Feeling Better Friday

Today is the first day in a long time that I have felt like "myself." I am thrilled to see my Halloween decorations twinkling from the mantle, well actually, ALL of the mantles. I like Halloween, just a little. Every bush in my yard is covered in lights and I have a 6' silhouette of a witch (a craft from Martha Stewart Living, God help me!) which stands menacingly in front of a yellow spot light and fog machine. I was thrilled this year to find lime green lights for the yard and another bag o' bones for the "graveyard" ( I chose not to use the real bones this year as we have a new neighbor who works for homicide. Don't need THAT headache!). I don't know why I love Halloween so. I think it might have to do with my mom.

You see, I spent those younger magical years in West Palm Beach, Florida where there is no change of seasons. I had to envision fall leaves, crisp air, the smell of fires burning. My mother, who was born up north, would hang paper fall leaves from the chandelier, carve pumpkins, and put orange on anything that would stand still. I can still remember the smell of the decoration box- a mix of moth balls, candles from the year before, and laundry detergent (it was stored in the linen closet). She made our costumes often out of crepe paper, (HA! Martha Stewart didn't figure this out for years!) and we would trick-or-treat for blocks and blocks and blocks.

Everyone gave out candy except that one house. This house was the only two-story wooden house in the entire neighborhood and decidedly older than any of it's cinder block siblings. I remember that asian people lived there and would either not answer the door (if one was brave enough to ring the doorbell) or open the door and shoo us away in a foreign language. All of my friends were frightened of the house. It was THAT house, like the one in all of the scary movies. I wasn't afraid of the house or the people inside of it. It was difficult to understand why anyone would ignore such a fabulous holiday. I felt sorry for them. They were missing out.

After filling our plastic jack-o-lanterns to the top (I remember stuffing candy into my pockets due to overflow), we would trot home for the candy inspection and homemade pizza. They were glorious nights. We would open the front door and smell homemade pizza sauce and bubbling cheese (Thank God I was born Italian!). If we had been lucky, the humidity would have allowed mom to make sticky candy apples. After a few south Florida Octobers though, I think she gave up on the candy making.

Slopping down a couple of slices of pizza, we kids would plunk down on the floor in front of the TV and trade candy better than Wall Street could trade stock. It was often just as brutal. My favorite candy was put out by Brach's. It was tiny cellophane packages of orange and black red hots. Does anyone remember these? I found this vintage Brach's advertisement for Halloween candy. Those little suckers are right down there in the middle of the ad just next to the candy pumpkins. Can you see them? I LOVED them. I gladly traded chocolate for them... I miss them...

And people were so generous back then. None of this "Just take one piece!" As a matter of fact, I don't remember being allowed to take candy. Most would people would drop three or four pieces of candy into our pumpkins. The best was when a house would make up those little gift bags of candy.

And no one put a basket outside their door and expected kids to help themselves in a honest fashion. Those lonely bowls of candy make me sad for my kids. They are an indication of how adults lose the magic of childhood.

I dreaded the passing of Halloween almost as much as I anticipated it's coming. I remember thinking, while watching what was left of a scary movie on TV, make up melted from running around in the floridian heat, that soon Halloween would be over... Feeling the weight of having to wait another 365 days for it to come again... Hoping that next year wasn't a leap year.