I seem to be on a trivia tangent. Please don’t hold me to their veracity. They’re just bits and pieces I found on the Net. Have a Creative Halloween…

• Halloween was first celebrated in the United States in the 1840s, when Irish Catholics, fleeing from the potato famine, brought Halloween customs with them to America.

• People from all over the world celebrate Halloween! The United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, England and some places in Australia all have fun on October 31st.

• 93% of kids still participate in Halloween activities.

• Halloween is the 3rd biggest party day in the U.S. behind only the Super Bowl and New Year’s Eve.

• The tradition of carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns originated with Irish children who carved out the centers of rutabagas, turnips and potatoes and placed candles inside.

• Pumpkins also come in white, blue and green. Great for unique monster carvings! (If you like the mummy pumpkin in the photo, check out Better Homes and Gardens Halloween from Leisure Arts for more inspiration.)

• Of all canned fruits and vegetables, pumpkin is the best source of vitamin A. Just a half-cup of the orange stuff has more than three times the recommended daily requirement.

• The 2006 world record pumpkin weighed in at 1,502 pounds.

• Orange and black are Halloween colors because orange is associated with the Fall harvest and black is associated with darkness and death.

• There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange.

• If you see a spider on Halloween, it is the spirit of a loved on watching over you.

• Legendary magician Harry Houdini died in Detroit from a ruptured appendix on Halloween in 1926.

• Monster Mash is the most popular Halloween song of all time. It was released in 1962.

• It’s bad luck if:

    — a bat flys into the house.

    — an owl hoots 3 times at night.

    — 3 butterflies group together.

    — a rooster crows at night.

    — a picture falls off the wall.

(Reverse your luck by turning around in a circle three times counter clockwise.)

• Read Dracula by Bram Stoker or Frankenstein by Mary Shelley for some classic spooky literature.

• Take a pass on Freddy and Jason and catch these classic horror movies for a spook-tacular Halloween:

    — Dracula (1931) with Bela Lugosi

    — The Mummy (1932) with Boris Karloff

    — The Wolf Man (1941) with Lon Chaney, Jr.

    — Frankenstein (1943) with Boris Karloff

    — The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

    — The Blob (1958) with Steve McQueen

• Epitaphs are inscriptions or sayings about the deceased written on their tombstones. Some of the following are actual epitaphs discovered on grave markers but others were made up for fake tombstones for haunted houses on Halloween. Wonder which is which:

    — Bette Davis “She Did It The Hard Way”

    — “It’s dark in here. The power must be off!”

    — “Hey! I said I was sick!”

    — Here lies Humpty Dumpty: “I was pushed!”

    — Dean Martin “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime”

    — “Hey ya’ll…watch this!”

    — Here Lies Perry Mason: “The Defense Rests”

    — Here Lies Count Dracula: Died: 1236, 1458, 1527, 1703, 1823, 1995, 2006

    — Here lies Bill Blake: “He was hanged by mistake.”

    — Mel Blanc “That’s All Folks!”

    — Edgar Allan Poe “Nevermore”