He was going to be Batman, and then he was going to be the Lone Ranger, and he even considered being the Man in the Yellow Hat, but his mother was pregnant, and the idea of waiting a year so that his sister could be George was brilliant, so out went the Man in the Yellow Hat, and out went Batman and the Lone Ranger, and one week before Halloween, he asked to be Max.

For your day-before-Halloween (aka “Cabbage Night”) amusement: a drawing! With a ghost and a cigar-smoking ghoul! In a cemetery!

Happy (almost) Halloween!

Winslow gets a little carried away sometimes. But only sometimes.

I have, for some years now, been accustomed to take a short walk in the evenings. During many of these I have had uncomfortable encounters with trees. Indeed, all encounters with trees are uncomfortable, if we are honest with ourselves. Such honesty is, however, rare and it is much more common that we choose to be oblivious to our own ineptitude in arboreal society. This merely compounds the problem.

Last month’s column got me thinking about the many books I wasn’t allowed to read growing up. There were actually quite a few – my mother was of the prude and prejudice type. Anyway, here’s a small list of some wandering book covers and the secrets they hold that I can only dream of…