In Damascus, autumn arrives smelling of roasted chestnuts and ripe quince. The jasmine fades along the ancient stone walls, and the heavy wooden doors of the old city close against the evening chill. Nobody knocks on those doors without a reason.

I arrived in America in January 1984, an 18-year-old from Damascus with a suitcase, a dictionary and a firm belief that I understood this country because I had watched “Dallas” and “Saturday Night Fever.” I already loved hamburgers and french fries, though I had serious questions about the name. Why were the fries French? Did France know about this?

I did not understand this country.

That October, in Knoxville, a fellow student at the University of Tennessee explained Halloween to me. I made him explain it twice.

“So you put on a costume,” I said.

“Right.”

“And you knock on doors, and people give you candy.”

“Right.”

“For what?”

“For nothing. You just say ‘trick or treat.’”

I waited for the rest. In Damascus, nobody gave you anything for nothing. If a neighbor handed you a sweet, it was because someone had been born, married or buried.

“Are you joking?” I said.

He was not joking.

That night I went out in the only costume I could manage, a bedsheet with two holes cut in it. The air smelled of burning leaves, and porch lights glowed down the street like lanterns strung for a wedding. I came home with a pillowcase full of Snickers, Reese’s and something called Milk Duds that I still cannot explain. I sat on my dorm bed surrounded by candy and thought: What a country.

Halloween became my favorite holiday on the spot. It asks only that you show up in a crazy outfit and knock. As an immigrant, I had been knocking on doors since the day I arrived. For the first time, the doors were rewarding me.

I even proposed a petition on my dorm floor to make Halloween every day. I explained the benefits: free candy, no work, everyone in a good mood. I collected only three signatures: mine, my roommate’s because he had no choice and one from a Tunisian immigrant who was also wide-eyed about Halloween. America, it turns out, has limits.

Years later, I got to see Halloween from the other side of the door, as a father in Homewood, Alabama.

When my kids were little, we walked the neighborhood every Oct. 31, a small parade of our own beneath the oaks, leaves crackling under our feet. Demi was a princess. Every year a princess. Different gown, different tiara, same royal attitude. Zade and Dury went the “Star Wars” route, waving lightsabers at each other between houses. My job was to carry the flashlight, hold the extra bags and quietly eat the Reese’s while the kids argued over Skittles. They blamed a ghost. I praised their imagination.

Then one year I decided Babba needed a costume, too.

I became the Middle Eastern Cowboy.

Picture it: boots, jeans, a big belt buckle, a cowboy hat and a keffiyeh, its black-and-white checks hanging down over my shoulders. Alabama on the bottom, Damascus in the middle, Texas on top. A Syrian Clint Eastwood.

The reactions were worth the price of admission. One neighbor asked if I was supposed to be Lawrence of Arabia. (No, sir. Lawrence wished he looked this good.) A little girl in a ladybug costume asked her mother, loudly, “Why is that man wearing a tablecloth on his shoulders?” I told her that where I come from, it’s a hat. She thought about it and said, “Then what’s the other hat for?”

A couple of years ago, living in New Jersey, I brought the Middle Eastern Cowboy out of retirement. A woman opened the door, took one look at me and hollered over her shoulder, “Sal! Vieni qua! Guarda questo!”

Sal came. Then Sal’s brother came. Then Sal’s mother came, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

“Madonna mia,” she said, crossing herself. “Where you from, bambino?”

“Alabama,” I said. “By way of Damascus.”

Sal shrugged. “Alabama, Damascus, fuhgeddaboudit. You’re Jersey now.”

His mother pinched my cheek. “Too skinny. Mangia!” And she shoved a meatball in my mouth. Dang if it wasn’t the finest meatball I’ve ever eaten.

Best trick-or-treat haul of my life.

The costume was more than a joke, though. In it, I didn’t have to choose. The heritage I was born into and the one I adopted finally fit together in one outfit. For once, belonging seemed a little easier than usual.

That’s the thing about Halloween. It’s the one night a year when Americans open the door to a stranger who looks a little different, then smile and hand them something sweet. Somewhere in Damascus tonight, those heavy wooden doors are closed against the chill. Here, the porch lights are on, and I still can’t believe they give you candy.

I never gave up on that petition. I could use a few more signatures.

Oh, and if a Middle Eastern Cowboy knocks on your door this year, a simple “Howdy,” “salaam” or “shalom” will do. Then hand over the Snickers, and nobody gets lassoed.