All Hallows Eve

The house is strangely quiet. No one knocks on my door asking for treats. No pumpkins flicker yellow candlelight outside my house. No bowl of candy sits by the front door. Drew has deserted me. He is off helping the coach take his daughter around their neighborhood for treats (and hoping to snag some for himself). For the first time in decades I am free and clear of Halloween. Sugar and I settle in for an evening of reading.

I think about past years. When I was a kid, I took great delight in Halloween. How exciting to dream up and create a costume and be something you normally aren't! We lived in a small town, and my sisters and I went all over town collecting bags full of big candy bars and home made popcorn balls. We dragged our loot home numerous times so our bags wouldn't look too full. People often tossed 2 or 3 bars in our bags at once. Sometimes they would ask who we were, and if they knew us, we got the special stuff. For kids who seldom had chocolate treats, we were in heaven. Mom made us freeze the majority of our take and doled it out in our lunches over the course of the school year.

Dad sometimes created a haunted house in the church, of all places! That was before celebrating ghosts and witches came into scrutiny by church leaders who rightly called a halt to such stuff. Dad would peel grapes and put them in paper lunch bags, then have people feel them without looking and tell them they were peeled eyeballs. Or put cooked oatmeal in a container and tell us it was someone's brains. I'm amazed he got away with such stuff, being a pastor and all. But it drew big crowds of kids who normally didn't attend church. The haunted house always ended up in the church basement where Dad told scary stories and rattled chains and had displays of beheadings and such stuff.

When my boys were little, there was a huge push against church participation in Halloween. My kids attended church parties where everyone dressed as Bible characters and played games and we knew the candy being handed out was safe and not laced with razor blades or poison like happened in the 1960s. Still, it's a far cry from the old All Saints Eve, the time when people gathered in churches for protection because they mistakenly thought that souls who had died got one last chance to take vengeance on their enemies before going to their eternal reward.

All last week I heard people complaining about how kids from the city are bused to their neighborhoods for the free candy and how rowdy and rude all these strange kids are. Many of the neighborhoods have agreed to turn their lights off at 7 pm and ignore any knocks on the door. That way they give to the kids in their neighborhood who are little enough to be happy about getting a few treats, and don't have to go broke serving the entire city population.

Another friend talked about having bridge duty. On Halloween numerous volunteers work with the police department guarding bridges because pranksters throw big pumpkins over bridges onto the cars driving beneath. Seems they catch a lot. They work in groups of two and have walkie talkies to call the police as soon as they spot someone. Dangerous work as you never know when someone will pull a knife or a gun. Something is wrong with this picture. I've heard of many caveats about Halloween, but this seems over the edge.

This year I got a picture of my grand daughters in costume - big bird and a princess. They didn't go too many places since my son distrusts the loot and doesn't want to risk them getting something they ought not to get. What a confusing holiday! Maybe we should just come up with something safe and fun to do at home for the night.

Gate Woes

Saturday. Closing time. The desk students tell me that the gate doesn't seem to want to go down. I amble toward the locks mounted on the wall and insert my key. Nothing. Not a sound, not a click, not a buzz, not a hum. That's strange. The other gate went down just fine.

I can sense the students' impatience. Of course, they are eager to be on their way. I tell them to leave. I will call security and figure out what to do. Security comes. They can't get it to work either. Strange. There is no help for it. We will have to close the 24 hour area and lock the entire building until Monday when facilities can take a look.

There are students in the 24 hour area trying to work on papers. Most of them are good natured about being booted out. One poor gentleman, not a native speaker of English, was troubled. He really needed to complete his paper. I feel badly. I hate to kick him out, but I can't leave him in there with the whole building undone. We lock up. I go home after sending emails to everyone who will need to know over the next few days.

Fortunately, one of the people I emailed had a solution, called security, it worked, and within 2 hours we were back in business. Hurrah! Would that everything could be fixed as quickly. I just hope that student came back and was able to finish. I hate tripping other people up!

MapleWood Park

Where the rose gardens are - that's what my friend said in her email about where we could walk this weekend. Along the river. I have never heard of the place, but the thought of discovering a local park with roses entices me. I miss Yaddo and have not found anything like it in this area. I type MapleWood into my iPhone and head that direction - not too early mind you. After all, its Saturday and there is no driving need to be up and about at the crack of dawn (even though I will be anyway).

I arrive a few minutes before she does and am amazed to find that there are still many roses in bloom. So many colors - orange, red, yellow, pink. So many sizes - delicate little tea roses, mid sized climbing roses, huge show roses. Some of them have ethereal fragrances that transport you to a more elegant time, a more formal occasion. Others have no fragrances at all. How disappointing. A rose with no fragrance. What a terrible thing.

My friend arrives and we chat while deciding which way to go - towards the city or towards the zoo. We head towards the zoo. To our right down a steep embankment lies the river lazily meandering along in the bright sunlight despite the fall chill in the air. To our left, the back yards of large homes, some formal, some casual. Lots of vines run along the ground but the path we walk is well marked, sometimes dirt littered with dusty leaves, sometimes blacktop, sometimes cement sidewalk.

We chatter as we walk along, the path gently rising and falling with the shape of the landscape. People pass - walking dogs, on bikes, alone, with a friend. We can see below by the river's edge groups of people muddling with nature. There is a second trail paralleling ours but much lower. Ahead we can see a bridge enabling the highway to pass over the gorge. Our path takes us beneath the bridge and we marvel at flowers still in bloom along the stone wall where the warm sun has tricked them into thinking it is still summer.

After passing the bridge, we come to a division in the path. If we go forward, it will take us to the zoo. There are steeper hills there. I am already tiring and I know I must have enough energy to get back to the car. I opt for turning around and heading back the way we came. I am sure I could have gone a bit farther, but I don't want to take chances. We decide that next walk we will start here at the path turn.

I hadn't realized that all along we had been gradually descending. Now that I am retracing, it is all uphill! Not steep, but enough to make me huff and puff. I know I am out of shape, but I want to talk while walking and I find I am not able. Twice my friend stops to allow me to catch my breath. We gaze out over the steep cliff to the river below. How beautiful the trees are with their fall colors, even though we both agree that this fall has not been as stellar as previous falls have been. Something about how the temperature keeps fluctuating. One minute winter is immanent, the next summer has powerfully returned.

At last the parking lot weaves into view and my decrepit body will be able to relax. We spend a few minutes smelling the roses. If either of us knew how to make rose hip tea, we could have harvested a bounty. But then, my friend pointed out, its probably not legal. Besides, I add, who know what sort of chemicals they were sprayed with.

We part ways, each heading for household duties and errands. I promise myself to return to this floral mecca next summer when the garden is in full bloom. I am sure it will be a treat. Today was sumptuous, even without the full floral effect. I wonder if I can convince Drew and Sugar to come with me?