Back in the day, my grandmother kept a running tally of how many little kiddies (and not-so-little kiddies) showed up at her door for their share of the Halloween treasure. The numbers routinely broke into triple digits, and there was always a sufficient supply of Milky Ways, Sugar Babies, Junior Mints, and Butterfingers to meet the demand. No little Steve Canyon wannabe ever retreated down those creaky front porch steps wearing a frown under his mask.

Sometimes she and my grandfather could tell whose footsteps were pounding up the treads simply by glancing over Cinderella’s tiara at the car waiting in the street. Other times they had no earthly idea whence these tykes came. Some were noisy, others not so. A few revealed their smiling identities willingly with a flip of their masks. Others raced away before the Squirrel Nut Zippers had time to settle in their bags.

Two or three times in the evening, a lull restored some peaceful silence, but only for a few moments. My grandparents would peek out the kitchen window to find the neighbors’ homes under attack by yet another band of roaming, pint sized gremlins. Soon it would be their door that would open once again to more screams of “Trick or Treat!!!”

My grandmother never wanted to be first to close up shop for the night. So when Mr. B, a neighbor, put his porch into darkness, it wasn’t long before the other porch lamps, one by one, were extinguished up and down the street.

After my grandfather passed on in the mid 1980s, I made a point to visit my grandmother on Halloween nights so that she wouldn’t be opening the door by herself. In those years, the head count began to drop after some lunatic started handing out apples for Trick or Treet, if you know what I mean. Still, it was fun to see and hear happy, carefree kids being superheroes, filling their bags and pumpkin pails with candy of all kinds.

If I could have chosen an age for my dx, it would have been, oh, 104. Short of that option, 23 didn’t turn out so bad. I wasn’t so old that I couldn’t adjust easily to dealing with this disease, nor was I so young as to have missed out on the enjoyment of a bag of Halloween candy. I am thankful to have been spared both of those unattractive circumstances.

If you’re taking the kiddies out this evening, here’s a short safety quiz from Hershey’s designed to teach the little ones how to stay safe this Halloween. Your young goblin can even print out a certificate after answering all the questions.

It’s over. Not without a teensy little taste of the old, familiar, squirm factor, mind you, but we’ll take it without complaining, when it’s wrapped into a sweep, won’t we?

On this extraordinary Monday, as Red Sox Nation soaks up another splendid victory, my mind goes back to a time and place where my brother and I took in some memorable Red Sox history.

Memorable for us, anyway.

It was a time when you could simply show up a little early, and buy a ticket on the spot at the ticket window for a dollar twenty-five, or something like that. The two of us always arrived on the T from Cleveland Circle long before the gates opened, bought a couple of unreserved bleacher seats, and raced into the park to claim what we believed was the finest spot to experience a game in Fenway: the two first row seats right behind the pitchers mounds in the Red Sox’ bullpen.

I say, “experience” because that’s exactly what we did. You can “watch” a game from anywhere. But to experience one (or at least a very interesting part of one,) there was no better place.

From our vantage point, we found entertainment in no short supply. Pitchers ran. Position players stretched. Grounds crews saw to every blade of grass. If you heard a phone ringing, it meant the dugout was calling. Sox hurlers like Diego Segui and Reggie Cleveland were always around, as were the likes of Rick Wise, Roger Moret, and Dick Pole. We learned the little idiosyncrasies of particular players, and often wondered whether Dick Drago would be put off his game if someone pointed out his habitual reflexive adjusting of his cap after every single pitch.

Catcher Bob Montgomery, second fiddle to a kid nicknamed “Pudge,” would come out of the bullpen to throw with Dwight Evans before each inning. Sometimes the right fielder would attempt a sinker or a screwball that succeeded only in making Montgomery smirk. The catcher once spotted a bald headed friend in the stands, and chided him loudly about the sun’s glare coming off his head. Something about “Put a hat on, you’re distracting the hitters!”

On Patriot’s Day, as the Minutemen gathered for the on-field ceremony, the entire bullpen staff looked on in quiet interest. All except one, that is. Bill Lee, the lefty, hit the bullpen floor when the participants’ firearms discharged with a roar, covering his head in a cowering fit of mock fear. He wasn’t called “Spaceman” for no reason.

In those years, Catfish Hunter was pitching for the Yankees, who were in town for a weekend series. Before the games, Hunter, a diabetic, would run in the outfield along with his fellow Yankee pitchers as part of their conditioning. Once, while jogging, he approached our area as a batted ball rolled harmlessly into his path just outside the Sox bullpen. Several rows behind us, a youngster called out, “Hey Catfish! Throw me the ball!!”

Without breaking stride, the Yankee pitcher scooped up the ball in his right hand, and tossed it “windmill style” over the bullpen and toward the bleachers. In an uncharacteristic loss of control, however, Hunter’s toss went nowhere near the young fan who requested it. Instead, it came straight at me.

I jumped out of my seat to reach up and over the fence. With both wrists pivoted high on the cross bar, my hands flopped over the barrier, palms up. The man who had once thrown a perfect game continued jogging without caring that his toss barely nipped my fingertips (the same fingertips that I now poke full of holes every day) and fell to the bullpen floor. Later, sometime in the late innings, a couple of Sox pitchers (I don’t remember which ones) began to throw in the pen. The “Catfish” ball remained motionless in its corner until the kid behind us asked one of them for it.

“Is it yours?” the pitcher inquired.

“No, Catfish threw it to me,” the fan replied.

“Well, I’ll give it back to Catfish,” came the retort.

Just as there was to be no souvenir baseball for the young fellow behind us that day, there would be no Red Sox World Series championship that year, either. Years later, however, I could joke with my brother about having gotten diabetes through the tips of my fingers from the ball that Catfish had thrown. Yes, blame it on a Yankee.

If nothing else, those years taught patience to young Red Sox fans. They showed us how to handle disappointment, and to always look forward to next year, when hope springs eternal. But I also learned to enjoy watching what goes on behind the scenes, long before the first pitch, the things that television didn’t show at the time.

A lot of years have passed since then. And the patience has been rewarded. Last night, the captain stuffed that season-ending third strike baseball right into his back pocket, and Red Sox Nation began the celebration. Now, just as in 2004, they have earned the title, and we can refer proudly to our team as the “World Series Champion Boston Red Sox.”

Previously, on Go Do A TEST!! . . .

. . . T1 feels like crap. . . . . WHO’S PLAYING DOCTOR? . . . . . enough valuta to buy two and a half months of Netflix . . . . . really brought the axe down . . . . . look slightly more like a junkie . . . . . plunked down my seven bucks and headed back to the hotel . . . . . numbers that would win a batting title . . . . . put my scalp back together with six staples . . . . . enough political scandals to go around.

No news is bad news, bad news is good news, and good news is bad news. If you can follow that logic, you understand why almost every news program on television has to frighten you with impending doom in order to succeed. I’ve been writing about enough “bad,” lately, and decided it’s time to focus on some good for a change. It’ll be like washing the car (I hope NancyTW didn’t hear that.)

Last night, I couldn’t help thinking about good things. Game 1 of the World Series was on in Boston. Our street was re-paved earlier in the day to look like new. My old Autolet is still going strong. Colleen linked me to a nice video of Fall in New England. There’s a great sandwich shop just a stone’s throw from here. Our OC friend Mollie and her sister have been selected for a most impressive honor. An old friend is back in touch after 30-odd years. A competent and friendly nurse practitioner provided me with some effective relief from my symptoms of late. The car insurance company sent a rate reduction check. NancyTW returned home safely from a business trip, and made a delicious pumpkin bread.

Years ago, there were signs I looked for to indicate that good things were happening: Red Auerbach lighting his cigar. Larry Bird staring up at Bobby Orr’s retired #4 banner in the Boston Garden rafters. Today, a newer tradition is “Sweet Caroline” in the eighth at Fenway.  It may not mean certain victory, but it definitely means Fenway.

Incredibly, as I am writing this very piece, positive word just now arrived regarding an issue concerning my right to treat my diabetes in a place of public accommodation. Film at eleven (or maybe a post sometime in the distant future.)

When good things happen, no matter how small, I’m trying not to take them for granted so much anymore, trying to enjoy, appreciate, and celebrate them, instead.

Oh, and that sandwich shop I mentioned? It’s called Sweet Caroline’s, and I’m headed there right now.

Yesterday, I went for a regularly scheduled endo appointment. This is a misnomer. It should be called a “regularly scheduled endo’s PA appointment.” That’s who I see, three out of four times a year. My endocrinologist’s Physician’s Assistant. Let’s call him “EPA.”

In the past, I wrote glowingly of EPA. EPA is always friendly. EPA is knowledgeable. EPA is almost always on time. These are qualities one looks for in an EPA. But friendly, knowledgeable, and on time holds water only when T1 is feeling well. When T1 feels like crap, such as yesterday, EPA has to have his game on.

Unfortunately, EPA yesterday played like a NY Yankee up 3-0 in a seven game series.

Speaking of asphyxiation, if you’ve been keeping up with recent posts, you know already that I’ve been sick these last two weeks. I’ve been coughing, headachy, and it feels like the right side of my scone is about to explode. I have been so weak that my exercise program has been taken off the air. For the first time ever, my ears refused to “pop” with a swig of water as my plane descended. They heard less, and hurt more. So I’m thinking there’s a sinus infection or something in there trying to bore a hole through to my brain.

I explained all of this to EPA.

EPA did not look inside my ears. EPA did not look inside my throat. EPA insisted that my symptoms were “probably an allergy.” An allergy. Probably. Until three years ago, when NancyTW and I moved south from New England, I had suffered with severe allergies for 39 years, almost four decades, since I was six years old.

EPA, I suffered with allergy. I knew allergy. Allergy was a friend of mine. EPA, this is no allergy. Thank you, Lloyd Bentsen.

Instead of going out on a limb and prescribing an x-ray, a scan, an antibiotic, or maybe even having me sit a spell until the endocrinologist (who wasn’t up to much, as we shall see) could sneak in for a quick evaluation, EPA simply said that we don’t want to go “chasing rabbits down a hole.”

Of course! How foolish of me to forget this most basic of medical tenets.

First, do no harm. Second, chase no rabbits down a hole.

Anyway, I must confess that I did see my actual endocrinologist yesterday. Yes, the doctor made a personal appearance, and I am embellishing nothing here, in the waiting room to change the big water jug atop the white dispenser over in the corner.

Read that last sentence again at no extra charge, if you need to. That’s right, I have an endo who can’t spare half a minute for a truly ill patient, but sees personally to his waiting room fountain.

Toe Blake, the legendary Montreal Canadiens coach, once asked his roaming goalie, Jacques Plante, “Jacques, when you’re way over in the corner doing the job that I pay your defensemen to do, WHO’S PLAYING GOAL??!!??”

I never got to ask my endo, “When you’re out in the waiting room acting like the Culligan Man, WHO’S PLAYING DOCTOR?”

Halloween is approaching fast, and that can mean only one thing: Disney has re-released The Nightmare Before Christmas.

This time, it’s a 3-D version, and I know better than to get between NancyTW and a pair of 3-D glasses.

So it was off to the movies after a couple of appointments right in the same area of town as the theater. NancyTW, our scheduler/planner, admits to nothing other than mere coincidence that we are always “right by” the local Cineplex whenever there’s something she really wants to see.

We lined up at the ticket window to fork over a mortgage payment for two over-sized 3-D glasses. A bus load of fun-loving, out & about octogenarians wearing their own dark, Elton John specs lined up in front of us to see the feel-good film of the season, Eastern Promises. Unfortunately, the super sleuth behind the glass saw right through my attempt to blend in by requesting a senior discount.

The last 3-D production we saw was a Muppets Movie last month at MGM in Orlando. The glasses were recycled and smudged with gross kiddie snacks, so we really got a “flavor” for that show, if you know what I mean. The goo helped prevent slippage down our noses, though, so it was good, in a way.

Now who among us can pass up the concessions counter after catching a whiff of fresh popcorn and butter flavoring? A friend who worked at a theater told me once that she was warned against offering “butter” on popcorn because, in fact, there was no butter in the building. Lawyers advised “butter flavoring” to cover more than just the popcorn. So after tickets, a grocery bag of that popcorn, and a 55 gallon drum of Diet Coke, we dropped enough valuta to buy two and a half months of Netflix.

That said, it was worth it. Number one, NancyTW was happy. Number two, I like Tim Burton’s stuff. Number three, I am OK with butter flavoring. Number four, it was an off day for the Sox.

So I give The Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D five Test Strips based on creativity that never gets old, a very aptly two-faced mayor, and because Jack looks just like I did on the day I was diagnosed.

That’s right. Last month I started running. I swore off the Coors Light. I redoubled my efforts to do insane numbers of sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks, and weights. I have a high end carbon fiber Kestrel road bike out in the garage. I am tanned, rested, and ready.

For laundry.

All of the above is true, except for the tanned, rested, and ready part. That bug of a cough/cold I picked up in Rhode Island has really brought the axe down on my daily work out regimen. I am back to square one in the fitness department. On top of that, I could no longer put off the laundry, which included more than a pile or two left over from the trip. So today, I was an iron man.

The afternoon provided me plenty of time to belly up to the board for some real bonding with the old Rowenta.

Anyone know if Jay Hewitt does his own creases?

What you’re seeing are the twin punctures that a chatty phlebotomist required to get the job done today at the lab. Sitting patiently with my right arm in a rubber tourniquet, I watched her go through the motions of drawing my blood as she rambled incessantly about the People magazine article on Britney Spears that she had just finished on her break only moments earlier. Intent on giving me all of the Spears dirt, the young lady pulled the needle out of my arm without considering the other vial that still needed to be filled. She cheerfully provided a fresh needle for puncture #2 upon my request.

Three things are true now that weren’t this morning. One, I look slightly more like a junkie.  Two, I know more than I need to know about Britney Spears. 

Three, and of infinitely more importance than the other two combined, is I learned that Oops I Did It Again was recorded in 1932 by Louis Armstrong.  Now that's trivia worth knowing.

We do learn from mistakes.  I wonder when Satchmo was last mentioned in People.