The Theme for 2012 was Hobo Party

Hobos are a reminder of the past. When we were kids, hobos were a popular costume. My daughter told me that she thinks of hobos as homeless people. My definition is different. Hobos are itinerant travelers who chose to ride the rails and see the country. They probably did not have a permanent home and probably didn't have any money, so they could appear to be homeless people, but the life of a hobo somehow seems brighter. There are a group of movies that have a central theme of hobos, one being: Emperor of the North Pole (1973) starring Ernest Borgnine as a sadistic train cop and Lee Marvin and Keith Carradine as hobos determined to ride the train. Well, for Halloween, we really didn't need to delve deep into hobo culture, just ride the theme. Here are this year's hobos at the Halloween party. Luckily, we have friends who don't mind dressing up for Halloween.

The Theme for 2011 was Toga Party

Well, the big surprise for this year's Halloween Party was that it snowed all day Saturday and left 5 inches of wet snow on the ground (previous NJ record was 1/3 of an inch in October)(some towns had up to 2 feet of snow on Saturday). In addition, since we had a late Autumn, the leaves were still on the trees. This caused heavy snow to build up on the branches and thousands of branches and some trees came tumbling down, crackling like fireworks and taking down power wires. We were spared (one block away they were without power for two days), so we had electricity, but many roads were impassable due to the downed trees and wires. Out of the expected 40 or so people, we had a total of 10 who braved the weather, in costume. Here are some of the photos of the outside decorations with and without snow and a group shot of the partygoers. The first photo is with about 2 inches of snow. It really looked like a gothic cemetery when the snow was 5 inches and night fell and the cemetery lights lit it in a spooky manner. Much of the snow had melted by Monday when the Trick or Treaters came by. We got 95 Trick or Treaters and the town advised all parents that no one should be out after dark due to the branches, downed wires, and dark neighborhoods.

The Theme for 2010 was "Murder Mystery at the River View Inn

I wrote a murder mystery to fit the theme and made the clues somewhat obscure so that it would not be easy to figure who killed the victim. Rather than have scripts that people would have to memorize, I had a paragraph or two that each suspect would read and then there was another paragraph or two which information they should give up if questioned. It worked better than I expected and everyone was really into the process. I assumed that the facts would have to be fairly simple to keep everyone's attention, but I could have made it a bit more detailed since everyone was "very involved". There were 6 suspects and none of them knew who killed the victim. I spent a month working on the text, rewriting it, polishing it, and finally printing it out. Clues were easy to find, except one, and there were a few dead end clues, red herrings, etc.

Another great costume was Victim Outlines (below left)

Richard, above left in blue was "undercover Dick". Everyone posed before our victim outline (I missed a few couples). We had Quincy, Rick Castle and Beckett, Miss Marples, Sam Spade, CSI, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Poirot, Victim Outlines, Agent 99, Nancy Drew, and I was Jim Rockford.