Smith: This Halloween, many Waldos and no candy buy-back

Finding Waldo might be exceedingly easy, and endlessly amusing, on Halloween night at one of Sonoma County’s favorite trick-or-treat spots: the historic McDonald Avenue in Santa Rosa.

The crown jewel of the boulevard, the McDonald Mansion, will not be as magically transformed this year as in the past. Owners Jenny and John Webley and their kin have a lot going on and won’t be going all out as they did when their Halloween sets, costumes and decorations transported visitors to Neverland, Oz, Jack the Ripper’s London, Bourbon Street, Cinderella’s world and the Bodega Bay of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”

That doesn’t mean there will be nothing going on Oct. 31 at the 1875 mansion known also as Mableton.

The Webleys and some helpers will be costumed and doling out candy. And they envision an epic re-creation of scenes straight from “Where’s Waldo?”

“It would be great to have a whole bunch of Waldos,” Jenny says.

Waldo is, of course, the bespectacled character in a red-and-white striped sweater and cap who’s fun to locate in crowds in the pages of books by Martin Handford.

For this Halloween, the Webleys invite all to come dressed as Waldo, or to come see how many Waldos they can count inside the mansion gate and up and down McDonald Avenue.

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THIRTY-SIX HALLOWEENS AGO, Santa Rosa dentist Steve Berger made the costumed sugar rush a teaching moment.

Dr. Berger put out the word that if, on Nov. 1 of 1983, kids would bring him some or all of their trick-or-treat booty he’d reward them with a buck and a tooth brush, and perhaps a bit of professional advice on the dour effects of eating sugar.

Children surrendered to him about 15 pounds of candy.

“That first year, it all fit in a 5-gallon paint bucket,” recalls Berger’s daughter, Shana Van Cleave. Her dad dumped that bucket into an undisclosed garbage can.

The second year, he began paying kids $1 a pound for their sweets. Soon, his candy relinquishment fair hit the big time.

“I remember Paul Harvey did an article on it,” Berger said. And the BBC, and some national U.S. publications.

Other dentists initiated candy buy-backs of their own. In Santa Rosa, Berger each Nov. 1 attracted larger and larger crowds, and more candy.

In 1993, almost a ton of candy - 1,954 pounds - tumbled into a garbage truck outside Berger’s offices.

Shana became a dentist and joined her dad at the Children’s Dental Health Center, then succeeded him upon his retirement. She continued the Halloween buy-back, but canceled in 2017 because of the fires.

Last year, Shana’s husband, Wayne Van Cleave, was diagnosed with the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Shana had to cancel the Nov. 1 tradition for a second year.

This year, it pains her to announce that she has to let go of the candy buy-back permanently so she can focus on her husband and her practice, and on efforts to find better treatment and a cure for Alzheimer’s.

Shana prepares to take part in a Walk to End Alzheimer’s, and she’s pleased to share her fundraising page at act.alz.org/goto/waynesworld.

She thanks her dad for starting Halloween buy-back and encourages parents to devise their own ways to limit their kids’ sugar consumption.

You can contact Chris Smith at 707 521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.