​I adore Halloween. It started when I was a child. Playing dress-up, getting a bag filled with free candy and, a few days later, celebrating my birthday? What a wonderful time of year!
 
Now that I’m a bit older, I still play dress-up, but no one’s offering me free candy, anymore. On the positive side of the equation, I can buy my own candy. It’s not nearly as satisfying, but at least no one is sneaking those tiny boxes of raisins into my Halloween bag. On the negative side of the equation, I only eat sugar-free candy these days. It’s a whole thing. Let’s not get into it today.
 
I also love I Luv Halloween. Years ago, I found volume one at the local library. Written by Keith Giffen and illustrated by Benjamin Roman, it was published by TokyoPop. I picked it up because the artwork appealed to me. I had no idea who the target audience was supposed to be. Published in black and white, drawn in an adorable manga-esque style, its main characters were children who engaged in very unchildlike behavior. Publisher’s Weekly called it, “a black comedy that reads as if Quentin Tarantino and Tim Burton had collaborated on a Halloween heist story.” They also wrote that it was “not for the easily offended.” If you somehow manage to find a copy and decide to read it, you have been warned.
 
Some of my favorite Halloween movies combine comedy and horror – more on that next week – so it turned out that I was the target audience. So was Glynn, which almost makes up for his sick enjoyment of Circus Peanuts. (Spangler Candy has been manufacturing Circus Peanuts for over 100 years. They’ve had more than a century to stop doing this. On the bags of their banana-flavored atrocities, the Spangler brain trust doesn’t brag about how good Circus Peanuts taste. They can’t, not while there’s truth in advertising laws still in effect. All the Spangler group can promise is that their bag of awfulness will be “Free of Major Allergens.” For some reason, they seem to think this ad line will compel the general population to stock up on the stuff. How is it, Spangler Candy, that you’re still in business?)
 
Back to I Luv Halloween, I enjoyed it enough to buy my own copy of the book. Soon afterwards, I noticed when the artist popped up on eBay, selling a page of his original artwork. Being always short of cash in those days, we bid what we could and won the prize! Weeks after we’d paid for the page, the artwork still hadn’t arrived.
 
When my package showed up, the artist included a note, apologizing for the delay. He also added another four pages of I Luv art to make up for his tardiness. It was like Halloween all over again. Free treats and I didn’t even have to dress up for it.

​Years later, with Halloween and Halloween on my mind, I asked Glynn if he still remembered I Luv Halloween. He told me he’d recently re-read it and remained a fan. With our anniversary coming up, we decided to find the artist and ask if he’d do a commission for us. We wanted the characters in his story to be trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.
 
If Finch, Devil Lad and the gang were in our area, we’d know better than to offer them handfuls of pennies, Choco-Willies, or apples with razors in them (as one kindly-looking character does in the story). When they knocked on our door, they’d get those little Snickers bars every time.
 
Benjamin Roman accepted our commission request. This time, the artwork arrived quickly. Glynn tells me, after I’d seen the drawing, I danced around the kitchen, saying, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
 
This is the polar opposite of how I’d react to a gift bag of Circus Peanuts.

Deciding that life is short and we still have too many stories to tell to not get on with it, we’ve rolled up our respective sleeves and gotten on with it. We’re happy to be writing fiction again, but that’s for another day. For today, let me share how I lose a little piece of my short life all too frequently.
 
I surf the internet. Social media, not so much, but YouTube, writing forums, news sites, they steal a bit of my life almost every day. I could get through the news sites quickly if they didn’t have such enticing headlines and subheadings:
 
You Might Be an Old Fart if You Still Do This We are sorry to tell you that these things were never cool.
Always Place a Crayon in Your Wallet When Traveling I was all set for my trip. That’s when my friend told me to place a crayon in my wallet when traveling.  
Man Denies Female Soldier Her Seat in the Plane Once she sat down, things got even worse.
 
Written in bold and in the same font as the real news headlines, these aren’t news items. They’re advertisements, with a tiny little note above the header to say so. The ads usually include an intriguing photograph that doesn’t explain the headline. For example, “Man Denies Female Soldier Her Seat in the Plane” shows airplane passengers looking over their shoulders at some potentially-alarming sight behind them. I don’t click on the ad, but… I’m… so… tempted.
 
I wish the real headlines were as tempting. El Salvador Mines First BTC (bitcoin) Using Volcano Energy is actually news, but it’s information I can live without. If I owned Bitcoin or had my own supervillain lair with volcano attached, I might feel differently. However, when I’m teased with something like The Oldest Living Star from Gilligan’s Island is 102 Years Old You’ll be amazed, I have to know more.
 
As a child, and a teenager, and an adult, I saw reruns of Gilligan’s Island. I can picture all of the actors in my mind. Which one of them is 102-years-old? I can, perhaps unfortunately, still sing the theme song: Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale/A tale of a fateful trip/That started from this tropic port/Aboard this tiny ship. If you’re old enough, some of you may know it, too. When we get together, we’ll sing it in unison.
 
I started researching the cast members, as listed in the theme song. With Gilligan: Bob Denver left us in 2005. The skipper, too: Alan Hale, Jr (Skipper) went before that, in 1990. The millionaire and his wife: Jim Backus (Thurston Howell III), gone in 1989 and Natalie Schafer (Lovey Howell), exited in 1991. The movie star: Tina Louise (Ginger Grant) is still here and is, research indicates, the same age as my mother-in-law. Ms. Louise doesn’t like her age to be shared, but she is much, much younger than 102. The Professor: Russell Johnson (Professor Roy Hinkley) passed in 2014. When I was entering my teens? I thought he was so hot. And Mary Ann: Dawn Wells left us last year. Covid.
 
Only Tina Louise is still standing, but she isn’t close to the century mark. So, who was the mysterious centenarian mentioned in the ad?
 
Nehemiah Persoff. An unusual name, but, from all accounts, a terrific actor. Click on the link and you’ll discover that he worked with Marlon Brando, Barbara Streisand, George Raft, was in dozens of movies, and collected residuals from a good number of television shows.
 
He was in a single episode of Gilligan’s Island, “The Little Dictator.” He played the title character. Sherwood Schwartz, the series creator, said it was his favorite episode from the show. So, is Mr. Persoff one of the stars of Gilligan’s Island?
 
As remarkable as his professional life has been, this claim feels a little squishy. I don’t think any of us would have agreed with it. The people creating ad-bait knew this. They’re experts in toying with us. But Mr. Persoff worked with some of the greatest talents of his generation. He had a small role in “The Wrong Man”, a break-out role in “Some Like It Hot.” So, why did the ad-meisters choose Gilligan’s Island as their hook?
 
More people watched Gilligan’s Island than The Wrong Man and Some Like It Hot combined.
 
The process of sorting this out, discovering what happened to the actors I used to enjoy, cost me two hours of my short life. Worse, I’d do it again.
 
Anything to avoid clicking on the ad.