Snow on the pumpkins

Frosty weather can’t stop Lyons Halloween

By Steve Metsch

Lyons Public Works Director Ryan Grace perhaps put it best when he smiled, and said “Merry Christmas” before shaking a visitor’s hand at the village’s annual Halloween party.

“What a nightmare. We’ve battling it all day. The wind blowing through the tents, trying to keep the heaters going. Everything is 10 times harder than it has to be,” Grace said.

“We were out here Monday, cut the grass, everything looked nice and it’s covered in snow,” Grace said

Yes, the weather outside was frightful, but ithe tents was so delightful.

A couple hundred Halloween enthusiasts, most of them children who were dressed in costumes – some beneath bulky winter coats – braved the cold and snowy weather on Halloween to attend the party

Held in Smith Park across the street from the village hall, three white and two heated tents had been erected to provide shelter from those intending to have a fun time.

They were treated to free hot dogs, chips, water and taffy apples; bags of candy; toys; music; and hayrides around the park’s exterior. It was just like in years past, only this year there were a couple inches of snow on the ground.

The Bowman family dressed as ghouls and attended Lyons’ snowy Halloween party. Photo by Steve Metsch.

Stephanie Bowman, of Lyons, brought her two children, Onnie, 9, Ian, 5. All were dressed as ghouls with appropriately scary makeup, almost a scary as the weather.

“It’s bad. We haven’t had a snowstorm like this on Halloween in a while, it has been cold, but … “ Bowman said.

They were in the tent where free lunch was being served up.

There was also cups filled with hot apple cider, guaranteed to warm even the coldest of ghouls.

Lyons Fire Chief Gordon Nord, Jr., shook his head when asked about the weather.

“This is cold. One other time we had the (warming) barrels out here. It was sleeting four years ago. That was brutal … A lot of thought went into this ahead of time. It’s a crummy day, but at least it’s tolerable inside the tents.”

The weather did little to cool the enthusiasm of trick-or-treaters.

“It (stinks). Four or five years ago there was an ice storm, but this is one of the coldest ones,” Erica Brownell said as she chased after her children.

Tom Weiner, formerly on the Lyons School District 103 board, laughed and said, “this is the worst it’s ever been … You can’t do nothing about the weather.”

He was there with his wife, Louisa, and their son, 7-year-old Bobby, who was dressed as Creeper from the video game Minecraft.

They had not been going door-to-door for candy yet. Weiner said, adding “we might hit a couple houses, neighbors, after this.”

Bobby attends second grade at Costello School in Lyons.

Normally, Weiner said, parents have a festive “trick-or-trunk” event in the school parking lot. Not this year.

“They did everything inside,” Weiner said.

Parents who had planned on handing out candy from car trunks instead did so inside the school building, he said.

The annual parade around the school of children in costumes also fell victim to the weather.

“We had a parade,” Bobby added, “but it was inside the school.”

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Steve Metsch

Steve Metsch is an award winning veteran reporter who previously worked for the Daily Southtown Newspapers, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. Metsch is a writer and editor at the Southwest News Newspaper group based in suburban Chicago, and a freelance writer for a financial newsletter, a health magazine and the Naperville Sun.
Email Steve Metsch at sm4610@sbcglobal.net

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