The problem with pumpkins; and the King’s speech

Plus, how to recycle your kid’s old crocs.

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Travis Gienger of Anoka, Minn. (above, with his family) set a new world record to win the 2023 Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, Calif. with his 2,749-pound pumpkin. Gienger is a three-time winner of the pumpkin championship. Photo: Miramar Events.

Halloween horror! Pumpkins in peril!

My kids, now 24 and 22, are now way too cool to walk the streets at Halloween, an activity they enjoyed until their early teens. But I really love seeing the sights of wonderfully decorated homes and families in fantastical costumes wandering from house to house in search of candy.

So last Tuesday, with my wife still busy at work, I ventured out into my Upper East Side neighborhood. It was thronged! So much so that you could hardly move along the sidewalks as children and their accompanying adults lined up to collect candy at houses replete with skeletons, spiders, spiderwebs, goblins, ghouls and so much more.