Halloween

It's not really what I want to talk about, as much as I love this holiday.  But it's there, just right there around the corner.. all the same.  And I so miss being a kid, fractured childhood and all.. it could've been so much worse.  But Halloween, ah yes.. now those were memories worth remembering.

The last few years have been such a disappointment as Halloweens go, but even a chance just to stick my face in a bowl or bag of Halloween candy and I'm instantly transported right back there again, right to that place where there simply was no other perfume outdoors but for the smell of candy, candle wax, and the scent of burning leaves... all swirled together with that ever-present hint of Winter's icy kiss.  I will never forget any of that as long as I live.  Such things should never be forgotten, but cherished until the very end.

Halloween isn't the same as an adult.  Period.  Well, when you have small children you have the utmost privilege to piggy-back on their experience, and that is breathtakingly awesome in its own way.  But the experience, given all its joy as you watch your own kids experience their own spooky happiness and magic can never replace your own as a child.  Ever.  It's simply a far different thing altogether.  And these days parents are either too religious, or too paranoid to allow their kids to trick-or-treat like they did when I was little.  So sad how things have become.  And it just doesn't stop with Halloween.  But that's another talk show.

There are a few places left that are still old school and unafraid.  Baldwin, Wisconsin is one such place.  Now that's an unforgettable experience that took me right back to my childhood.  Just like old times.  Big carts at the corners at the outskirts of the little town, unmanned, loaded with pumpkins... and you just drop a dollar or two in the bucket, depending on the size of the pumpkin you want.  The honor system.  Amazing.  A street within the city limits with a sign that says.. "Spooky Hollow."  That place just made me smile.  And honestly, this is just a drop in the bucket, because, well.. you should see this place at Christmas!

Well, anyway.  I'm done... not talking about what I want to talk about.