Within a couple of years, my brother was on another of his frequent mini-obsessions. This time it was an early sign of his lifelong affinity for the simple, rustic life of the distant past. The new obsession was Southern Rock. In my stash of records from our sister, I had a few from The Marshall Tucker Band and my brother knew it. He was desperately into the genre and wanted to negotiate a bargain with me.

“Paul, you have those Marshall Tucker albums and I am dying to get my hands on them,” he said. “So I’ll trade you. If you give me your three Marshall Tucker albums, I’ll give you any three albums in my collection. Anything. Just name it.”

Now, I had never listened to those Marshall Tucker records and I didn’t even like the band all that much. Frankly, they were a little more grown-up than where my tastes were at the time. A decade later, I finally started to appreciate them. That’s kind of a pattern with certain music in my life, particularly stuff that was classic before I was ready for it. However, for the first time in my life, I had bargaining power over my middle brother and I wasn’t going to waste it.

“I want your Richard Pryor albums.”

I have never seen such a look of dismay on another person’s face to this day. Immediately, the negotiating began. “Come on,” he said, “anything but those. Pick anything else. You don’t even like Marshall Tucker!”

But he wouldn’t budge and so I wouldn’t, either. I never got Richard Pryor from him and he never got Marshall Tucker from me. A short time later – weeks? months? – his fervor for Southern Rock had cooled drastically, which was not unexpected, and not only did he stop pleading for my records, but also he started to move on to other, newer fascinations. I was stuck with records I didn’t care about, but at least I didn’t give in. And I was pretty pleased about that.

First, we had to get two giant Igloo coolers. I fill each cooler all the way up to the top with candy. These coolers are now iconic legends all over this part of town. Every year, when kids ring the bell and I open the door, I am greeted with screams of “cooler guy!!“. It’s pretty hilarious. Ask my friend, Dan Ross, about it. I had him “stand in” for me one year, and people only saw the cooler, not the face of the guy behind the cooler.

As you can see, we only give away the good stuff. All the best and favorite chocolate candies.

• Almond Joy
• Peanut M&Ms
• Plain M&Ms
• Snickers
• Baby Ruth
• Nestle Crunch
• Hershey’s Chocolate
• Kit Kat
• Butterfinger
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup (the big ones)

That’s in every bag. So let’s talk about the bags we buy. We always get good deals in bulk from either Wal-mart or Costco. This year, we got 13 big bags. As I emptied them into the coolers this afternoon, I did the numbers.

Each of the 13 bags had a net weight of 5.6 lbs, and 150 pieces of candy each. I put seven bags in one cooler and six bags in the other. The grand total is 72.8 pounds of candy I will give away tonight, or 1,950 individual pieces. Even Elwood can’t believe it.

Now, how does one give away that much candy in one Halloween night? Well, I have to use two hands. For every kid at the door, I scoop my two hands deep into the top cooler and dump at least a dozen pieces into each bucket or bag. You should hear the reactions when the sheer weight of each two-fisted scoop smacks the bottom of the pillow case!

I think Halloween must be my favorite holiday. What do you think? What’s Halloween like where you are? Leave a comment or contact me via email.

Current Status: The trick-or-treaters have only been coming for about 45 minutes, or less, and I’ve already cleared one cooler. That’s roughly 36 lbs. of chocolate candy – almost one piece every minute.

The Volkswagon Jetta “coelacanth” commercial: