Halloween Memories

Happy Halloween! Now I have to find something to do besides go home tonight and hand out candy I don't yet have. My outside light has burned out and since I don't get home till after dark and I am dallying and frittering my morning away so that I am rushing out the door late before I start I won't have time to do something about it. Can't risk dark stairs on Halloween night so if the car is not in the driveway they won't come knocking, I think. Ponder ponder and search for a time waster after work. Maybe BJ's wholesale club is in order. That's the ticket.

Glad I solved that problem. I was thinking about Halloween years ago when my late husband, also known as my first husband, and I were commuting together and living in this house. My mother and dad were staying here for a few days while dad went into Boston. W and I came around the corner slowly since it was dark and kids were already out. My mother was on the porch and waving. We parked and walked to the porch as she called out that she was locked out. The inside door was open but the storm door had somehow latched. She had been locked out for some time and the water was boiling away on the stove. The storm door was a good strong one of course and no one wanted to break the window. Kids kept stopping by to be told the candy was locked in the house and neighbors began to gather to offer solutions.

W thought that a window was open on the second floor and if he could get to the roof he could get in the window down the stairs Voila!! case closed. A neighbor brought a ladder and up W went to the roof to discover that no window was open, the roof was slick with wet leaves and no lights were on upstairs so it was dark, dark, dark. He couldn't see where the ladder was, the roof was sloped enough to alarm him since he slid sitting down and then he froze and wouldn't try to get off the roof. Kids are now coming by and pointing at the man on the roof. The man on the roof is yelling for us to call the fire department. They get cats out of trees, they can get him off the roof. My neighbors are gathering in a larger crowd than ever, my mother is hysterical and at that point my brother and father arrive from the city. I am looking for a hammer since by Golly I am breaking that window. We fill in the newcomers and my father tells my brother to go up the ladder to a window he can see is open on the side of the house. The ladder is moved and up goes my brother. It's probably halfway up before he realizes he is deathly afraid of heights.

Oh yes. Now we have a man on the roof and a man on a ladder both stuck. Yikes. What fun. The kids could care less about the candy anymore, they are loving all the adults in a melt down. It's better than a double feature Three Stooges on Saturday morning. I don't know how my brother finally got moving but I think it was the fear of the fire department. He had gone to high school with a lot of the guys in the department and he didn't need that story floating about the time they talked him down.

He finally pulled himself together and somehow got through the window. My mother at this point is yelling for him to hurry to the kitchen and turn off the stove, my husband is outraged that he would come second to the boiling water and he is yelling for him to get the window behind him open so he could crawl in.

Well all of the major players in that little scene have since moved on to their heavenly home. I'm sure the fear of heights has been dealt with since those big pink clouds are up pretty high. Every Halloween I think of the night long ago when our street came alive with shouts of "Look, there's a man on the roof" "Call the Fire Department" "If you call the Fire Department, I'll jump" "Just break the damned window" "Trick or Treat".

Life isn't quite so much fun since they've all gone. Happy Halloween everybody!!!