and we appreciated all that was donated,” said Mrs Mulligan. “We went through 30 bags of candy. It sounds like such an exaggeration, but it really isn’t. In the middle of everything, our daughter ran down to CVS to pick up another ten bags for us. So we still spent our own money, but it’s all good. It’s for the kids.”

Known for having a great big spider on a huge spider web made of rope in past years, Hillbrow’s owners this year still had a menacing arachnid waiting for visitors, but a smaller version than what has greeted kids in the past.

Richard Mulligan used a sail from the couple’s boat, and used it as a base for a spider web that also had a voice activated machine that lowered a spider onto unsuspecting children.

“You get six or eight people who would say Trick or Treat, and that spider would come down and everybody would scream,” Mrs Mulligan recalled with a laugh.

A number of groups collected candy for Main Street residents this year. Collection boxes had been set up at The Big Y, Caraluzzi’s, and Shop & Shop so that shoppers could donate candy that was then distributed along the main corridor of Newtown in time for Saturday’s trick-or-treaters.

On October 25, one of Trinity Episcopal Church’s youth groups celebrated a Halloween party with reverse trick-or-treating. Armed with candy that had been donated by the church’s membership in earlier weeks, the seventh and eighth grade students visited 43 homes on both sides of Main Street and Glover Avenue, distributing 165 shopping bags to the homeowners.

Newtown Parks & Rec also got into the candy distribution this year. The department hosted its Halloween party on Thursday, October 22, and requested that attendees bring a bag of candy with them in place of any admission fee. On Friday morning, Deborah Denzel and Rita Pavia-Loomis spent time distributing the donations that came in from the more than 100 guests who attended the event the previous afternoon.