Happy Halloween! I'm still catching up on everything, but seem to be making slow and steady progress. It just occurred to me this morning that my Mom's porch light is on. That made me think of Halloween, my Dad's favorite holiday. He always dressed up as a cowboy (does it count as dressing up if it's your true identity?). When I was a kid, he was one of the Dads that took the neighborhood crew trick-or-treating. Back then, people weren't quite so freaked out by guns, so he would load up "blanks" (noise, no projectile) and carry one of his "six-shooters" firing blanks here and there.
When I was no longer trick-or-treating, he'd hand out candy with Mom. Our house has a screened in porch, and Dad would rig up a ghost that would rise out of the corner as the kids opened the door. It was great fun hearing the kids get startled or hearing the kids yell "Hurry up, that's the house with the ghost".
But even bigger in our family was carving pumpkins. We're not a family to grab a carving knife and gouge out a face. No, we carve our pumpkins so that the skin is only cut half way through. These fancy pumpkins are quite trendy now, but that's the only way my Dad and I have ever done it. When you light them, the carved spots glow. It's quite a messy job. You do the usual deseeding, but to carve, you use an Exacto knife to cut a grid into an area, then pop out the little squares of rind. Yes, they fly all over the kitchen. Then you use a spoon to scrape the remaning rind smooth and to the thickness you want. That part is messy too. You light the pumpkin with a small lightbulb. I'll never forget Dad sending me my "pumpkin light' my halloween away from home.
My Dad could draw really well, so he had some great pumpkins over the years. I'm not as good of an artist, but mine haven't been too bad. I've avoided the templates they sell at the store on principle. I was too young to remember it, but when Dad's little sister was killed in a car accident, he made a pumpkin that was crying.
This year, I just don't have it in me to carve a pumpkin. I haven't had time to select one, and right now I just don't feel like taking the time and making a mess. And I guess that I just don't want to. Maybe I'm on a pumpkin strike. I know that there's no one to trade pumpkin pictures with after the holiday is over. I've e-mailed Mom's neighbors and asked them to turn off the porch light for tonight. I'm wondering what the neighborhood kids will think when they find that screened in porch dark tonight. Our porch has been a halloween institution for 20 years.
The porch light and the pumpkin have made me miss my Dad more today than I have in the 7 months since he died.
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