When I was a kid, my mother was paranoid. I mean, she’s still paranoid—she’s an expert in everyday items that will definitely kill me soon—but her hovering and persistent worry provided the clearest shape to my sense of How One Properly Celebrates Fall. Apparently once there was a dude who either poisoned Halloween candies or slipped razor blades into caramel apples or…I dunno what the real story was, but by the time Mom got done with it, pretty much every kid on the planet who dared go trick-or-treating was begging for a gruesome death. No way was I getting out of the house in my bed-sheet-and-eyeliner Cleopatra costume. So, since blackmailing my neighbors for candy was out and I was personally unchurched (read: the only heathen in a very Catholic neighborhood), my options for seasonal festivities were kind of limited. I could always have gone deer hunting with my dad and brother, but Bambi was still far too raw and relevant in my psyche (still is). Which left really only one thing. Football. In the late 70s and early 80s, football in Houston meant the Oilers. All the walls in my house were painted Columbia blue. Pictures exist of pre-gradeschool-me…