Trick Or Treat, Smell My Feet...

I’m not sure exactly why I own a soap box.  I mean, in this day and age, they’re not all that common or useful, but I’m glad I have one because I like to stand up tall on it and shout my opinions from up here.  For example, let me tell you how I feel about the over-commercializing of Halloween.  Pull up a chair. 

I LOVE Halloween.  Love it.  Always have, and probably always will.  What’s not to love?  Children get to tap into their imaginations and be someone else.  And then they get candy!  Even grown ups who wish to participate can be who they want for a night and they get to be a hero to a kid looking for Butterfingers or KitKats.

As though costumes and candy aren’t enough, the act of trick or treating is really about so much more.  Those imagination-fueled costumes encourage creativity and, sometimes, practical reasoning.  Packs of kids walking together from house to house incite brotherhood, cooperation and cultural awareness.  Adults opening doors with a smile on their face strengthen a neighborhood.  Knocking on the door and yelling “Trick or Treat!” fosters trust that your efforts will be rewarded.  It’s pretty perfect.

Well, it USED be pretty perfect, anyway.  Certainly, there are people whose religious beliefs keep them from celebrating.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  But for the rest of us who WANT to experience it, so much of the fun has been sucked right out of it by the Paranoid Minority.  I hate that for the kids who may never experience the real thing.

First of all, Halloween is October 31^st.  Always has been and it shouldn’t matter what day of the week October 31^st happens to be, THAT is Halloween.  Communities that declare that Halloween will be celebrated on Saturday the 26^th or Friday, November 1^st because that’s more convenient for them chap my hide.  That’s right!  I said they chap my hide!  You’re allowed to say crotchety stuff like that when you’re up on a soap box.

Kids should be able to go to school, excitedly talking about their plan of attack, then come home and drive their parents nuts asking “Now?  Can we go now?  How about now?”  They should be able to go to school the next day with Now’n’laters stuck in their teeth and talk about who had the biggest haul.  That’s the way it supposed to be!

As though scheduling Halloween to suit your needs isn’t bad enough, what about all the Faux Trick or Treating?  My hide continues to be chapped.  Walking your kid through the mall so that underpaid, overly irritated retail clerks can throw SourPatch Kids in their bags while you windowshop or sit in a massage chair doesn’t count!  Likewise, there’s a new trend called “Trunk Or Treat”.

Trunk Or Treat is just what it sounds like.  People line the family car up in a parking lot, drape it in spooky-ish Halloween decorations and pass out candy from…you guessed it…the trunk of their car (or back of their minivan, more often).  The theory is that it’s a safer and more controlled environment for the kids.  These events are often hosted by churches or private schools and the very idea of them makes me squirm.

Now, in interest of hypocritical disclosure, the church around the corner hosts a Trunk Or Treat, and you can bet my little goblins will be there.  I mean, another day to dress up AND extra candy?  Score!  But it’s not the replacement for the actual holiday that I think those grown ups want it to be.  It’s just a warm up for the big game!

I do understand that Trick Or Treating the traditional way is just not possible in some communities.  When my family moved to rural Pennsylvania and I realized it was not possible to go door to door, that was a rude awakening.  I came from Baltimore, with blocks and blocks of real neighborhoods and came home with my pillowcase filled with candy, so that I could dump it out and go back out.  Sometimes people tossed coins in our bags.  Sometimes, they gave us homemade treats like cookies, cupcakes or popcorn balls. And sometimes, they invited us into their homes for a mini-haunted house…AND WE WENT!!!  Gasp!!!

Trick Or Treating in my Grandmother’s neighborhood in Illinois was equally fabulous.  Those neighbors not only gave us treats, but wanted to ask about our mother or siblings, or just see how we were doing.  We arrived at Grandma’s house only after we decided what our act for the evening would be.  You see, my grandmother took TRICK or Treat quite literally.  Children (all children, not just her relatives) were expected to enter her living room, where she and Grandpa would be seated on the couch.  She would say “All right, we’re ready to see your trick.”  Only after we told a joke or did a dance or whatever it is we worked out, did we get our treat.

Now, here in suburban Atlanta, I’m surrounded by neighborhoods that choose their Trick Or Treating night based on convenience and shopping centers with “Fall festivals” so that children don’t have to dare to knock on a door.  By some stroke of luck, however, my OWN neighborhood pulls out all the stops for a fantastic, REAL Halloween and I’m so grateful.

Neighbors install over-the-top decorations.  Grown-ups wear costumes as they walk with their kids or answer their own doors.  Children walk the neighborhood in very loosely supervised packs and we average 300 kids every year.  I love that and am proud of my neighbors for letting their kids take part in the fun and for making it fun for everyone.  There’s no fear, no suspicion.  Just giggles, joy and the occasional trickster.

Among the fairies, the vampires and the princesses, there are always random 12-13 year old boys who are way too cool/mature/uninterested in that kid stuff to put on a costume, but bold enough to ask for candy.  That’s when Grandma steps in and insists that if they couldn’t be bothered to throw together a costume, they’re going to have to earn their candy.  Until I hear a joke, see a dance, a cartwheel or something, the chocolate doesn’t find its way to their bags.  My husband feels certain that I’m setting myself up for an egging or something, but I have faith in the power of a KitKat and the hearts of pubescent boys and think they get that I’m having fun with them.

That’s what I’m going to keep doing…having fun.  As long as some parents are willing to let their kids be kids and experience some of what they either had or wished they had in their own childhoods, I’m going to hang ghosts in my yard, I’m going to give corn syrup laden goodies to anyone who knocks on my door.  I’m going to bust them when they show up twice and I’m going to give them candy anyway.  And when it’s all over, I’m going to let my kids eat junk and I’m going to snatch the Almond Joys for myself.

I ask all the kids what they’re going to be for Halloween.  Maybe I should ask the grown ups instead.  Are you going as a Kid At Heart or are you going as a Paranoid Fun Sucker?  Some advice:  the Kid gets better candy.  I’ll probably stash mine in my soapbox now that I’m stepping down from it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silly I Am And Silly I'll Be...

When people talk about their favorite childhood books, you hear the typical answers:  Dr. Seuss, Richard Scarry, Shel Silverstein.  The usual suspects.  I loved them all but when I talk about my favorite, few people remember it.  I think that’s a crying shame.

The Adventures Of Silly Billy by Tamara Kitt was a staple on my grandmother’s bookshelf and, later, I had my own copy.  I read it at least once during every visit to Grandma’s and read it on my own at home.  I still quote it in my head – “Silly you are and silly you’ll be…” – when I witness silliness in action.

If you’re not familiar with the story, Billy is an underappreciated idea man.  He sits and thinks and plans and creates and, when he shares his ideas with his parents, he’s met with chuckles, headshakes and criticism: “Oh, you silly boy!” and “Silly you are and silly you will be as long as you live.”

Billy knew better.   So he went out into the world to find someone sillier than himself.  He found them.  Easily.  And he solved their problems by applying just a little bit of common sense.  Repairing holes in a pan that wouldn’t hold water, counting men who forgot to count themselves and suggesting windows to the people who lived in the dark, dark house revealed William The Wise to the world.  He was lauded and rewarded for his wisdom. 

When he returned home, he brought a gold watch for his father, a bag of gold coins for his mother, and a gold crown for himself.  They were amazed and praised their Silly Billy but he demanded to never be called silly again and said that he preferred his proper name, William.  Then he went back to sit and think and plan and create once more.

It’s a children’s book, obviously.  And perhaps it’s outdated (printed in 1961) with its Long Ago/Far Away theme but when I had my own children I wanted them to know Billy.  I scoured the internet until I found a copy on Ebay and had it in my hands once again.  The real bummer, however, is that my kids don’t share my love for my favorite hero.  They prefer the Five Chinese Brothers but they humor me and sit still while I read it to them.

While I love the old-fashioned illustrations (beautifully done by Jill Elgin), I think what speaks to me is not childish at all.  How many of us have been told our dreams or ideas are ridiculous, impossible, or unrealistic?  And how many forge on past the nay-sayers and go on to dream again?  Sadly, I think the majority stops when their ideas are criticized.  Imagine if all the Billys of the world just gave up.  Where would we be?

Silly is relative, isn’t it?  Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to see it from a different angle.  And sometimes, in the midst of a problem, an outside perspective is just what it takes to see it.  While the townspeople couldn’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak, Silly Billy’s viewpoint allowed him to see the trees in the forest and the answers were clear.

OK, so planting popcorn didn’t produce the bags and bags of popped corn he anticipated.  Giving boiling water to his hens did not produce the hard boiled eggs he envisioned. To those people in need that he encountered, he was not silly at all.  He was a visionary.  A problem-solver.  His ideas were wonderful and desperately needed.

Billy’s not the first to be scoffed at.  Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell both invented aircraft that didn’t work.  Leonardo DaVinci’s inflatable shoes for walking on water were a flop.  Henry Ford had five failed businesses before his motor company took off.  Walt Disney was fired because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” Some considered them too silly to succeed.   Thankfully, all of these “Silly” people ignored the naysayers and kept going back to the drawing board.

This is why I want my kids to know Silly Billy.  He may not be as exciting as Captain Underpants or that Wimpy Kid with his diaries, but he’s a perfect role model for being who you are, with no excuses.  I hope they will continue to tolerate him and remember that their silly ideas are valuable and worth a try.  Maybe they’ll have some misses, but I’m willing to bet they’ll have some hits as well.

As for myself, I already know I’m one of the silly ones.  Some get it.  Some roll their eyes and humor me.  That’s okay.  Silly I am and silly I will be as long as I live.  Got a problem with that?

Stamp My Passport Back In Time...

Memory is a funny thing.  It’s so easy to be blind-sided by a file drawer springing open in the brain, prompted by seemingly tiny triggers.

Or maybe that’s just me.  OK.  It’s probably just me.  Just about anything will stimulate the memory cells.  I think, for normal people, certain deep-seated memories can be activated by the senses.  Perhaps the smell of fresh-baked bread brings a warm feeling associated with a favorite aunt or a song can remind you of a time or a place.  I definitely experience that in a mostly normal way but I think my cut off valve may be broken because my brain doesn’t stop at a pleasant thought.  No!  Once that faucet starts flowing, there’s no stopping it!

My olfactory memories sneak up on me and drag me down memory lane, but it’s never something as simple or obvious as fresh baked bread.  No.  For me, it’s the smoky mixture of oil and gas that most would find unpleasant.  For me, whether it’s a car in need of a tune up, a landscaper’s lawnmower or chainsaw, I’m immediately transported to the Friday nights of my childhood at the dirtbike races.  I don’t even remember watching the races, but being there (to support the family friend who owned the track, I think) was tradition and we had the run of the nearby lot to play tag and use the swingset and whatever it is that kids do in such places until I was ready to climb up into the stands and fall asleep. 

Of course, there are nicer aromas in my memories: my grandmother’s linens, my mother’s cookies, even my dad’s Brut aftershave but it’s the funky ones that hit me every time.  There’s a certain kind of terrible muddy smell that immediately takes me to my very first concert.  I was about seven and it was Elton John in his platform shoes, giant sunglasses and sparkling silver jacket heyday under the St. Louis Arch.  My big sister Sue and I went with her friend Liz, in Liz’s teeny tiny MG convertible and as we crossed the river into town, my 7 year old self felt pretty damn cool.

The arch, if you don’t know, sits along the Mississippi River and St. Louis in July is about as hot and humid as it gets.  We’d had a few days of rain, so the landing was extra muddy.  And, being a free concert in the seventies, the area was jammed with sweaty, pot-smoking, sweaty, Budweiser drinking, sweaty, incense-burning young folks (did I mention sweaty?) who’d been there for days - in mud up to their ankles, dancing and partying and having a great time.  For me, the mud was up to my calves and my head was much lower to the ground.  The stench was horrible but I didn’t care.  I was at a real concert, listening to a real famous person and learning from the crowd how to wave my fist in the air and sing along to “Saturday Night’s Alright”.  It was wonderful.

To this day, when I catch a whiff of Mississippi River mud, I hear Elton John in my head and remember that day.  Likewise, hearing “Saturday…Saturday…” evokes the scent from out of nowhere.  It doesn’t make sense but it totally makes scents.

Lately I’ve come to realize that when I’m tuned into the Oldies station on the car radio, there are no longer any “oldies” playing.  Instead, I’m hearing the bands of the 80s who filled the cars we cruised in down the beach.  See?  That can’t be Oldies, right!?  When Bad Company and Bon Jovi are coming out of my speakers, I’m suddenly no longer waiting in the carpool line for my kids.  I’m on Hwy. 98, somewhere under the Miracle Strip Tower, trying to decide whether to go to the beach or go to a party with a bunch of tourists.

It doesn’t take much to stamp my passport back in time and send me completely back to a place.  If all of the conditions are right, I’m completely transported.  On a perfectly sunny fall afternoon like today, there’s just no fighting it.  Why would I, really?  These are free vacations and I don’t need to check a bag. 

As I walked to retrieve the kids from school, the sky was clear and sunny and there was a beautifully gentle breeze in the air.  That alone was enough to make me take it in.  There was an unusual break in traffic that brought peaceful silence and enabled me to hear the soft clang of a rope hitting the flagpole in front of the school.  Whoosh!  I was gone!  I was no longer on a sidewalk in suburban Georgia.  Instead, I was on my beach in my favorite post-tourist/pre-snowbird season hearing lines flapping against sail masts on catamarans parked in the sand next to lifeguard stands.  The birds flying above were no longer hawks and thrashers.  Now they were seagulls and sandpipers.  For just that brief moment, it was real.  I was there with sand between my toes and salt air in my lungs until the bell rang, kids spilled from the brick building and I was back on the concrete, smelling school bus exhaust.  I was back, but my Time Travel Passport was stamped and my soul was recharged.

Maybe I’m not all that unusual after all.  Maybe we all have it in us to go back in time like that but we forget to just go with it.  Here and now, real life and responsibilities keep us tethered and grounded.  That’s normal.  We can’t live in the past and we shouldn’t try.  We all know that, I think.  But why can’t we VISIT sometimes? 

Try it.  When a memory calls and invites you to travel with it for a moment, go along for the ride.  Sometimes those visits backwards can deliver just what you need to keep moving forward but you’ll never know if you don’t stamp the passport and get on board for the trip.

Big Brother Is Watching You (if you're lucky)...

Family folklore tells of an eleven year old young man who packed a bag and prepared to go out into the world because another baby – the ninth big fat baby in eleven years, in fact – was moving into his family’s house.  He wasn’t planning to leave because he had a problem with this new (big fat) baby.  No.  He was just trying to be helpful and accommodating. 

This young man was simply expressing his concern that maybe there wasn’t enough room or that his mother had too much on her plate.  Thank God his mother talked some sense into him because that big fat baby needed him there.  ALL of the other eight babies needed him there.  You see, this young man was The Big Brother.  He was, in so many ways, the captain of the ship, the lighthouse that guided it, and the cruise director who set the tone.

At sixteen, this young man packed up his bell bottoms and drum sticks and left with his mother’s blessing to chase his dreams.  The nuns never understood his long hair or fashion sense, his grandparents didn’t quite get that music could ever be a Real Job and strangers very likely judged the decision to let him go, but his focus was clear and his heart told him it was the right path.

In case you haven’t figured it out, I was that big fat baby and I’m talking about my brother Tim – the eldest of the brood.  As the baby, I can’t pretend to know what experiences made him who he is.  Personally, I think he was just a reincarnate very old man who forgot to revert to childhood when he came back to earth.  What I KNOW is that he’s always been the beacon of light for so many – not just his siblings – and that he played a big role in shaping who I am.

I don’t mean to say that he Left Home.  He never did.  He simply built a west wing away from the primary Albert residence in the east.  I only recently learned that when we loaded up the station wagon and moved away from our hometown to Baltimore, Tim was actually the one who chose our new home.  I don’t know what he was thinking at the time, but in hindsight, he set us up in a real neighborhood with schools and shops and people who became lifelong friends to our entire family.  He set us up, and then he packed up the aforementioned bell bottoms and drumsticks and returned to the hometown to set up base.

While we were going about our life, planting new roots, our Big Brother was on the road.  Making music.  Making connections.  Following his dreams.  But he never ever left us behind.  We were with him.  In his thoughts.  In his letters.  In his phone calls.  He sent us stories from the road and I kept a bulletin board map of the United States with pushpins marking every place he’d been.  I knew which pin represented a flat tire or a Blues Brothers-style caged stage.

In the summers, our father was supposed to have custody visits.  But really, given the choice between staying with a night-shift coal miner we barely knew or our rock star big brother, whose house do you think we chose?  And somehow, the teenage hippie rock star proprietor of the Albert West Wing managed to open the door, make sure we were fed, reasonably clean, entertained and, most importantly, together and happy.  I didn’t know how he did it.  I still don’t fully understand it.  I know he had the assistance of many who stood by with safety nets: grandparents, aunts, and a number of roommates who joined the force, but the bulk of the weight was on him.

Maybe it was a bit of a commune.  It was the 70s, after all.  All my 7 year old self cared about was the sense of freedom and big adventure that lived at Tim’s House.  My adult self knows that along with freedom, there was security.  Along with adventure, there was safety.  Above the chaos, there was LOVE.

In these summers, I received an education that you can’t get at any Ivy League institution (but maybe they should offer it – you hear me, Harvard?).  Certainly, it was a little unorthodox, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I honed my reading skills on a huge collection of underground comics.  Perhaps grownups wouldn’t approve of the lessons of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Zap Comix, or even Mr. Natural, but I loved them and found them very educational.  I learned about horticulture.  I learned arts and crafts (little fingers are useful for rolling small pieces of paper).  I learned philosophy from any number of friends who passed through the house.  I learned to do yoga and fry plantains.  I learned to improvise a meal with whatever assortment of food was available.  I learned about diversity and acceptance and I learned to enter any room with the belief that I was supposed to be there and the ability to bluff my way through if questioned. 

Most of all, I learned that attitude is everything and that taking a risk isn’t really a risk at all if your heart tells you the net will be there.  And if the net isn’t there, a Big Brother will be.

At the end of the summers, we little brothers and sisters would return to the main Albert house with suntans, tangled hair, dirty feet, completely happy nourished souls and, most importantly, stories, memories and new skills.  For some of us, it was a new song learned.  For others, it was newly realized knowledge about who we are and belief in ourselves.

I don’t think Tim WANTED to be the patriarch of the family, but that’s the way it is.  I think it’s natural for the eldest to be the leader.  In a long line of hard-laboring blue collared workers who saw college as the only alternative, our Big Brother proved to us that we could do or be whatever we wanted and that dreams are worth following.  He even proved to our grandparents that music is a REAL job!!!

Those summers are long behind us.  Of course, I will always remember riding in the band van with orange fur on the dash, sneaking in the side door of nightclubs and napping under the keyboard while the funk band rehearsed.  I’m sure my husband and kids are sick of hearing the tales.  But the real story behind it all is that our Big Brother has always had our backs.  Probably half of us have lived with him at some point.  I know we’ve all turned to him when we needed a voice of reason and he’s never stopped taking care of us. 

It’s not just us…our Big Brother has been Big Brother to countless others.  He’s been Big Brother to friends who’ve needed to be bailed out – both literally and figuratively.  Whether heads need thumping or spirits need lifting, Big Brother Tim is there.  When our father needed some tough big brother love, Tim did it.  When any of us still need a head thump, we get it. 

I hope that as years have passed, we actual brothers and sisters have become less needy.  My brother deserves a break.  But I suspect that he will still be the go-to call for many at 2 in the morning who will start a conversation with “Man, I’m really sorry to call you so late….” And I know that he will be there to quietly save the day.

 

Happy Birthday, my brother.  Thanks for all the You that you are and all the You that you’ve been.