Over the weekend-Updated

Did you have a very scary Halloween?

On Friday afternoon the Rensselaer Library sponsored a Riley Read at the Gazebo on the Court House Lawn.

For a number of years there were Riley Reads in Brookside Park. I think they were sponsored by a women's sorority. (If you remember, you can fill that in.) The attendance was never very big, and in that respect, the 2010 version was true to its heritage. (I always enjoyed the cookies--they were great. And I remember a fire--was there one there, or is my memory faulty?)

On Thursday and Saturday nights the Rensselaer High School Drama Club presented "The Foreigner," a comedy with some absurd plot elements but which gave a couple of seniors a chance to show their acting range. Here Betty, the owner of the Fishing Lodge, is shouting at the main character Charlie on the assumption that if he does not understand English, it may help to speak very loudly.

Charlie, pretending not to understand English, thwarts an attempt by a corrupt local official and a con man posing as a preacher to steal the Betty's lodge and turn it into a headquarters for the Klu Klux Klan.

The performance on Saturday was sparsely attended, with fewer than 100 people in the audience. There were also very few high school students. When I was in high school a very long time ago, the plays were almost exclusively attended by the students (but then my high school days were a bit out of the ordinary).

The next high school play will be "Anything Goes" in April, 2011.

As for Halloween and Tricks and Treating, there were a lot of rather old "kids" who stopped by our house. One of the "kids" I had come to the door had a goatee, and it was real, not part of a costume. If there is no age limit on this, maybe I should go out and beg candy next year.

Update: The students at St. Augustine School are doing an interesting alternative to a Halloween party. Today, which is All Saints Day, they are dressing up as their favorite saint and having a costume party. It is rather interesting that at least two of our holidays have come from elevating and secularizing the day before a Holy Day--Halloween, which is the eve of All Saints Day (All Hallows Evening), and Mardi Gras, which is the day before Ash Wednesday. The word "carnival" comes from the Latin for "Goodbye Meat."

Update 2: Below is a picture of the various most original, most authentic, best girl's costume and best boy's costume from their afternoon program. Can you identify any of the saints?