Each year at Halloween, something comes to mind that I wrote about a few years ago. A newborn baby had been left on Halloween morning at an Orland Fire Protection Department firehouse. The baby was just a few hours old and a phonecall alerted the firefighters that a baby had just been left outside.

That newborn boy was the 10th baby in Illinois to be safely surrendered since the state's Safe Haven Law was enacted. In the prior month three newborns died in Chicago after being abandoned or placed in Dumpsters. The Abandoned Newborn Protection Act was signed into law in 2001.

The firefighters were thankful that the baby was left unharmed at the fire station. As one firefighter I talked to put it, he'd much rather find a newborn left at the fire station than to go to a call where one was found in a garbage can. Unfortunately, the second scenario is still happening. Since the introduction of the law, at least 42 babies have been illegally abandoned in Illinois and at least 21 of them died.

The law has, however, resulted in some adoptions to loving families, including the baby boy I mentioned earlier. Over the years, an additional safe haven location was approved, the number of days that a baby can be left has been extended and last year the law was added as part of the curriculum in heath education classes. The way the law stands today a newborn 7 days old or younger can be surrendered, unharmed, to a hospital, emergency medical facility, police station or staffed firehouse. The baby must be handed to a staff member, but the person surrendering the baby can leave with no questions asked.

For more information on the Safe Haven Law, go to http://saveabandonedbabies.org or call (312) 440-0229. Women who need immediate help can call (800) 510-BABY.

It's a good time for a ghost story

I love a good ghost story. I spook easy, but I like to read, watch or hear about something scary. I get that nervous feeling that someone is watching over my shoulder or hiding behind the shower curtain.

Around Halloween I always enjoy hearing the stories of local hauntings. There are some I've heard over and over, but still enjoy hearing again. One of the best ghost storytellers in the area is Richard T. Crowe, who calls himself the "original" ghost hunter and who pioneered the business of taking tour buses (and later tour boats as well) to take haunted tours to spots around Chicago that are said to be visited often by spirits from the afterlife.

I've seen a couple of his presentations and interviewed him a couple times. In a recent interview, he told me that people who want to encounter a ghost often overlook the subtle occurrences, like a psychic scent, a sound, a whisper or a touch because they're just watching for a ghostly image. "Don't expect to see Freddy Krueger," he said. "That would be your least likely encounter."

Crowe does tours all year of the Chicago area as does Mike McDowell of Chaos Haunted and Historical Tours, which covers Northwest Indiana. You can read of other ghost stories on http://indianaghosts.org.

The opinions are solely those of the writer. Carrie Steinweg can be reached at csteinw@yahoo.com.