| Halloween
in September |
| It's the middle of September and there were Halloween yard
and party decorations, hundreds of costumes and rows and rows
of candy every where. There were clowns and ghosts, princesses
and cowboys, space warriors and football players. There were
giant plastic pumpkins and tiny lighted goblins. |
| And the candy had enough sugar to sink an aircraft carrier.
From Snickers to M&Ms, from Mars to the Milky Way, it was
a paradise for children. |
| And it's only the middle of September. |
| All these and more were for sale at just about every big
box store and drug store I visited last week. |
| It never used to be like that. I mean, give me a burnt cork,
a stick with a bandana tied to the end, my dad's old hat and
torn shirt and I was off trick-or-treating. |
| My wife, Betsy, says that was easy for the boys, but her
mom had to sew her a princess gown, or at least remake one
of her sister's old costumes. |
| Today, Halloween has become one of the nation's favorite
holidays. Surveys show that for children, it is second in
popularity only to Christmas. I think it's the candy and all
the dressing up they get to do. |
| Maybe it's the treats without the tricks. My favorite places
to get a treat as a youngster were the businesses along Broadway.
The bowling alley always gave out little balsa wood airplanes.
We had to sing a short song to get those. Sometimes I'd go
back twice. I loved those things. |
| At the Broadway Bar¤that's right, an 8-year-old kid in a
bar at 7 p.m. dressed up like a hobo¤they gave away wonderful
candy bars, a rarity back then. We had to sing a song there,
too, and the old men would laugh. |
| And at Vera's, the tiny local food market on Fremont Street,
we had the pick of the candy case. Vera didn't want us to
do any tricks. She just gave us the treats and asked us to
leave. |
| And way down by the river lived a very old man in a very
old house with a very old dog with spots on his face and a
broken tail. Usually in a group of about six hobos (the boys
weren't very original), we'd step up to the very dark porch
and knock on the very old door on the old house. |
| The old man would invite us in to his living room. I'll
always remember the smell¤like grandma's dressing table with
the spilled lavender face powder. The old man's treat to us
was an odd one. |
| He would have his dog with the broken tail stand on his
hind legs and move up and down the very old piano plunking
the keys with his front paws. It was some kind of tune which
was nothing more the hammers striking the strings. |
| We would laugh and applaud and the old man would give his
dog a biscuit. That was the end of the show. We received no
treats, but we did get a great trick. |
| Homemade cookies and popcorn balls, pennies and dimes in
your bag, no parents parading the streets with you, the same
costume year after year, and a dog playing the piano. |
| Now that was Halloween. |
| |
| Ever
Wonder About Wachovia? |
| Ever wonder where the word "Wachovia" (as in bank and securities)
came from, and how it's really pronounced? Herndon's Tom Haselhorst,
managing director at Wachovia Securities, says he found the
answer in company literature. |
| The former Wachovia (founded in 1879 in Winston, N.C.) and
First Union (founded in 1908 in Charlotte, N.C.) merged on
Sept. 1, 2001, to create Wachovia Corporation. |
| Wachovia (pronounced wa-KO-vee-yah) is the Latin form of
the name "Wachau," which was given to the tract of land in
the Piedmont region of North Carolina settled by Moravians
in 1753. The name honored the settlers' connections to the
Wachau Valley along the Danube River. |
| So there! |
| |
| Wanted:
One Face Painter |
| And this just in from the organizers of NatureFest 2002,
scheduled for this Sunday, Sept. 22, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Runnymede
Park. |
| POSITION TO FILL |
| Face painter. |
| We just lost our "number one nature face painter" to an
injury. |
| All materials are provided. Experience helps. Salary: Zip.
Benefits: Happy kids. |
| Apply to jdenoyer@erols.com. |
| The Friends of Runnymede would be pleased to hear from you. |
| And that's Our Town this week. |
