October is one of my favorite months. All that crisp fall air, colorful foliage, and the return of corduroy and turtlenecks. Gotta love it.

Topping it all off is Halloween, which ranks as one of my favorite holidays. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of all the rest as well. But Halloween? It’s strictly a good time. There isn’t the pressure of some of the other occasions, like finding the right gift at Christmas or spending enough quality time with the “fam” at Thanksgiving. This time of year, my biggest concern is what kind of candy I’m going to buy for the lone trick-or-treater we get every year, and what I’m going to dress up as on the big day (It will be hard to top my Sarah Palin from last year, but I’m up for the challenge.)

I’ve already broken open my first bag of candy corn in anticipation.

While I am no fan of horror movies and the like, I do like to scare myself (mildly) silly this time of year. In the past, I’ve done this by pulling out my “Thriller” soundtrack and digging into all those urban fantasy novels, ripe with vampires, werewolves and other assorted beasties.

But now, The Evening Sun takes care of putting the ghastly and ghoulish into my Halloween preparations. And this year, it’s going to be a super whammy.

Every October, the current crop of Evening Sun staffers investigates the paranormal side of Chenango County. Using mediums and card-carrying paranormal investigators as our guides, we’ve visited a number of locations in the area to look into reports of spirit activity.

Last year, during my first such excursion, we visited the Chenango County Council of the Arts building in Norwich and Baron’s Inn in Greene. I’ll be honest: I had the bejeezus scared out of me. And this year’s line up is sure to do the same.

Our first foray into the supernatural will be this Friday night, when the ES gang heads to Greene for a preview of the ghost walks Bill Lenga (that card-carrying paranormal investigator I mentioned) and his team of mediums and ghost aficionados will be conducting throughout the month. Together, armed with a few EMF meters and other tools of the trade, we’ll visit four different buildings in the Village of Greene which have been having what Bill called “problems” with their resident spirits. I believe, in reference to one of those locations, he used the word “poltergeists.” Yes, in the plural. Just thinking about it gives me chills.

At this point I’d like to issue an advanced warning to all those who will be in the Greene area on Friday night: If, on that evening, you see what appears to be a long-haired creature shrieking like a banshee, running like hell hounds are chasing her, don’t be alarmed. That’ll just be this Evening Sun reporter, freaking out.