qui m'ocirra.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Halloween.
The night before Mom had prepared with the usual tradition of watching Meet me in St. Louis. There was a “pumpkin patch cake” and Carrie had also tried to decide what Rose should dress up to be.
“You can’t be that corncob, Rose. You won’t even fit in the car.”
“But I want to be,” Rose weakly protested.
“What about we cover you in purple balloons and you can go as a bunch of grapes?” Mom suggested.
But it was unanimously decided that Wallace would pop them all before they actually got to the trick-or-treating aspect of the evening.
In the end, Carrie decided that it would be alright if Rose wore the corncob anyway. After all, she had always been the costume consultant of the family.
Collette spent the afternoon waiting for Rose to return from choir, watching old baseball clips. It wasn’t often that she found herself fascinated with popular pastimes.
The cold of the evening brought out the goblins and the ghouls – but more usually seen: angels, Elvis, and walking televisions.
By six o’clock, the night had brought on a fine cold. Joe had begun the bonfire in the backyard and had turned on lights in the tree house and the Italian street lights in the trees. Mom had sliced oranges in the cider and set out piles of donuts.
Shortly later the Hobcoggins and Silverspoons arrived, including OLeif who had just come from work. So while Dad and Wilbur took the youngsters about and Joe, Wally, and Curly spent their entire evening in the basement, OLeif and Collette escorted Rose (a walking corncob), Starr (elderly lady with gray wig, glasses, penny loafers, and shawl), and Molly (walking shower stall complete with rubber ducky on shoulder).
The girls decided that they would sing for their treats, and did so, to the great admiration of many of the wealthy homeowners that evening. It wasn’t every day one saw a giant corncob walking down the street, even on Halloween.
After driving several rounds, OLeif and Collette finally picked up the girls in Camelot, the millionaire neighborhood that was once rumored to have housed the legendary Mark McGwire himself.
Hadn’t Diana and Collette made several bike rides that enchanting summer in ’98 over to that grand subdivision to decide which house might be his?
And so the evening was ended with many pillowcases of loot, spread out, ready for trading and selling: peanut butter cups, giant Twix bars, and miniature tubs of Playdough. Collette found, sadly, that she had begun to loose her affection for chocolate and over the course of the day consumed only two tiny boxes of junior mints. Alas.