Halloween Creeps Near

Autumn ranks as my favorite season for the perfect temperatures (warm days, easy-to-sleep cool nights), the gorgeous re-gowning of the trees in fabulous colors and the fun, family-oriented holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving.

I'm a little more homesick now, since living in a Metro area I miss out on a lot that happens in an more agriculturally-oriented locale like my hometown in Southcentral Pennsylvania.  Farmer's markets abound with the bounty of the harvests, and the products that rely on those bounties - apple cider, pumpkin pie, candied yams. Thinking about all of this is making my mouth water and I am going to have to get home as soon as possible before I miss out on all of my mother's wonderful baking, recipes handed down from our Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors.

But back to Halloween... Mom brought me up in a Christian home but she didn't deny me the fun of the holiday that so many would shun because of its (now mostly forgotten and what kid thinks/cares about these) associations with devils and demons and witches. I remember dressing up as Buck Rogers (yes, I know, boy's costume but I didn't care), an Indian girl (yes, I know, not politically correct), Cheetara (yes, I know, goofy cartoon. But that one got the most compliments, as well it should, since I had three family members working for days to get everything right) and a ninja (yes, I know... oh, wait, what should I know? Ninjas are frikken awesome!).

My gal-pals and I from middle school would get together and have a sleepover after terrorizing the neighborhood in our varied getups. Eight or nine of us girls crammed into the living room of one of our homes, to watch all of the greats like Dawn of the Dead, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and we did a lot more laughing than spooking out as we drank can after can of Jolt Cola. Hyped up on caffeine, we would try to freak each other out with the creepiest ghost stories, which usually just turned into descriptions of gore-fests not much different from the movies we watched.

Halloween speaks to me differently now, as I enjoy it more vicariously through the younger nephews and nieces, and I do look forward to the day when I get to take my own kids around the neighborhoods for some "Trick or Treat." If some ridiculous politicians haven't banned it by then, at any rate.


But, to tie this in with writing, the stories... those stories stuck in my head, not so much the gory ones but the creepy ones that tickle your imagination in the dark, and not in a good way. They fed my passion for others like them, ones written, and I discovered Stephen King (who can write wonderful horror outside of some of the more gory episodes), and Clive Barker, and learned to appreciate the classics like Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," and the varied crypterpieces of Edgar Allen Poe.

Fall will always enchant me, such a magical time of year, and I can only look forward to the burst of creativity exploding like the colors of the season.