Halloween on a Saturday, and You Get the Hour Back

Good Friday morning from The Seawall.

This one was meant to reach you yesterday, and that's on us. The upside of a late guide is a fresher one: every number below was pulled this morning, and several of them moved.

Halloween lands on a Saturday this year, the clocks go back Sunday morning, and the rain has shifted.

Take the calendar first, because it's still the good part. No school night, no work night, trick-or-treat as late as the kids can stand it — and then at two in the morning the clocks go back to one and the hour is returned like change. It does not line up like this often.

Now the sky, which has moved twice this week and landed somewhere more useful. Saturday is dry until about noon. The Slidell forecast office has a ridge holding the weather off until late morning, then a forty percent chance of showers and storms in the afternoon — under a tenth of an inch of rain if it falls on you at all. It's after dark that it gets serious: sixty percent Saturday night. That is exactly trick-or-treat. And Sunday is the wet one, at seventy.

So the guide collapses to two words. Go early. Costumes on before the sun goes down, the long block first, home by nine. We've marked the plays that survive rain with ☔.

Full guide below — plus two houses on one lot in Moss Point, and a black Lab mix at the Gautier shelter, where the staff will tell you black dogs get overlooked.

Rain on Halloween is the weather that makes parents into tacticians. Somebody is going to be standing on a porch at seven tomorrow with a trash bag cut into a poncho, running a route in their head. Be generous with that person. Answer the door.

Today — Mostly cloudy, high near 79, easing to 77 late. East wind around 10. The dry day of the three.

Tonight — Mostly cloudy, low around 66. East wind 5. No rain in it. Everything on tonight's list is safe.

Saturday — Halloween — Partly sunny, 79. A chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1 p.m., chance of precipitation 40%, with new rainfall under a tenth of an inch. East wind 5 to 15, gusting to 25. The forecasters expect the ridge parked northeast of us to hold the weather off until late morning or noon, so the first half of Saturday should be yours.

Saturday night — A chance of showers and thunderstorms before 7 p.m., then showers and thunderstorms likely. Chance of precipitation 60%. Mostly cloudy, low around 67. East wind 10 to 15.

Sunday — Rain showers likely before 9 a.m., then showers and thunderstorms likely, 70%. Partly sunny, 76. East wind 10 to 15, gusting to 30. Clocks go back an hour at 2 a.m. The wettest of the three days, and the one to keep indoors.

The forecasters call the weekend's rain "hit and miss" and say none of it looks severe — "at the moment," their hedge and not ours. Warm, too, and that's the mercy in it: a wet sixty-seven Saturday night. Face paint will run. Nobody will be shivering.

On the water, Saturday is workable and Sunday is not. The Mississippi Sound runs east 10 to 15 knots today with waves of two to three feet, eases tonight, and holds about there Saturday with gusts to 25. Then Sunday stiffens — gusts to 30 in the Sound, and out past 20 miles the seas build to six and seven feet, occasionally nine. The Weather Service expects small craft headlines over the open Gulf and says smaller boats should exercise caution out there. Check your own zone the morning you go, and if you hear thunder, come in.

And there's water coming the other way, all weekend. A Coastal Flood Advisory covered southern Hancock and southern Harrison counties overnight, and the Weather Service expects minor coastal flooding at high tide every day through the weekend — king tides plus an east wind that has been blowing, in their words, "for days on end now." Under a foot above normally dry ground, so a nuisance rather than a threat. But it's worth knowing Saturday night: if your route runs down a low street near the water, walk it in daylight first, and think about where you're parking the truck.

Bottom line: go early Saturday and you'll probably stay dry. Go late and you probably won't. Sunday is the one to write off, and Monday comes back mostly sunny and 77. The Atlantic has a month of hurricane season left and nothing in it — the Hurricane Center says plainly that no tropical formation is expected in the next seven days. Further out, the Weather Service is already watching Tuesday night into Wednesday, when a front is expected to bring a line of storms through. They call it a typical cool-season setup and say they'll keep monitoring it. Nothing to do about that today; just know it's on their board.

☔ 👻 Terror on the Coast · Gulfport · tonight and Saturday · 3420 Giles Rd. · midway 6 p.m., stage show and haunt 7, closes 11 · $25, $35 to skip the line — a warehouse haunt, and Saturday is the last night of its Halloween season. Its own FAQ says it "operates rain or full moon," so it won't cancel on you. The haunt is indoors; the midway is open to the sky, so dress for both. No refunds.

🍖 Smokin' the Coast · Biloxi · tonight and Saturday 10 a.m.–6 p.m. · Point Cadet Plaza, 120 Cadet St. · free to walk in — a Memphis Barbecue Network cookoff in its third year, with a trunk-or-treat tonight. Proceeds to The Trident Foundation. Two sources publish different Friday windows — 5 to 10 and 6 to 9 — so come early. Saturday's 10-to-6 is agreed on, and Saturday is the half that beats the weather.

🥬 The Pass Market, and its first Witches Walk · Pass Christian · Saturday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., walk at 11:30 · War Memorial Park, 103 Fleitas Ave. · free to browse — wear a decorated hat and they'll judge it, adults and children, prize for each. The market's own site says 9 to 1, a city calendar says 2, and the market wins that one. It also says "weather permitting," and it's sitting in the clear half of Saturday.

🏈 D'Iberville at Gulfport · tonight, 7 p.m. · Gulfport at home, at the new Admirals Stadium · WLOX made it the Game of the Week: number one travelling to face number two. Biloxi is at West Harrison and Long Beach hosts Pearl River Central, both tonight at 7.

☔ 🎨 Family Wheel Day · Biloxi · Sunday 1–3 p.m. · Ohr-O'Keefe Museum, 386 Beach Blvd. · $48 — a potter's wheel, your hands, George Ohr's building, and a roof. On the wettest afternoon of the three, that last one matters.

🚒 Drive-through trick-or-treat with the Bay St. Louis firefighters · Saturday 6–9 p.m. · 543 Main St. · candy and hot dogs while they last. It's a drive-through, which makes it the one Saturday-night plan the weather can't touch. For a kid, a firetruck beats a porch.

🎺 Mike Zito at 100 Men Hall · tonight · the county's one unmissable show, written up below.

Hancock is thin and we'd rather say so than pad it — most of the county's Halloween ran the weekend of the 24th. If you're putting something on over there, the address at the bottom of this email reaches a person.

⭐ 🎸 Luther Dickinson & Friends · Moss Point · Saturday 5–9 p.m. · Riverfront Park, 5200 Main St. · free, all ages, no tickets, no cover — the city calls it "closing out October" for the Levitt AMP series, which has run free Saturday concerts since August. It's outdoors, no rain policy is posted anywhere, and this series has already moved one October date. Five to nine is the window where Saturday turns, so check Moss Point Main Street before you load the chairs.

☔ (the ticketed part) 👻 Spooky Springs at the Mary C · Ocean Springs · tonight and Saturday, 6 to 9 p.m. · Mary C. O'Keefe Cultural Arts Center, 1600 Government St. · the celebrations on the lawn are free; the haunted house inside the old schoolhouse is $5. There's also a trunk-or-treat tonight, 6 to 8. The haunted house has a roof. The lawn doesn't.

🎃 Gulf Coast YMCA Trunk or Treat · Ocean Springs · tonight · sensory-friendly 5:30 to 6, main event 6 to 8 p.m. · 1810 Government St. · pass that first half hour along to somebody who needs it.

🍬 Two trunk-or-treats in Moss Point · Saturday · the South Forty Coalition's second annual downtown at 5 p.m., and another at 3504 Main St. at 6, hosted by Prestigious Brothers & Sisters of Jackson County and Cut Citi Barbershop. The 3504 Main St one is on the same street as the Levitt stage, so you can stack it with the show.

🏈 Hancock at Pascagoula · tonight, 7 p.m. · Pascagoula at home. Moss Point hosts Murphy of Mobile, Gautier is at Picayune, Ocean Springs at Harrison Central.

The firefighters' drive-through, the YMCA and both Moss Point trunk-or-treats all come from WLOX's fall and Halloween guide. One source. We flag it rather than dress it up as two.

Mike Zito plays the Coast twice, two nights running, two rooms, two prices.

Tonight — Mike Zito at 100 Men Hall, Bay St. Louis, 6:30 p.m., $25, reserved tables also from $25, doors an hour before. A working blues guitarist with a real catalog, in the old hall on Union Street, on the dry night of the three.

Saturday — the Mike Zito Band, full band this time, at Ground Zero Blues Club, Biloxi, 7 p.m., from $17.20. Same man, bigger band, cheaper ticket, Halloween night, indoors.

☔ Saturday also — Emo Orchestra with The Spill Canvas at the Beau Rivage Theatre, Biloxi, 7:30 p.m., $30 to $60 plus tax and fees. An orchestra playing emo on Halloween is either the best or the worst idea of the weekend and we will not adjudicate. On a wet Saturday night it may also be the smartest. (Listed at 7:30 by the venue's own ticketer; an older 8 p.m. listing is still floating around, so don't cut it close.)

The whole weekend —

Tonight — Fever Dream, 7 p.m., billed as the Halloween party, with the costume contest after the show, around 10:30 — $250 cash for first, then a $100 bar tab and a $50 one. One night, one cover, two reasons to stay. No price posted. (Their listing slots the contest at 9:30 and then says 10:30 in the text, so treat it as "after the band.")

Saturday — brunch with Kevin Smith and Eli Smith, 11 to 2. No ticket; $14 bottomless mimosas with an entrée. Then the Mike Zito Band at 7.

Sunday — brunch with Brandon Kenyon, 11 to 2, same deal, under-18 with a parent. It's the only Sunday live music we could confirm anywhere on the Coast, which — given the paragraph below — says more about what we can see than what's playing. Limited seating, first come first served.

Silver Slipper, Bay St. Louis, Stage Bar, 7–11: Joni Compretta and the Baytown Groove tonight, Tease Me Band Saturday. Island View, Gulfport: 3HG 8–11, Eddie McDaniel at the Sunset Bar 7–10, both nights. Hard Rock, Biloxi, Center Bar at 9: DJ Doc Roc tonight, Jukebox Supernova Saturday. Boomtown has Old School 7–11 both nights; Hollywood Gulf Coast has a lounge band the same hours but hasn't posted who.

Nothing, and that's on us, not them. Eleven independent rooms checked — Government Street Grocery, Jack's by the Tracks, Fly Llama, The Shed and Shaggy's among them — every one blocking us, publishing a blank calendar, or weeks out of date. There is music in those rooms. We can't prove a single booking.

Treasure Bay's page says only that entertainment will return. The Biloxi Saenger has nothing until November 14, The Sanctuary lists nothing before November 6, and the Coliseum has nothing until Brantley Gilbert on Friday the 6th.

Sunday is dark nearly everywhere — every casino above publishes Friday-and-Saturday entertainment only. Unreachable, and therefore not dark: The Sound Amphitheater, IP, Harrah's, Scarlet Pearl and Golden Nugget.

⭐ The pick, and this week it comes with a clock on it. If Saturday evening holds: Luther Dickinson & Friends, Riverfront Park in Moss Point, five to nine, free. A free outdoor show closing out October, on Halloween, with the kids in costume and nobody charging at the gate — that's the one you'll still be talking about, and five o'clock is on the right side of the weather. If it doesn't hold: the Mike Zito Band at Ground Zero, indoors, seven o'clock, $17.20. Decide at three.

📩 Venue owners: if you book live music and you're not here, that's our fault and it's fixable. Send us your weekend — [email protected] — by Tuesday noon and you're in.

Four Coast restaurants made Michelin, and Ocean Springs has the new name on the list. (WLOX / Sun Herald) The Michelin Guide American South named four Mississippi Coast restaurants as Recommended: Maringouin and Vestige in Ocean Springs, The Siren Social Club in Gulfport, and White Pillars in Biloxi. Maringouin, which opened in May inside The Roost on Porter Avenue, is the newcomer. Four restaurants, three towns, named by Michelin.

Long Beach High came up short — and kept twenty-five thousand dollars. (T-Mobile) The four Division Champions in T-Mobile's Friday Night 5G Lights were named yesterday, and the South went to Covington High School in Louisiana. So Long Beach is out of the million-dollar final. But read the rest: the school made the top forty out of nearly 2,500 that applied, and every one of those forty banked $25,000. That money is Long Beach's and it isn't coming back. The champions take $250,000 apiece into a vote running through November 8, with the $1 million stadium prize handed out November 12. Twenty-five grand is a real scoreboard, a real weight room, a lot of helmets.

Freddie Mac's survey came out yesterday morning, and rates fell for the second week running. The 30-year fixed is 7.24%, down from 7.32%. The 15-year is 6.60%, down from 6.68%. A year ago those were 6.17% and 5.41%. Sit with that one: you are paying about a point more than a buyer in this same week last year.

Two down weeks is not a trend, but it's the first thing this fall that looks like one. The run reads 7.03% on September 24, then 7.28%, 7.40%, 7.40%, 7.32%, and now 7.24% — a climb, a plateau, two declines. Eight basis points won't change what you qualify for. A run of them would.

Now the thing this week's house taught me, which matters more to most of you than a rate print.

The House of the Week sits in FEMA Zone X — we pulled that from FEMA's own map service rather than taking the listing's word for it, and on this Coast it isn't the answer you expect. In an A or V zone a federally backed lender requires flood insurance, full stop, at a premium set by an elevation certificate you pay a surveyor to produce. In Zone X that same lender doesn't require it, so the policy becomes your choice instead of the bank's — and here you should think hard about making it.

Two cautions. Zone X is not "it doesn't flood." It means the parcel sits outside the mapped special flood hazard area, on a panel drawn in 2009, and water doesn't read the panel — as anybody in southern Hancock or southern Harrison County watching the tide this week can tell you. And flood zones get remapped, so a Zone X house today can sit in an A zone after the next revision.

Weighing two houses and one is Zone X? Get the real insurance number on both. That gap can swamp the one the rate makes.

I'm a licensed Mississippi real estate salesperson with REAL Brokerage and a Ramsey-trained financial coach — I've led four Financial Peace University classes at Mosaic Church in Ocean Springs, so I've sat across a kitchen table from a lot of people doing this arithmetic. If you want the version of this conversation that starts with your numbers instead of the market's, reply to this email or call the Seawall line at 228-325-1502. More at www.robrecio.com. — Rob

Robert Recio · Licensed Mississippi Real Estate Salesperson · License #S-62221 · REAL Broker, LLC · Equal Housing Opportunity

"Can I get a mortgage on a house that needs work?"

Yes, but not with the ordinary loan — and the lender's real question isn't whether the house is pretty. It's whether it's safe, sound and secure enough to be collateral on day one.

An appraiser isn't grading your taste. They're looking for the short list of things that make a house unlendable as-is: no working heat, no working plumbing, exposed wiring, a roof at the end of its life, structural movement, missing handrails, peeling paint on anything pre-1978. A kitchen from 1974 is fine. A bathroom with no water to it is not.

Trip that list and you have three roads. Pay cash, or take a short-term renovation loan and refinance when the work's done. Get the seller to fix it first — which works when they have money and motivation, and not at all when they have neither. Or use a renovation mortgage, FHA's 203(k) or Fannie Mae's HomeStyle, which lends against what the house will be worth after the work and escrows the repair money at closing.

That third door is the one most people don't know is there, and it's usually where the bargain was hiding.

One wrinkle for the house below: a second dwelling on the same lot has its own problems. Some lenders look at the parcel whole and balk; others treat the second structure as an outbuilding and carry on. Ask a local lender before you write the offer, not after.

County: Jackson ✅

3618 Bellview Avenue, Moss Point

Two houses. One lot. One built in 1880, the other in 1930, joined by a covered walkway.

The 1880 house is the one you'd live in: five bedrooms, four full baths, 3,655 square feet, hardwood through it, a formal dining room, porches front and side, and an attached suite with its own entrance, kitchen, bath and laundry. The 1930 house out back runs about 1,248 square feet, with a screened porch and a sunroom. Around them, a large electric-wired workshop, storage under the main house, an oversized RV barn, and an attached three-car carport.

And here's what the listing says out loud, to its credit: the second house "is not currently move-in ready and will require plumbing and electrical updates." That is an unusual thing for marketing copy to volunteer, and it's why the Reader Question above is about renovation financing.

It also disagrees with itself more than once, so we're printing all of it. The condition field reads "move in ready" while the description says the second house isn't. And the parking is a three-way argument: the garage field says one space, the carport field says four, and the description describes a three-car carport.

On the market since mid-July at $350,000, cut to $325,000 on September 23 — a $25,000 reduction, about 7%. 107 days on market as of this morning.

We checked the flood zone ourselves, because the listing makes a claim about it. The description says the property sits "outside of a flood zone." Close enough that we'll grant it — it's outside the special flood hazard area. We geocoded the address and queried FEMA directly: Zone X, minimal flood hazard, no base flood elevation, Jackson County FIRM panel 28059C0341G, effective March 16, 2009. For an 1880 house in Moss Point that's a good answer, and one of the few listing claims we could confirm instead of strip out.

The numbers: $325,000 · 5 bed / 4 full bath · 3,655 sq ft in the main house plus about 1,248 in the second · built 1880 and 1930 · 0.78 acres · no HOA · Zone X · about $89 a foot on the main house alone, or about $66 counting both.

Every figure above came off the MLS record itself, re-pulled this morning. No tax figure, though: the MLS holds none for this property, and we don't print one we can't source to the record. No open house this weekend either. And no tax-assessor record was reachable, so none of this is cross-checked against public record — the house we ran last week had a 629-square-foot gap between the two.

Listed by Nathan Houston, Expect Realty.

That's the credit, not the number to call. It isn't my listing — which is why I can walk it with you as your agent, not the seller's. Want to see it? Reply to this email or call the Seawall line at 228-325-1502. Already working with an agent? Call them.

An 1880 five-bedroom with a second house in the yard that needs wiring isn't a house you buy off a listing photo. It's one you walk with somebody whose job is to talk you out of it.

Stacy is at the Jackson County Animal Shelter in Gautier, still waiting as of this morning. She was found abandoned in Ocean Springs.

The bio calls her a black Labrador mix, playful and affectionate, and puts her at about two; the structured record says Labrador Retriever, young, one to three. We're quoting both. She's in the medium size band and gets along well with other dogs.

The shelter's write-up makes its own point, and this is their wording, not ours: "black dogs are often overlooked, but Stacy's charm is hard to resist." A shelter says that because it keeps watching it happen. By Monday nobody on this Coast will be thinking about black dogs at all, which is as good a reason as any to think about this one now.

Said plainly, because the record is thin: her spay and vaccination status aren't published, and her house-training field reads Unknown — the honest entry for a stray, not the same as a no. Ask at the desk.

And one we owe you. Dixson — the young hound picked up wandering in Ocean Springs, who we ran earlier this month — is still on the roster at the same shelter. His record is the fuller one: neutered and vaccinated, both published, good with kids, good with other dogs.

Jackson County Animal Shelter · 4400 Audubon Lane, Gautier · (228) 497-6350 · Monday to Friday 10 to 4, Saturday 10 to 2, closed Sunday. Applications are filled out in person.

The fee is a flat $50 — initial vaccinations, preventative worming, spay or neuter depending on age, and a certificate from the Jackson County Veterinary Society good for a free health exam. A microchip isn't on that list, so budget for it and ask.

Call before you drive over, and ask what else came in this week. The roster turns over faster than any page keeps up with, and the staff can tell you which of the dogs on hand would suit your house.

He says the extra hour is a loophole and he intends to use it.

Harbor Lights tickets go on sale Sunday · the Gulfport Harbor Lights Winter Festival at Jones Park runs November 27 through January 3, tickets on sale November 1 — this Sunday. Its FAQ shows $14 to $22 general admission, but that page still carries last year's discount nights, so check before you budget.

Peter Anderson Arts & Crafts Festival · downtown Ocean Springs · Saturday and Sunday, November 7 and 8, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. · 48th year, more than 400 vendors, and Amtrak is making a special stop downtown for it, two departures each way from Mobile and New Orleans. As of this week the boarding location still hadn't been posted.

The Veterans Day parades land Saturday, November 7 · the day itself is Wednesday the 11th, but the parades go early — the Gulf Coast Veterans Parade steps off in D'Iberville at 11, the Diamondhead Veterans Day Parade at 4:30, and the Cannonball Run 5K starts at Beauvoir in Biloxi at 8.

Reply to this email — it comes straight to us and we read everything. Tips, corrections, a venue we missed, a dog that found a home: [email protected]. The Seawall line is 228-325-1502. Forward this to somebody on the Coast who'd want it. That's still the only way this thing grows.

Put the costume on anyway. Take the hood, take the trash bags, start before dark, and go until the kids tap out. Then let the clock hand the hour back, sleep in, and act surprised when it's dark at five.

Take someone with you.

— The Seawall