One evening about eight months ago I met with some college comrades at the lodgings of our friend Louis R. We drank punch and smoked, talked of literature and art, and made jokes like any other company of young men. Suddenly the door flew open, and one who had been my friend since boyhood burst in like a hurricane.

We know its unorthodox, but we really love our lox, And better still we love to box, and gift-wrap too. Woodbox and workbox and toolbox and tinderbox Bobby Fox collects socks, so why don't you?

I left for my next spooky adventure right from work, hoping to get at least halfway to North Carolina tonight. The weather was cold, but sunny, and the massive George Washington Bridge gleamed in the westering sunlight as I zipped across. I am amazed at the size and beauty of this bridge every time I cross it. Then I was out of New York, heading across Jersey and through the gorgeous Delaware Water Gap into Pennsylvania. One of the reasons I enjoy road trips like this are the memories of other Spooky trips I have. Traveling through Wilkes-Barre, PA, I remember collecting the story of a coal-miner minstral who returned from the grave to say good-bye to an old friend. Driving past Allentown, I remembered the ghost I actually "met" - or at least heard - while staying at my cousin's house and visiting her haunted toy room. And of course, passing the battlefields of Gettysburg and Antietam, I remembered the ghost of George Washington who appeared at Little Round Top and the very creepy feeling I had staring at the haunte bridge in Antietam.

It had been one heckuva day. By the time I got home I was practically crawling on my hands and knees, fatigued in mind, body, and spirit. All I wanted was food, a hot bubble bath, and sleep, in that order. I was determined that I would have all three tonight no matter what I had to push off to do it.

Not too long ago my niece lost another tooth. Being an enterprising child who is not afraid to believe in the tooth fairy if it means receiving money, she stuck it under her pillow. Obedient to custom, her father -- Tooth-fairy Tim -- did his job well, and in the morning she was richer by one dollar.

In the nineteen-thirties and early forties, when my grandmother Mildred was a young woman, she settled in New Jersey with her husband Loyd. They lived in an old green farmhouse surrounded by fields, with few neighbors, and a large white church with a revival-style campground just up the block from their home.

My grandfather had a fairly new silver Dodge Saint Regis back when I was a sophomore in college, which eventually became my car when he got a new one. On the particular late-winter weekend of our story, Grandpa was going away for a visit (or perhaps to a conference) and didn’t require the use of his car until late Sunday afternoon. My Dad, on the other hand, needed the use of car – any car -- since the Schlosser family vehicle had conked out on him and was in the garage being fixed. My Grandpa offered him the use of the Dodge, and Dad accepted gladly. So Grandpa dropped off the Dodge at our house on Friday evening, leaving it to the tender mercies of my family while he went away.

Harry Horse loved to watch television. He loved the cartoons and the sitcoms. He watched the movies and listened intently to the talk shows as the sounds drifted through the open window in the kitchen...

The package was sitting on the porch when she got home from class, even though she had repeatedly told Aunt Katy not to send it this year.

At breakfast, Cat sits on the deck of the pool, outside the glass doors to the kitchen. Bang, bang. She hits the door with her paw. This means “Johnny, feed me” in Cat’s special language. I get up from my chair and feed Cat.