By Richard Taylor
There may have been as many adult participants in costume strolling village streets Halloween night Tuesday as there were candy-seeking kids.
Warm weather certainly helped the turnout for this annual Halloween tradition, as parents led their offspring along Lighthouse and Loop roads—the main trick-or-treating spot–some on golf carts, but most walking.
Unlike mainland towns, where strolling groups of gremlins and ghouls usually walk up and ring door bells, or ride around in their parent’s cars from neighborhood to neighborhood, on Ocracoke treat-givers usually gather at road’s edge, with containers of candy ready for the taking.
It’s like a big block party because almost everybody knows everybody. Many permanent residents have been doling out goodies in the same spot for years.
The corner of Lighthouse and Creek roads at Albert Styron’s Store was a particularly popular spot for neighbors to mingle as they passed out their bounty.
Marci and Charlie Mason split their time between Ocracoke and Charlottesville, Va. Bathed by the setting sun, the couple handed out candy across from Pirate’s Quay on Silver Lake Road.
Red and Ashley Harrell, who own Gaffer’s, ferried six kids (Malli, Payce, Juliette, Bailey, Sebastian and Sawyer) down Silver Lake on a large, triple-seater golf cart.
A block away, Gary and Trisha Davis handed out loot in front of their Lighthouse Road home, along with boating visitors Dennis and Marlene Mullins from both Kansas City, Mo., and the River Dunes area north of Oriental on the Intracoastal Waterway.
The Mullins’ had tied up their catamaran-style sailboat at the NPS docks on Silver Lake for two weeks and said they had a perfect ring-side seat for last Saturday’s afternoon’s Battle of Ocracoke three-ship boat skirmish during Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree.
Farther down Lighthouse Road, island contractor Woody Billings was arrayed in his 30-year-old Wizard of Oz Tin Man costume made from HVAC ducts. Billings had sprayed his face, hair and hands with silver paint. With a large painted funnel for a hat, he looked the part.
Children and adults alike were reluctant to approach too closely to young David Styron, who was decked out as the scary Stephen King’s “It” clown, and a group of visiting women were costumed as characters in Dr. Seuss’s “The Cat in the Hat” while handing out candy.
Charles and Ann O’Neal sported cat faces as they handed out candy.
Similar sightings were seen all over the village.
On this island with limited shopping opportunities, numerous houses were well decorated with splendid Halloween themes.
Later in the evening, older kids carried out an island tradition of throwing eggs at each other and passers by. Some residue of those shenanigans was still visible on Back Road Wednesday morning.
