Heaney, who says he has never worn a Halloween costume, recalls many of Halloween's customs which originated in his native land.

Traditional American Jack-o-Lanterns, for instance, began in Ire-land as carved turnips.

"Turnips are more exactly the size of a skull," Heaney says.

Children would hollow out the turnips and insert colored glass to serve as the imaginary head's eyes.

"My defining memory of Halloween is gazing out at a turnip skull with its blazing blue bottle eyes," he says. "I was terrified by my own creation."

Heaney says at the time he was growing up, the darkness of the streets and the lack of electrical lighting intensified Halloween's mystique.

"Halloween had a higher voltage," he says.

And Playing Right Field...

Like most American children, Mansfield's Halloweens included dressing up and trick-or-treating

Mansfield, who says he dressed up as a "dead, white male" last year, recalls his favorite childhood Halloween costume.

"I was a baseball player for the Washington Senators," he says. "And I'm not going to tell you how old that makes me."

Epps says that during his high school years, he would wear a three-piece suit with a top hat.

Epps did not comment on whether he wore a bow tie.

"I was representing the ghost of Halloweens past," he says, while chuckling.

Mansfield, for one, says he enjoyed trick-or-treating much more as a kid than he did watching his children trick-or-treat.