Dreaming Of A White Halloween

If TigerBlog knocks on your door tonight, his favorite candies are:

* Three Musketeers
* 100 Grand
* Twix (though he hates the commercials with all the crunching)

And of course, one half of nature's most nearly perfect food combination - chocolate M&Ms (with chocolate ice cream).

He's okay with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, even though he doesn't like peanut butter, a contradiction he's never quite understood.

Today is Halloween, one of the great days of any year. Each year, as TB pulls into the Jadwin parking lot, he sees the parade of the nursery school kids in their costumes across FitzRandolph Road, and it reminds him of when TigerBlog Jr. and Little Miss TigerBlog took part - a time that seems not so long ago.

Back then, the little boys dressed like football players and pirates and ghosts and cowboys and Darth Vader and the little girls dressed like Disney princesses and Hannah Montana and cupcakes and pumpkins.

Eventually, those costumes are outgrown, replaced by, on the women's side at least, by costumes that all involve some primarily female occupation and the word "slutty" in front of it. Sociologists can debate the cultural significance and impact.

TigerBlog likes to give out the candy to the costumed children on Halloween night, and not because he likes to see how they're all dressed. Instead, it's because it gives him unlimited access to the candy without ever having to go outside.

Today, for the first time since 1925, Halloween will include something a little different, and that would be snow on the ground. At least that's what TB read over the weekend.

For a comparison, the first measurable snowfall of 2010-11 came on Dec. 26 - not in the first half of the fall.

TigerBlog cannot remember a snowy Halloween, and he would like to point out that he's vehemently against it.

And yet there he was yesterday, shoveling snow. In October. In shorts, no less. With green leaves still in the trees.

In a really, really weird three-day stretch, TigerBlog wore a shortsleeve shirt and no jacket to work Friday, endured a driving snowstorm Saturday and was back in shorts Sunday.

Ewing, located about 10 miles from Princeton, got six inches of snow Saturday. Pennington, which is next to Ewing, got two. Princeton probably had around 2-3.

What the snow did do was destroy what would have been a great Saturday of sports here. Completely destroy it, for that matter.

There were four home outdoor games against Cornell scheduled for Saturday, as well as Heps cross country.

Attendance for the six events on a nice day would have topped 10,000, maybe reached 15,000. Instead, with the weather, three of the six events were postponed until yesterday, while maybe 400 people watched the football game. Heps actually drew fairly well, but it wasn't what it otherwise could have been had the weather not been horrific.

It's a huge shame.

The forecast all week was for cloudy and 40-45 degrees for Saturday, with a chance of rain. It wasn't until late in the week that it became more likely that it would rain, and the forecast for snow didn't arrive until shortly before the flakes did.

The big issue Saturday morning was weather or not to play soccer and field hockey, but eventually it was obvious that those games would have to wait a day for safety reasons. Football, of course, goes on unless there's lightning, and the result was the kind of football-in-the-snow that everyone likes to watch - on TV. Or play.

The forecast for this week? Temps in the high 50s the next two days and then six straight days in the 60s.

TigerBlog is hoping that the snow that fell here was a fluke and not a precursor for the winter, which doesn't actually start for more than seven weeks.

He's also hoping everyone has a fun and safe Halloween.