It was a startling sight. The trim lawn of one of our neighbours had been transformed into a graveyard with tombstones leaning crookedly and a giant spider dangling from a branch.
Among the tombstones a little girl played happily with pumpkins, ignoring the wicked witch gazing down from the front porch. Ah, yes. It is pumpkin time again. That explains why just about every horror film you ever heard about is playing on our 72-channel cable TV.
Halloween is becoming bigger and bigger business in this country where most people think it is the name of a horror film rather than All Saints' Eve.
Even Vice-President Al Gore and his wife Tipper go ghoulish this week as they hold their annual costumed ball for the media at their 100-year-old Queen Anne-style mansion. The Gores love dressing up as Frankenstein and his bride or zombies or Dracula.
President Clinton masks are the big seller this year, the delighted retailers report, as sales of Halloween regalia are expected to top $3 billion. This year, 73 per cent of adults will "do" Halloween compared with 65 per cent a year ago, some expert predicts.
Anxious to join in, this correspondent did an Internet pumpkin quiz for "kids and teens" and scored 40 out of 70. I was told: "Not bad! You're a Jack of all lanterns." With six more points I would have been classified as having "serious pumpkin power". Must try harder next year. I missed on "Who rode around Sleepy Hollow with a pumpkin for a head?" I said Ichabod Crane instead of the Headless Horseman.
In our Montgomery County, we can head for the Old Baptist Cemetery to hear ghost stories from nine storytellers. Then we can walk by candlelight to a mansion with eight more storytellers in different rooms plus hot cider, cookies and more. That's an awful lot of stories.
I would prefer the Takoma Park Haunted House with its "witches, ghouls, a mad scientist and more". The problem is that you have to be 12 or under.
The police are getting in on the act. Additional squad cars and foot patrols will be keeping an eye on the adult Halloween revellers as they emerge from the Washington bars. Those of us wearing masks should make sure they do not limit our visibility if driving or remove the face gear, advises a police spokesman.
In Maryland, Halloween means volunteer "auxiliary police" help the real cops. Officer Ed O'Carroll says these auxiliaries (shades of the Tan War) "have full arrest powers". They "do not carry sidearms but do have shotguns in their patrol cars and pepper spray on their utility belts", Officer Ed says. So you have a choice of being peppered with buckshot or sprayed with pepper if you scare an auxiliary cop with your realistic Dracula costume. Maybe it is safer to stay at home this year. Then you will have to entertain the "trick or treat" kids who will interrupt your horror movie viewing. I'm tempted to scare the little horrors with my banshee costume and sound effects. But Officer Ed and his auxiliaries would probably swoop. He advises the trick or treaters to travel in groups and wear reflective costumes.
"There's safety in numbers. Little goblins and ghosts should always travel in groups," Officer Ed advises. "We don't want real-life ghosts and goblins to get them." Don't we? Come inside, little goblins, and see my haunted cellar. Laughs evilly as hands out fruit and candies.
OK. This Halloween stuff can go to your head. Back to the leaf-raking. Much more important than the goblins is the raking-of-the-leaves ritual. It sounds boring but you can get a kick out of raking on a lovely autumn day in Washington. And the wooden fan rakes are much lighter and more efficient than the heavy Irish models.
My neighbour offered me her leaf-blower this week as I raked with rhythmic sweeps and imagined I was a Wordsworthian solitary reaper. It would have been impolite to refuse but the leaf-blower takes away the rural idyll as the golden and russet leaves are whirled around like dervishes. It's like vacuum cleaning in reverse and noisy.
Pepper-spraying drunken zombies and witches would be more fun. Next Halloween I'll put my name down with Officer Ed as a volunteer auxiliary. "Please step outside your car, Dr Frankenstein, and put your hands up."