It’s that time of year again, when little children everywhere put on ridiculous clothes and go to strangers’ homes. Then their parents spam Facebook with cute photos. So let’s go crazy!

Joe was formerly known on Halloween as bee, skunk, lion, gnome, chicken, dinosaur and evil Dr. Hans Deuschtuff. This year he’s going to be a doctor of a different stripe, a Ph.D of romance, the one-and-only Al Bundy of Disney heroes – Prince Charming.

We’ll probably start Saturday morning at the Colonial Heights Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast – our prince likes pancakes. Then, in the late afternoon, Joe will don the light blue and gold uniform of a fictitious kingdom – dream if you can, a courtyard – and ride out of his ice cream castle to collect chocolatey tribute for his queen mum. Because women, not girls, rule his world.

Supreme Leader Kim Joe-Un is best leader.

The one and only William, third Marquess of the the House of Shears.

Stolen valor.

Even in civilian clothes he’s a hit with the princesseses, as seen here in 2014. A little on-again-off-again with Cindy, though. She fickle.

Coda: Things that didn’t make the final cut of this blog post – Purple, paisley and raspberry. Don’t squeeze the Charming. Apollonia. Evil step sister Lola (this is what it sounds like when dog’s cry). A pumpkin carriage. Weird spelling (C what I mean 2U). Pixy Stix is a hell of a drug. Halloween partying like it’s 1999. And positively, absolutely, certainly nothing about Nikki. We don’t talk about Nikki.

Take me away!

Slow few weeks here at home. We started the gas fireplace today just for good measure, have to put marshmallows on the grocery list now. I don’t think Joe’s had a smore yet. What gets marshmallow and chocolate out of a rug? We’ll have to put that on the list, too.

I think there’s a James Dean poster just like this.

He loves his mother, and how!

I can still feel my seven year old hands gripping the launcher.

Blood from my knuckles, skinned raw from spinning the plastic crank, mixes with dirt and is flung by the spinning rear wheel. A malignant howl-shriek rises as the bad-ass motorcycle nears launch. The pressure is on. Final tiny adjustments to the direction, hoping bendy Evel would ride his sticker-laden bike straight at the cardboard-and-phone book ramp. A maddened wheelie and he’s off – a red, white and blue streak over an endless row of rusted yellow Tonkas. He nails the landing and veers suddenly left into the grass. He rests on his side now, with the wheel still spinning fast enough to destroy a little girl’s hair.

The greatest daredevil of the 20th century. The greatest toy ever constructed. The greatest boy ever birthed. Evel Knievel, Joe Tremblay. Joe Tremblay, Evel Knievel.

The torch has been passed.