I couldn't post yesterday because we were in Madison with out long-time friends watching the Badger football game from the warmth and comfort of a State street bar.  We weren't sure if this was the 39th or 40th year of watching a Badger game together, but we were possibly the oldest people in the eating and drinking establishment.

Finding orange is getting a little harder, especially if I want to find a photo that is not either a pumpkin or a flaming orange maple tree.  Still, nothing wrong with either of those.

This is a giant pumpkin from the Peck farm stand between Spring Green and Madison. Love the giant pumpkin.  There used to be one nearer, perched on top of a local silo, but storms blew it down  few years ago, smashed it to smithereens - and it has never been replaced.

Post Halloween Letdown

There are Halloween People and there are Christmas People.

I am a Halloween person.  I have loved scary stories as long as I remember being alive.  Ditto for scary movies.  I like dressing up in a costume that hides my real identity, like autumn leaves, like seeing trick or treaters in their costumes.  I like carving my jack o' lantern, lighting it with a real candle, and like the smell of the cooking pumpkin.  The baked seeds are a favorite treat of mine. I like miniature Snickers candy bars, which I only buy this time of year, with the intention of giving them away. I like my Mexican Day of the Dead miniature figures, my hand carved raven with a star in his beak, my collection of black cats.

I like the fact that I am not obligated to do anything for Halloween by way of cooking, decorating, card sending or festivities organizing.  Nobody judges me one way or the other if I just ignore Halloween, which I don't.  This year we re-watched Werewolf of London, a documentary on Lon Chaney, Halloween, and Werner Herzog's version of Nosferatu.  I re-read Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes for its beautiful language and meditation on the nature of good and evil.  We went to the farm market for doughnuts and apple cider, and our pumpkins.  We visited the local pop-up Halloween store, though we didn't buy anything.  We put candy in a basket and waited for the children to come down the dark leaf-filled street.

Only three rang our doorbell. 

I hope they were out on other streets, that trick or treating hasn't disappeared completely.  I see costumed youngsters on the pages of my friends on Facebook, so children still dress up.  Maybe my street is too steep, too dark, too scary.  I don't know, but I sure have lots of miniature Snickers left.

Halloween Costumes, and a Poem

My dad and a friend, about 1940, dressed for Halloween

I found this photo this past summer in a plastic tub full of miscellaneous items I cleaned out of  Mother's apartment when she passed away a few years ago.  I always meant to get back into those stored items, but never did until I needed the tub for storage.  I adore this picture with the homemade pirate costumes.  It looks to me like it was taken at Millard Elementary School, where I also went to grades 1-4.  What I failed to notice before is that there is snow on the ground.  I wonder how many times I had a fun costume, usually something Mom sewed, and had to go out in a winter jacket? 

My husband and I went out today and got a few accessories for our costumes.  I have various skirts, blouses, shawls, boots and so on that can be assembled into gypsies, witches, or historical characters.  I indulged in a store-bought witch's hat I like, and think later I'll see how I can mix and match to make this year look a little different than other years.

We also indulged in another fresh quart of cider, pumpkin doughnuts, and a couple of pumpkins to carve later on.  I am such a sucker for Halloween...

Hey, Ma, Something’s under My Bed
by Joan Horton

I hear it at night
when I turn out the light.
It’s that creature who’s under my bed.
He won’t go away.
He’s determined to stay.
But I wish he would beat it, instead.

I told him to go,
but he shook his head no.
He was worse than an unwelcome quest.
I gave him a nudge,
but he still wouldn’t budge.
It was hard to get rid of the pest.

So I fired one hundred
round cannon balls plundered
from pirate ships sailing the seas.
But he caught them barehanded
and quickly grandstanded
by juggling them nice as you please.

The creature was slick.
He was clever and quick.
This called for a drastic maneuver.
So I lifted my spread
and charged under the bed
with the roar of my mother’s new Hoover.

But he snorted his nose
and sucked in the long hose,
the canister, cord, and the plug,
and vacuumed in dust  
till I thought he would bust
then he blew it all over the rug.

Now this made me sore,
so I cried, “This is war!”
and sent in a contingent of fleas,
an army of ants
dressed in camouflage pants
followed closely by big killer bees.
But he welcomed them in
With a sly, crafty grin,
And he ate them with crackers and cheese.

I screamed, “That’s enough!”
It was time to get tough.
“You asked for it, Creature,” I said,
as I picked up and threw,
with an aim sure and true,
my gym sneaker under the bed.

With each whiff of the sneaker
the creature grew weaker.
He staggered out gasping for air.
He coughed and he sneezed
and collapsed with a wheeze
and accuse me of not playing fair.

Then holding his nose
with his twelve hairy toes,
the creature curled into a ball,
and rolled ’cross the floor
smashing right through the door.
I was rid of him once and for all.

The very next night
when I turned out the light
and was ready to lay down my head,
I heard my kid brother
cry our to my mother,
“Hey, Ma, something’s under my bed.”

Spooky Moon Dance

6x6 inches, paper collage

I finally went upstairs to the studio and finished this submission for the current Illustration Friday challenge: Spooky  It has been ages since I completed a challenge of any sort, and I thought if I was going to get this done before Halloween I had better get off my backside.

I was inspired by a design I saw in a restaurant created by punching out sections of metal, and I thought I could do something similar using wee bits of paper.  I had visions of a series until I actually completed this guy.  The little snips of paper are very small indeed, and were difficult to position.  Originally it was just the skeleton on the dark background, but I wanted more color, so I planned the moon.  Yellow was too close to the light snippets that outline the figure, so I settled on blue to spark up the design.

Now I can't get Van Morrison's Moondance out of my mind....

Dick's Latest Creation and a Scary Poem

Every year it's the same. My dear husband puts off carving pumpkins until the last minute, but when he gets to it he throws heart and soul into the project. Personally, I am scared of sharp objects, convinced I'll slice off a finger while handling an Exacto blade, or even a kitchen knife. I have a little hand saw that works pretty well... Anyway, he claims to have thought about this all year. My dopey smiling jack-o-lantern is nothing memorable, but his snowman made from three stacked pumpkins sports charcoal for eyes, nose, mouth and buttons. There's no way to light it, which is a disappointment to me, since lit pumpkins are what I like best. Anyway, he's proud as punch, so I decided to show the world.

Here's a little poem that's quite a tongue twister from my days of teaching English.

Ravin's of a Piute Poet Poe

by C.L. Edson

(Scholastic Magazine, 1963)

Once upon a midnight dreary -- eerie, scary -- I was wary;

I was weary, full of sorry, thinking of my lost Lenore.

Of my cheery, eerie, faery, fiery dearie -- nothing more.

I lay napping when a rapping on the overlapping coping

woke me -- grapping, yapping, groping -- I went hopping,

leaping!, hoping that the rapping on the coping

was my little lost Lenore.

That, on opening the shutter, to admit the latter critter,

in she'd flutter from the gutter, with her bitter eyes aglitter.

So I opened wide the door -- what was there?

The dark wier and the drear moor -- or, I'm a liar!:

The dark mire, the drear moor, the mere door ...

And nothing more.

Then in stepped a stately raven, shaven like the Bard of Avon.

Yes, a shaven, rovin' raven seeking haven at my door.

And that grievin', rovin' raven had been movin' (get me, Steven?!)

For the warm and loving haven of my stove and oven door.

Oven door and ... nothing more!

Ah, distinctly I remember, every ember that December

Turned from amber to burnt umber. (I was burning limber lumber

in my chamber that December and it left an amber ember.)

With each silken sad uncertain flirtin' of a certain curtain,

That old raven, cold and callous, perched upon the bust of Pallas

just above my chamber door -- a lusty, trusty bust thrust

just above my chamber door.

Had that callous cuss shown malice, or sought solace there on Pallas?

You may tell us, Alice Wallace! Tell this soul with nightmares ridden,

Hidden in the shade and broodin', if a maiden out of Eden

Sent this sudden bird invadin' my poor chamber

(and protrudin' half an inch above my door!).

Tell this broodin' soul (he's breedin' bats by so much sodden readin'--

Readin' Snowden's "Ode to Odin"!) ...

Tell this soul with nightmares ridden if -- no kiddin'! --

on a sudden, he shall clasp a radiant maiden born in Aiden

(or in Leyden, or indeed in Baden-Baden) ...

Will he grab this buddin' maiden, gaddin' in forbidden Eden,

Whom the angels named Lenore? And that bird said, "Nevermore!"

"Prophet", cried I, "thing of evil, navel, novel, or boll weavil,

You shall travel! On the level! Scratch the gravel now, and travel --

Leave my hovel, I implore!"

And that raven, never flitting (never knitting, never tatting,

never spouting Nevermore) still is sitting (out this ballad!)

On the solid bust, and pallid -- on the vallid, pallid, bust

Above my chamber door.

And my soul is in the shadow which lies floating on the floor --

Fleeting, floating (yachting, boating) on the fluting of the matting,

Matting of my chamber door!

[And that's all there is, and nothin' more!]

Halloween 1957

My parents weren't particularly party people, but in 1957 they dressed up for a Halloween party with high school buddies. What can I say?

Not Everyone Ages Gracefully

The top two photos were our pumpkins on October 31st.  The bottom one shows that not even squash are immune to the ravages of time.  These babies look ready for Botox!

My husband, who isn't artistic in the sense of drawing or painting, loves carving Halloween Jack-o-lanterns, and always delights me with his designs.  This year his surprised looking pumpkin had an arrow through its cranium.  Mine just looks mean, and is getting meaner looking every day.  Could it have something to do with squirrels gnawing on its flesh?  I'd be grumpy too.

In fact I AM grumpy; it's snowing.

Saturday Scenes, Madison

We're in the middle of Indian Summer, beautiful sunny days after the first frost.  Saturday we decided to take advantage of the weather, so we drove to Madison for the farmer's market.  This scene of the capital, taken from Picnic Point across Lake Mendota, is how I think of the city.

The outdoor farmers market is almost done for the season, only one more week left to stroll around the capital building drinking coffee, snacking on bakery (I'm partial to the cherry rhubarb bars), and filling our bags with gorgeous local produce.

The vendors tend to have a lot of personality.  This man was doing a brisk business selling dried gourds.  Saturday was a day for wearing masks, since the city's Halloween FreakFest was being set up on State Street.

We decided to take a bird's eye look at the day, so we went up to the observation deck of the capital.  These are a few of the statues that surround the dome.

West Washington Avenue and part of the market stretch out beneath us.  Madison is a treasure, a place to shop, attend plays, wander through museums, and find good things to eat.  I just wanted to share a happy day in Wisconsin.

Some Scary Things

It's Halloween, and scary things are afoot.

First, my electronics are spooking me.  My beloved Powershot camera, the one I haul with me everywhere, up and died, had to be replaced.  It started not flashing, then not focusing. When I took it to the camera shop, after investing in a pile of new batteries, I learned it would be cheaper to replace it than fix it. Ain't that the way things go these days? 

Also, my little Panasonic TV in my studio works OK, but has a built in VCR, and no way to play DVDs, so I invested in a new little flat screen number.  The old TV took up lots of precious real estate in my tiny room, needed a cable box, and will soon be obsolete with regard to its ability to tape programs I don't want to miss, so replacing it should be a step up. I just anxious about replacing a television that still works.  I guess I'll store it in the attic and then see if anyone wants a spare.  

Then last night my Mac, which has never giving me a moment of difficulty decided to just shut down. Poof! Like magic.  Not once, but several times.  I got on my husband's machine (I insist on backups around here) and tried a couple maneuvers on mine that finally got it going again, but I had sweaty-palmed visions of losing data, and having to take the computer in to the emergency room.  Today all is well - for now.  

My own body is scary too.  We went for a walk yesterday in Janesville's Riverside Park.  Hadn't been there since the summer flooding, but the day was so sunny and warm we had to get outside.  Volunteers in the park have refurbished a section of the Ice Age Trail called The Devil's Staircase, a steep and beautiful trail that hugs limestone outcroppings along the Rock River.  Oh boy, it wasn't the usual walk in the park.  There are steep old limestone steps, and with my bifocals I had a devil of a time seeing where I was stepping, and on that trail a misstep could lead to a tumble and a swim.  It was fine, I just took off my glasses.  Then there are my knees, that didn't like either the steps or the uneven terrain.  Again, it was fine.  But I'm not liking having taking a walk require a dose of painkiller afterward.  The not-so-scary part was the chance to get out with my husband; in fact that was very nice indeed.  

As long as I'm admitting my fears about aging, I'll admit that I am tired of the time and expense involved in coloring my hair.  Even though my Grandma Tess didn't stop until she considered herself "old" at eighty, I am trying to come to terms with my current mature self.  So I have a half inch streak of silver at my roots, and when I look at myself in the morning mirror it is frightening.  Not exactly the Wicked Witch from Snow White, but not the face I am used to.  Happy Halloween.

Favorite Halloween Candy

watercolor pencil, colored pencil, graphite

I bought a bag of these chewy peanut butter taffy candies last Halloween, then ate them all by myself.  The kids at the door are after chocolate, and they can have it.  I love these little black and orange confections.  I don't love candy corn, except to look at - the colors are great.  Necco wafers are OK.  Love red licorice, but not the black.  When I was small I had a thing for big red lips, also Dracula fangs made from wax, but they are just too strange for a person my age.  I like taffy apples, but they are too messy for me - all the dripping of juice, scattering of bits of nuts, strings of caramel.  Nope, give me a sack of taffy to unwrap and chew on.

How about some of you who visit me here?  Leave a comment about what sorts of candy you like to find in your Halloween bag.

Busy Weekend

Even though Halloween has become a retail-driven holiday, with row upon row of bags of candy, lights, cheap costumes, a fair number of people still make home-made decorations.  One house on our block has a crowd of these milk-jug skeletons handing from the branches of their evergreen tree.  They aren't especially spooky, but they do catch the morning light in an interesting way.

On Friday the Janesville Art League took a bus trip west to Mineral Point.  The past few years artists in southwestern Wisconsin have sponsored a studio tour.  Painters, sculptors, potters, woodworkers, mixed media folks, all open their studios to the public.  Mineral Point, an old town with a Cornish heritage has been a favorite stop for my husband and I for years.  We've toured the historic homes, visited Pendarvis, the old Cornish mining area, eaten in old pubs, and browsed among antiques.  The Art League folks concentrated  on the galleries that have sprung up in many of the storefronts.  I spotted a good view through a window in an antique store, and took this photo.

Saturday I volunteered to portray Nellie Tallman, wife of a wealthy Janesville businessman in the Rock County Historical Society cemetery tour.  I've done this twice before, but I enjoyed this year particularly because the day was so sunny and warm.  Guides escorted six or seven groups of history buffs through the oldest part of Oakhill Cemetery, stopping to hear short talks from volunteers dressed up to portray historic locals Dr. Henry Palmer (1827-1895), Carrie Jacobs-Bond (1862-1895), Catherine Holmes Atwood (1820-1902), Levi Alden (1815-1893), A. Hyatt Smith (1814-1892).  

In between groups I sat reading beneath a hickory tree, and was startled to see a three-inch walking stick insect hiking across my black-gloved hand.  He wasn't the only creature I saw. Squirrels and all sorts of birds were out, feeding on nuts and berries.   

I don't have many decorations that are specifically for Halloween, but I have become fond of my old plastic jack-o-lantern light.  It gets plugged in at the beginning of October, and stays up for the month.

I found this poem in my 2008 Wisconsin Poet's Calendar.  I thought of it after I looked at the photos I took this weekend.

Repairing the Breach, by C.J. Muchhala

Killed for their knowledge

of belladona, ergot,

fleabane and rue, the women

lie fallow under snow.

Their moon-blood

clots in ruby seeds below

the frost line.

When the rains come

the women run

twiggy fingers through

stalks of hair, unknot

their woodbane girdles.

They dance.

In slippery crotch

of sacred oak,

they dance beyond

their howls, their burning.

Blackbirds fan

dark wings above

their blessed bones.

60s Halloween Window Painting

In the 1960s, in Elkhorn, my home town, the downtown merchants used to sponsor a Halloween window painting contest.  Schoolchildren could submit a design, and if chosen, got to paint the design on a store window with poster paints.  Seems like I remember there being prizes, but maybe we just got our name in the Elkhorn Independent.  I liked drawing and painting, and I had a competitive streak in me, so I entered several times.  These pictures make me look very serious, but mostly I think I was self-conscious about my glasses and the space between my front teeth.  This one must have been taken about 1961.

I enjoyed painting on the windows; I think this was the jewelry store.  It was cold, though.  I had on a hat and winter coat, and the corduroy pants my mother used to love to have me wear. No gloves, so my fingers would turn white.

He I am again, about 1963.  I'm still keeping those teeth hidden, and am looking chilled.  Or perhaps I was outgrowing the activity.  Looking at these paintings now keeps me humble.  It occurs to me that these contests were great motivation for me, a chance to create designs, and to get some recognition for my art.  It was fun to see all the colorful pictures on store windows, and I have to think that it brought people downtown.  I don't suppose it was very much fun for storekeepers to clean off the poster paint in November, but looking back, I'm glad they allowed us kids to decorate.  

Old Halloween Pictures Revisited

I've been playing with old photos my mom took of me at Halloween time.  These have all been hand-tinted, and generally cropped and doctored on Photoshop Elements.  Here we have me in saddle shoes on the far right, and all the older neighborhood kids sitting on the couch in our trailer, probably 1952.  Until I was three and my younger sister was born, my family lived in a trailer in my grandparents' yard.  Mother always liked Halloween, as I do.  It allowed her creativity to shine. She carved pumpkins, sewed costumes, and planned parties for us kids.

Here I am again, holding the paper mache cat lantern, and my sister Patty Sue with the pumpkin lantern.  By the time this picture was taken in about 1955 we had moved out of the trailer and into the old family farm house I think of as my childhood home.  I found both lanterns on eBay last year, and they decorate my sideboard in the dining room now.  I mentioned that Mother liked to sew.  She made these outfits for us girls out of old sheer curtains.  She liked the princess theme, as you will see.

Here we are again with our closest neighbors, Sharri and Curt.  Their mother, Merceda, gave out the best Trick or Treat bags ever, filled with not only wrapped candy, but strawberry ropes, candy cigarettes, wax lips, and peanut butter blossom cookies - the ones made out of peanut butter and a Hershey's kiss. They're still a favorite.  Mom made our princess outfits in this 1957 picture too.  

Halloween has been a favorite for me.  I've always liked reading and telling scary stories, liked scary television programs and movies.  I've always enjoyed dressing up in costumes and wigs, enjoyed using make-up and masks to disguise myself.  As an adult it's not eating the candy so much as it is how much I enjoy seeing children come to the door and being able to give out the treats.  If there are some peanut butter kisses or mini-Snickers left over, so much the better. For several years I enjoyed being a fortune teller at Snap Apple Night for the Rock County Historical Society, though that tradition seemed to have come to an end.  Likewise I used to love telling ghost stories in the park for middle and high schoolers and adults, really scary ones, but the city recreation department decided to go with less scary activities, significantly labeled "not too frightening" for the little tots instead. A tradition my husband and I have is carving pumpkins together.  He actually likes it better than I do, since I am a little nervous of sharp blades.  But he looks forward to carving and lighting the jack-o-lanterns, and he makes salted and roasted pumpkin seeds, so I can't complain. 

One other thing that appeals to me is that participation in Halloween is strictly optional.  If I don't feel like handing out treats, I turn out the porch light. If I don't decorate, send cards, or buy gifts, nobody seems to feel slighted.  Over the past few years merchandising of decorations, costumes and candy has gotten to be a bigger deal, but it certainly doesn't bludgeon me like the December holiday.  Anyway, every day now I'm putting out my autumn decorations, a lighted plastic pumpkin, vintage lanterns, baskets of mums, dried leaves, and scented candles.  I wish Mom was around to see how I'll decorate this year.

Phantasmagoria

I have been inspired lately to draw and paint seasonal imagery. I had never tried a calaveras, a Day of the Dead skull, though I am attracted to the vibrant colors, and the idea of remembering behind this tradition. This piece is an experiment in combining oil pastel with watercolor. I wanted it to represent my happy memories of a lost friend, so the colors are bright and cheerful and the skull is surrounded by marigolds. There is also a necklace of colored beads around the image, though it didn't fit on the scanner.

Yesterday, on a whim, we drove in to Milwaukee to the Charles Allis Art Museum to see a performance called "Phantasmagoria." The brochure described it as a "19th Century Gothic Variety Show." Since there was no Packer game on television, my husband thought the trip might be fun, and it was, in a retro literary way. The show was a combination of music (Scriabin), dance, reading of literature (Frankenstein, Shelly's "Christabel" and "Prometheus Unbound" and more), and some interesting visual projections. I was very excited at the beginning to see a man actually playing one of those creepy electronic devices used in 1950's science fiction movies, the Theremin. Here's a bit more from the brochure:

"Phantasmagoria first emerged in the 1790s immediately following the French Revolution. New technologies of visual reproduction and new sources of light ushered in an era of visual illusion. These included entertainments of light and shadow that created not a simple image, but rather a total environment. By a variety of projection devices--moving the lantern to creat images of enlarging or shrinking the image, projection of a wavering image on billows of smoke, effects of transformation through mechanical slides or anamorphic lenses-- the projections appeared to come to life. These images could be presented as representation of spirits."

That's what this proogram tried to do, but by also using more modern technology such as the computer. There were small problems, a few stumbled lines, some awkward transitions, and an unintentionally funny shadow puppet sequence. But I enjoyed the idea of a spooky entertainment that emphasized ideas and innovation rather than pure gore and slick showmanship. It was fun stepping back into another century for a couple hours, and driving back home by the light of a harvest moon.

Now I think I'll reread Frankenstein.

Window Painting

I grew up in the country, but I went to school in Elkhorn, starting in sixth grade. The city had a tradition of sponsoring a Halloween window decorating contest. School children would submit a small tempra painting, and some would be chosen to paint their designs on downtown business windows. It was invariably a cold day, and we'd stand outside with our sets of poster paint, water and rags and paint. Here I am, in fifth or sixth grade. I don't remember if I won any prizes for my little design, but I remember enjoying doing the painting and looking at others. It surprises me that I entered these contests, since I'm not much of an outdoor painter these days, and I'm reluctant to let strangers watch me work. But I didn't have any of those concerns in elementary school. I haven't seen an activity like this in a while. Maybe it's too too messy. Maybe children are busy with other activities. I don't know why the city discontinued having the schoolchildren paint ghosts and jack-o-lanterns on the storefronts, but it was a part of growing up in the 1950's and 1960's that I enjoyed.

More Pumpkins

This is me on my first Halloween. Up until the my younger sister was born our family lived in a little trailer beside my grandparents' farmhouse. I have almost no memory of this time, except for one that could be a dream. I'm standing in my PJs in my crib, awakened by thunder and lightning, and I am terrified. Many times I think I remember people, places or events like this, and then I find the exact image in one of these old photos, or in one of Mother's old home movies.

Mother was a creative person whose only real outlet was our family. She went to Layton Art School in Milwaukee for a year, but then dropped out to marry our father. She took pictures and home movies. She decorated for holidays. She sewed and knitted. We had lots of dresses, all sewed by her, and she made slipcovers, covered pillows and curtains. She smocked little baby outfits for her friends, and knitted little sweaters and caps. In almost very holiday related picture there is something she made, in this case the little carved pumpkin. It was hard for her when she was older and sick, when she lost her ability to do fine handwork, since that was the way she expressed her creative side.

Anyway, today we'll go out to get pumpkins. My husband isn't a fan of holiday decorations most of the time, but he likes carving a jack-o-lantern at Halloween. He works for hours on his creation, and loves to roast the seeds in butter and salt. I enjoy the finished pumpkin, but am not excited by scooping out the slimy seeds. And to tell the truth, I'm a little scared of handling a sharp knife. Maybe I can get him to do the scooping.

1950s - Halloween

Sherry Ellen and Patty Sue Pierce, about 1956

Up until recently, Halloween was my favorite holiday. Part of it was because I adored dressing up. Part of it was because I liked candy. A big part of it was because I loved scary stories, scary poems, scary movies.

This old photo is of me and my younger sister, dressed up by my mother for Halloween. I recently had our old home movies which Mom transferred to video tape, transferred again to DVD format this summer. There we are in those costumes, at a party in our farmhouse, along with the other small children who lived on farms on our road, or who lived in nearby Millard. We're chasing around our maple dining room table in the home movie, the littlest ones looking confused and giddy. I'm just twirling around like some demented Cinderella. We almost never bought our costumes, and it took weeks of planning and sewing to assemble them.

As for candy, we always got some, but not like the town kids who could drag a pillow case around the block to hold all their loot. When we were the age we are pictured here, Mom would take us in the Mercury and drive us to farms around the country block, maybe six places total. Usually we all had to go in and visit. One man from church insisted we perform before he'd put a treat in our bag, so we'd sing a couple lines of a song for him, hating it. The neighbor at the end of our long gravel driveway was our favorite. She had a paper sack already filled with treats: homemade popcorn balls, strawberry rope licorice, and a peanut butter blossom cookie. Occasionally there were wax lips, crimson Dolly Parton kissers, that eventually were chewed to bits. When we got a little older we walked our country road in the dark. That was scary. One cold Halloween as we walked along the road, winter jackets over our costumes, there were spotted salamanders on the asphalt. Can't beat that for a chill. Do I remember the nice neighbor lady had hot chocolate when we arrived at her place? I know that nobody threw away my homemade treats for fear of tampering.

Then there were scary stories. I don't remember there being any adults who censored the stories we read. We had lots of books of ghost stories, lots of those Alfred Hitchcock short story collections. We subscribed to a series of books that arrived by mail, The Best of Children's Literature. Seems to me I remember my first bloody Grimms Fairy Tales from those books. At church we had youth Halloween parties, and nobody suggested we were being corrupted by the devil, even when I dressed as a black cat. When I was older we often made our own haunted houses, and played the Dead Man Game - you know, the one with a rubber glove filled with wet sand for his hand, candy corn for teeth, a carved carrot for a nose. We watched scary television, old Vincent Price movies or B Sci-Fi movies about radiated mutants, or outer space creatures. But they were in black and white, and nothing that gave us nightmares (usually).

I'm not so wild about Halloween now. I enjoy handing out candy to dressed up children, but we get fewer and fewer every year. Most of the costumes appear to be purchased, and I know that moms work outside the home now, so I understand that saving time is a good thing. But the holiday seems to me to have become just another opportunity for marketers to sell us costumes, decorations, candy and cards. And the news items about parents objecting to ghost stories or even Harry Potter just depress me. My husband and I will buy candy, carve pumpkins (and roast pumpkin seeds), and play A Night on Bald Mountain during trick or treat time, but I'm afraid Halloween isn't my favorite any more.