Sometimes you just got to live your art.

Just before Halloween I saw in the Rose Is Rose newspaper cartoon that MeeMa had built a chute to slide the candy down to trick or treaters. She tied the slide to the hand rail that ran along the front steps of her house.

OK, I can do that. I made a quick trip to the big box hardware store to get a length of 3 or 4 inch diameter plastic pipe. All they had was 2 inch in white. I wanted white so it would show up at night in the poor light.

It was Halloween, and I was in a hurry. I used big tie wraps to hold the pipe to the hand rail of the steps to my front door. The hand rail was not steep enough to make the candy slide to the end of the pipe.

I went into the back yard and found a four foot long stick. I tie wrapped it vertically to the hand rail and lifted the end of the pipe closest to the door higher. That fixed getting the candy to the bottom of the pipe.

Then I tried to slide a little “Fun Sized” bag of M&Ms down the pipe. The bags were too big to fit in the 2 inch pipe.

The tie wraps held the pipe loosely so I could pull the pipe out easily. If I used duct tape, the old stand by, I would have had to tear the tape off and get the cleaner out to get the sticky residue off the pipe. I’m down to my last bottle of cleaner and it’s half empty.

I took a hacksaw and cut the pipe length wise at the one third point. I now have two pieces. One piece is a long trough shaped strip, but isn’t deep enough to reliably keep the candy in the chute as it slides down. The second piece has sides that are high enough to keep the candy in the chute.

I cleaned the chute up, shoving a wet paper towel down the pipe did not get it very clean. The candy now slides very fast down the chute and over shoots the bucket at the bottom. I was sending candy out into the front yard.

I add a 45 degree elbow to the end of the chute as a down spout. Helps but still sending candy into the yard.

The first kids, I had come to the door, had a hard time understanding that they were to stand at the end of the chute and the candy would come to them. In fact the first kid would not move from the chute after he got his candy and stood there waiting for more.

The word got around quickly and kids would crowd around the chute. Some of the older kids would grab the candy before it could fall into the littler kids bag. Thinking back to my past, that is something I would have done. I must have been a greedy kid.

The bottom of the chute, where the candy ends up
Top of the chute

I did practice good safety. I handled the candy with gloves on and the chute was over six feet long. Plus, I wore two masks.

Stay strong, write on, and slide candy slide.

Professor Hyram Voltage