Remember the old neighborhood haunted house? It seems like every kid's neighborhood had exactly one, no more and no less. You'd think entire departments of city planning commissions were devoted to the procurement of one haunted house for each kid's neighborhood.

Ours was across the street and a few doors down. It was splendid! It was surrounded by a jungle of weeds and untended bushes, to the point where you could scarcely see it from the sidewalk. The cranky old lady who lived there was never seen except during her weekly expedition to the corner grocery store, when she would trudge down the street, scowling, looking neither left nor right, apparently oblivious of the whispered commentary that accompanied her every step. The grocer said she would have had her food delivered, but she suspected the delivery boy of trying to poison her.

Only once did I get up the nerve to approach the house. It was Halloween, and I was determined to ring the bell and demand candy. But she'd put a barrier across the front steps to discourage trick-or-treaters. A very effective one, too — a broomstick. Needless to say, this just confirmed our suspicions.

The house hadn't had a coat of paint since long before we moved into the area. In fact, for years its only known maintenance was one absolutely necessary visit from a plumber, whose description of the basement provided grist for horror stories for a long time to come. Of course, none of us believed his tale of bats hanging from the ceiling, eerie mists rising from the floor and inexplicable groans emanating from the walls … but one never knows, does one?

It was much later that the wooden front steps gave way and were replaced with concrete. It's hard to be sure, since she appeared so seldom, but it does seem as though we didn't see the old lady after that. We did, however, catch glimpses of her hitherto-unknown son and daughter, who were then, I guess, in their 40s or 50s. This, of course, gave rise to a new genre of stories about the grisly horror under the new steps.

Eventually, I grew up and moved away, and became concerned with things much less interesting than haunted houses. But I happened to pass through the old neighborhood the day they tore it down (apparently, it was too far gone for rehabilitation), and paused to watch for a few minutes. When the workmen took a break, I warned them what to expect when they got to the front steps. For some reason, they didn't take me seriously.

When the next few days went by without any scandal erupting, I had to admit, reluctantly, that perhaps there were no ghastly secrets there after all. Nonetheless, I grieve for the current generation of neighborhood kids, who are forced to designate some lesser edifice as their haunted house.