Halloween 2013

 Halloween in Potato Land:        

This is how we do Halloween on our street.  You have seen the movies where the children are dressed in their cute costumes, pirates, princesses, ghosts and Dracula. The leaves gaily blowing around as the children run from house to house. There is always the evil person hiding behind a tree trying to scare the trick-or-treaters or bullies waiting to steal bags of candy.  Picture perfect. That would describe here, but it needs some serious modifications.  To begin with, this is Potato Land and October is the start of winter.  Most years it is cold, bitter cold, sometimes with snow.  The darling costumes are often covered with coats and jackets and the leaves are long gone. No one hides behind trees because it is just too cold and parents around here wouldn’t allow it.  There are plenty of spook alleys, haunted houses, and corn mazes to tour in the area if you are in the mood for a good scare. 

My street in particular can be very busy. There was a time when we had between 500 and 600 little and not so little ones knocking on our door.  At that time, we lived in one of the nicer parts of town with well-lit streets and nice sidewalks.  Our neighbor just happened to be the local Hershey representative/salesman and he gave out big chocolate bars.  You couldn’t get out of your driveway, and hoped there wouldn’t be an emergency because no help could get down the street which was a steady stream of cars following their children as they run from door to door, trying not to trip over their costumes.  The children seemed to come in droves with long periods of the door being wide open. 

Luckily it has slowed down.  The neighbor moved and there are other nicer parts of town.  Our street is still well-lit and with nice sidewalks so we get our fair-share of costumed children and teenagers; this year we only had about 250. There are even moments of large groups of trick-or-treaters looking for a yummy treat.

This year we grew some large pumpkins, one weighing in at 64#s and another at 53#s.  It was a major process to carve them.  The seeds and guts weighed about 15# for each.  We always get complements on them.  That may be because so few of our neighbors (we are an aging neighborhood, few little ones anymore) still carve them.  Sorry no pictures of these monsters. 

We are not picture perfect, but our Halloweens are busy.  I walked about a mile to and from the front door.  I am exhausted.

Halloween 2012

Halloween: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

         I love Halloween for many reasons.  First it signals the start of some of my  favorite holidays.  I get to totally change out the decorations in the house. Down comes the everyday stuff, and up goes the rich oranges, deep reds and golden yellows. The subtle scents of cinnamon, cloves, and pumpkin waft through the air.  No more mowing the lawn or weeding the garden.  What’s not to like

        Second, I love the excitement in the air, and not just from eating too much sugar. Parents and children picking out the perfect costume, thoughts of bags of candy, (lucky teachers of those sugar high kids), and running from house to house to see how many doors you can knock on, that is what it is all about. I love to answer the door just to see this excitement ooze out of the painted faces. This year we have had a plethora (using that big word just for you Sister Orme) of cute costumes come to our door.  Not just the usual Draculas’. Witches, cowboys and cheerleaders, but Yoda, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, bumble bee s, a headless horseman, lady bugs, dark angels, zombies, policemen, and super scary monsters.  They came young and too old to be trick-or-treating.  One group came with their sombreros and guitars and serenaded for their treats.  It being warmer than our usual bitter Halloween weather, there have been more children and they are out later.  So 300 pieces of candy later, it is finally time to turn off the lights and put the tired feet up.

Lastly, I like doing special treat bags for a few favorite people. In years past, I have done them for my youngest sister’s kids.  They have a grandmother and an aunt who spoil them rotten with candy, so they do not go door to door.  They come to my house and down my street and call it good.  Because they get so much candy from the grandmother and aunt, I give them prizes: fancy notebooks and pencils, nail polish and card games.  This year they did not come.  The oldest is off to college, the next was too busy chasing boys, and the youngest was sick.  But, we have a family that we home teach that has two young (ages 7 and 11) and I made special bags of candy, fancy pencils, and popcorn.  Syd made them cookies and we also sent them home with a bottle of pickled green beans. As a special surprise, some good friends showed up at our door. They had just moved back and had not told us.  We are so happy to have them back in town.

There are some things I do not like about Halloween, the scary stuff like haunted houses, scary movies, cold and dark nights and dressing up.  I think that stems from my childhood.  I grew up in a big family, ten children to be exact.  We didn’t have a lot of money for fancy costumes.  My mother had an old barrel full of junk, scratched and dented masks, mismatched bits of old costumes that she had bought or had been given to us.  We would dig through the barrel, hoping to find something to use.  Being in Idaho, it was usually cold and regardless of what your costume was, you had to put a coat over top to make it through the night, so it really didn’t matter.  A beat up mask did the job.  Not much fun in that.  We also lived in the country and only went to a few homes, as they were too far apart.  I remember one year we got to go into town with a cousin. We made a haul that year.  When Patrick was young, money was tight and so we had to be frugal with our money, buying a costume was out of the question.  We put together something lame and called it good. One year he went as an explorer, another as a Dracula, with a plastic bag cape, one year we cut up on old sheet and he was a ghost and another year he was a sand creature from Star Wars.  Not very creative to say the least, but they were affordable. 

We always carved a pumpkin, still do.  Let me rephrase that, Patrick and I carve pumpkins; Syd does not get involved at all.  He lacks any holiday spirit. We often get comments on them, about how creative they are.  Even the simple ones come out fun.  This year was no different, simple but nice.  The last ten years I have grown them, using a giant/mammoth pumpkin seed.  They do not come out nice and round and a perfect shade of orange. Being misshaped only makes them more fun to work with.  One year we grew one that was almost a hundred pounds. This year the largest was only 23 pounds.  Not bad. 

All in all, Halloween is a good, bad and ugly holiday.

 

Sports and Kids

There are times like tonight that I am glad that our son did not get big into sports. Let me explain.

Like most parents, when our son was born we had big dreams for him, go to college, marry a beautiful girl, have 5 children, be the star of a sports team, become rich and famous.  Of course we knew these were more our dreams than his and they would not all come true, especially the star of a sports team.  His parents were both terrible at sports and not competitive enough to succeed.  As he grew we made sure he had the opportunity to participate in any he was interested in, t-ball, soccer and basketball.  He played several years of t-ball, but didn’t seem to care if he didn’t get to continue on.  It may have been because he wasn’t all that great.  So we tried soccer. He was better at this, but it also didn’t seem to pique his interest. He played basketball for several years. He wasn’t great but he enjoyed it.  Then one year he played on a team where the coach was more concerned with his son playing than being fair to all the other players. His son played on two different teams and one game he chose the other team.  So an assistant coach was put in charge.  Winning was a priority and our best player was at the other game.  P anxiously awaited his turn to be put in.  Our neighbor showed up to see how they were doing and asked if he could play.  The assistant coach said, “Sure.”  P sat the bench the entire game.  We talked to the assistant coach, but he only shrugged his shoulders, as I said winning was a priority.  That was the end of our being basketball parents.  P’s junior year he decided to run cross country.  The CC coach lived just a few houses down and P had watched the team practice on our street for years.  He wasn’t fast, but he stuck with it for the season.  It didn’t help any that we had some warts burned off his knees during the season. During his freshman year he began playing the trombone in the pep band. Although not a sport, he watched a lot of games, football and basketball. He quite enjoyed this except for his friends thought that it was nerdy.  So he quit his senior year, although he stayed in the jazz band. 

Now fast forward to tonight.  We live in a great location.  A school playground in our back yard.  You may think the happiest place on earth is Disneyland, but it is really recess on a school playground.  We love it.  During the after school hours and summer it turns into either a 4 diamond t-ball, 2 soccer game, or tag football field.  Just to the east of it is the Larry Wilson football field, with lights and a scoreboard, very official.  The sound of whistles blowing, parents cheering and coaches yelling fill the air each night, whether it is a game or just practice. Tonight was no different.  I was out picking tomatoes and beans in the garden when I heard a coach take after two boys who were not working out with the rest of the team.  He stormed across the practice field, steam pouring out his ears and grabbed the two boys.  I didn’t seen what they were doing but it must have been serious enough to risk the wrath of the coach.  The words that spewed out of the coaches mouth were shocking, words that no child should be forced to hear.  After several minutes of berating these boys with a variety of swear words thrown in he calmed down (I think he realized I was out there and could clearly hear every vile word he uttered).  It was at this point I was glad that it wasn’t my son who was being severely chastised.  In defense of the coach he did try to smooth things over and play up the “we are all a team and you are Important and I want you to succeed” card.  But it was too late, the damage had been done, my ears had been grossly offended and my heart went out to the two boys.  I did learn there was some verbal fighting between the two boys, some name calling and punches thrown. 

I do have one favorite coach, our neighbor.  He has a deep voice that carries far.  I always know when he is out there.  I have yet to hear any other coach be so positive with the players, even when they make serious mistakes that may mean the team will lose.  He will bring in the player, give him a pep talk, and then show him his mistake and what he can do to avoid it next time.  After a pat on the back, a final encouraging word he sends the player back in with a “thumbs up and I know you can do it.” The other positive thing about him is that while he always coached his own son’s teams, he never played favorites during a game.  Yes he spent extra time with them, doing a one on one training, but that was always on his own time and their friends were always invited to join.  If he could have been our son’s coach I think our son would have enjoyed sports more.  But Coach Brown is a rarity; a one of a kind who began coaching too many years after our son was done with them. 

I am glad that our son is grown. Someday I hope he has children of his own and perhaps they will enjoy sports in a way that our son never did.  I hope if they do that they are blessed with a Coach Brown.