Six decades after I dressed up as Count Dracula and rang my neighbors’ doorbells in search of candy corn, I still look forward to Halloween each October.

I’m sure I have lots of company. No matter how old we are, Halloween invites us to be young again — to carve funny faces on pumpkins, watch “Night of the Living Dead” for the umpteenth time, and put on that goofy skeleton T-shirt to entertain friends. It’s a day off from seriousness, just the thing for folks with furrowed brows.

Of course, not everyone is wild about Halloween, especially given its tilt toward commercialism. Haunted houses, theme parks, ghost tours, pumpkin patches, nighttime hayrides, costume balls, fright fests, humongous yard inflatables: They’re all part of the Long Island landscape these autumn days. Selling “scary”

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