News flash. Yesterday was windy. Those of you with hair in your eyes probably know that. In fact the highest wind gust caught at the airport was 50 mph.  When it's that windy the air blows up your nose like water when you dive feet first. Today, however, I could hardly walk in my yard without crushing a plump pecan. The wet weather this year gave birth to greatest bumper crop of sweet pecans I have ever seen. It is amazing what the wind turns up. On Cache Road that orange netting used to seal off a construction site was flapping across the street. Many of you have assorted grocery bags and advertising circulars in your bushes. And leaves from trees that don't grow for blocks from your house. In our state, wind is the great equalizer. There is no sense in raking because soon your leaves will be everyone else's. And just because you have no tress doesn't mean you don't own a rake.

BTW: Rumor has it that the early forecast for Thanksgiving shows a tossup between frigid rain and sleet. Get ready for winter!

But, we were kids once. We didn't have much when we were growing up and some years we couldn't afford a costume, so Mom would tell us "Don't look so cute and go as a gopher!" I did have a scary costume one year. Went as a hawk. Plumb terrified the neighbors. "Knock, knock, squuuuaaak!" You should have seen them squeak and run.

But if your cubs do go shake down the neighbors (according to iVillage, www.ivillage.com, 44% of parents surveyed will allow their kids to trick-or-treat their neighborhoods), here are a few tips to keep it fun and safe.

• Remember that cute muffin Mayor Purcell has decreed that the official hours
  to grab it and bag it are 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Halloween Night. 
• Another tunnel to take is to throw a Halloween party at home. 
• Instead of just cavity-making candy, you may want to have the
  kids scavenge for other prizes, say ...

Raise your hand if you've had your house or car burgled. That's what I thought. Most of us. And that fact is why the shooting death of teen burglar Freddie Stuever resonates so deeply among Lawtonians. At first glance the shooting seemed like it might tread the boundary of an actionable offense. That was only at first glance.

When Jeff Dorrell confronted a burglar carrying out a gun case from Dorrell's parent's home on NW 70th, what happened next was the culmination of too many burglaries, often fueled by the burglar's obsession with meth. Stuever forced his way past Dorrell out of the house but was ultimately forced to the ground by Dorrell's .45. There he waited somewhat patiently before making his move. Dorrell said Stuever rushed him. Dorrell, perhaps fearing Stuever was trying to take Dorrell's gun, an attempt that could stir memories of Ricky Ray Malone's murder of Trooper Nik Green. Stuever was shot five times, then made a final fatal charge and was shot once in the chest. In the aftermath Dorrell can be heard almost hyperventilating on the 911 tape. According to DA Robert Schulte, Dorrell's story checks out. The gun blast to the chest is proof the Stuever was running toward Dorrell and not away. Oklahoma's "Stand Your Ground" law merely codifies what every Oklahoman knows. If you break into a house, you take your chances, and though most feel some ambiguous emotions (The death of a teen is sad -- But he had it coming) in ...

When you were watching the report about the Christmas House in our fair Elmer Thomas Park being torched, you also heard the confession. We were clearly barking out our manifesto in the background. Don't tread on me, or drive on me while you meander through the park looking at Christmas lights. Prairie dogs unite. All you do-gooders say you will rebuild the Christmas House and then post cameras to keep us from doing to again. Catch us if you can! Does the Oklahoma Criminal Code apply to prairie dogs?

If football is a sport of quick hits and flashy uniforms, baseball is the sport of slow shifts and tradition. What other sport features so many teams who still wear uniforms from the early 20th century, and they're not throwbacks? Part of the tradition is also in the voices that call the games. For most Oklahomans, that meant Jack Buck and the Cardinals on KMOX at night and to a lesser degree Eric Nadel and the Texas Rangers. For me, though, it's been Skip Caray and the Braves on TBS. Sunday afternoon, all that comes to an end. TBS, once the network of brash boat captain and soon-to-be-Jane-Fonda-ex-husband Ted Turner, is now the property of Time-Warner-AOL-whatever with no room for tradition or Skip. It is fitting that the last broadcast will be a meaningless game with the Braves out of contention, even as they were for most of my youth in the '80s. Then it was Dale Murphy, now it is Chipper Jones. Then it was Claudell Washington, now it is Andruw Jones. Then it was Skip and Pete, now it is, well, Skip and Chip. So much for tradition. The baseball gods must be weeping.

We've been hearing and reading a lot about merit pay for teachers in Oklahoma. Sounds like a good idea, but isn't it a little ironic that in a self-determination, bootstraps state like Oklahoma, we want to blame teachers instead of parents for poor school performance? Who wants to bet that teachers in schools from hardscrabble areas will be feeling the wrath of performance evaluations, while teachers in high-income districts will be pulling down handsome merit-paychecks? I have an idea. What about merit pay for parents? A thousand dollars for each 'A' at the end of the year and an extra grand for scoring above average on standardized tests? What do you want to bet we'd see a bunch of crackhead (and methhead) parents making their kids crack the books instead of their gangsta breathren's heads?

I'm stuck at my computer trying to listen to the Ike, Lawton game and the link is not connecting me to the game's stream. What gives? I understand Ike is working on a big upset, storming back from 14-0 to go to 24-14.

As we speak, rains from Tropical Depression Erin are targeting our area for the weekend, meaning a break (and probably a permanent break) in the 100 degree days. But that's not the main story. The big story is Hurricane Dean, that looks to be a Category 4 or 5 juggernaut that should skip through Yucatan into northern Mexico. Check out Frank Strait's Accuweather blog at www.accuweather.com/news-blogs.asp. He notes that Dean looks an awful lot like Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. For those of you old enough, on Sept. 18, 1988, the remnants of Gilbert dumped better than 8 inches of rain on the Wildlife Refuge and caused flooding, especially in Cache. Strait also says this year's weather reminds him of '88 and '83. In 1983 a Pacific Hurricane named Tico came up here and caused flooding, especially in Chickasha and Sulphur. Hmmm.