Mamacita says:

Of course, you all probably already know that if you mix candy corn and salted peanuts together in a big bowl, you’ve got handfuls of PayDay bar goodness.

Peanuts are a meat substitute, and candy corn is pretty much fat-free (paraffin never hurt anybody) so really, a big bowl of candy corn and peanuts is GOOD for you.

Eat up.

Oh, and THIS IS HALLOWE’EN!

In case you are wondering, the word “Hallowe’en” is SUPPOSED to have an apostrophe in it. It’s an old spelling, but I like it so I use it.  I think you should, too.  It would help us all remember what the word actually means.

I learned it from the literature book my mother used when she was in the third grade.  I loved that book as a child, and I still do.  Wonder of wonders – and oh MY, how veddy, veddy politically incorrect – that book contained actual, honest-to-pete LITERATURE!  Yes, actual literature, not those stupid, insipid, limited-vocabulary travesties some teachers call “literature;” heck, I wouldn’t even call that stuff “stories.”  It’s most certainly not literature.

But that third grade book had excerpts from Peter Pan, and Les Miserables, and Little House in the Big Woods. That little schoolbook is why I read those novels when I was in lower elementary school.

Back then, schoolbooks were purchased, not rented, and Mom loved that book so much, she kept it, and re-read it many times.  Once I learned to read, so did I.

I don’t think I ever had a Language Arts book I liked well enough to want to keep, even if it had been permitted.  Watered-down abridgements are the devil, and I mean that in a truly satanic way.  And you really don’t want to get me started on “limited vocabulary” selections. Kids learn new words by exposure to new words.  No exposure = no new words added to one’s vocabulary.

No wonder so many of our kids today aren’t interested in reading for pleasure.  Our schools don’t give them anything worth reading.  Some of them graduate – or don’t – without ever having been exposed to a single interesting, challenging thing worth reading.

And this from someone who actually liked Silas Marner.

But speaking of Halloween, my favorite person, my mentor, my idol, Steve Spangler, will be on “Ellen” again tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 30!  Check your TV Guide for the time in your area, and be sure to watch!  Then go to his blog and tell him how breathtakingly beautiful awesome he was!

Here are some things Steve Spangler has done on “Ellen” in segments past; sit up straight and pay attention when he gets to those pumpkins – it’ll knock your socks off, if you’re wearing socks.  If you’re not, it’ll curl your toes.  If you have no toes, well, I cried because I had no shoes.

If you go thou and do likewise, don’t forget your goggles.

Remember: You simply MUST watch Ellen tomorrow – Friday – because Steve Spangler is her guest.

There will be a test. There will also be prizes.

I’m not kidding.