Small towns, memorable Octobers

Of small towns, crisp fall leaves and memorable Octobers
By Margi Washburn

I think it’s finally here - fall, that is. The searing heat is gone; the farmers are clearing their fields and deer are running amok. Coyotes aren’t much smarter, it seems, as hubby nearly ran one over the other day.

The fog is hanging around too, making it seem spooky and Halloween-like. My mom had a saying for a foggy evening: “Nice night for a murder,” she’d say. That alone pretty much guaranteed sis and I weren’t going to slip out of the house and get into trouble.

During the latter part of October, I start getting the movies ready. It’s not Halloween unless we watch the movie of the same name. I know they made sequels, but this one is my favorite of the bunch.

There is the obligatory small town, the innocent babysitter, the even more innocent children, lots of pumpkins and brilliant, falling leaves. Throw in a menacing monster of a man who refuses to die and you have the perfect mix for movie night. I still watch some parts through my hands, but so what?

Another favorite for October is “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” This is the movie based on the Ray Bradbury book by the same name. Take a small town, a library, a young boy and his dad, a young boy without a dad, add a late-October carnival with a mysterious crew and an evil leader. This would be plenty, but I love the mournful sound of the train whistle in the dead of night as it chugs toward an unsuspecting town full of hurting people. It’s a touching story full of chills, surprises and brilliant performances.

Do you think back on what Halloween was like for you as a kid? If you lived in town or around these parts you probably had all kinds of weather to deal with. That was a given and we didn’t get all bent out of shape if the forecast was too this or that - we just dealt with it. And for a blessed length of time we could collect candy and other treats and eat them without having them checked out first. I miss that.

Lots of us made our own costumes. We put a lot of thought into who or what we wanted to be - there weren’t so many TV and cartoon characters around to deaden our creativeness. We dressed up one of the boys once as a newspaper reporter with a Superman tee-shirt peeking out beneath his dress shirt. He stuck a press pass in the brim of his hat and won first place that year in the costume contest.

I was going to say that it takes more to scare us today than it used to, but I’m not sure that’s true. The early-morning news people have become addicted to giving us news “hot off the wires!” Trouble is, it’s the worst possible way to start your day. You leave the house for work with fresh new worries and that’s not good for any of us.

We’re being bombarded with the promise of gargantuan power bills pretty much every day. I wondered aloud to hubby about what would happen if folks just started jumping out of windows out of sheer fear that they wouldn’t make it through the winter. I pictured the news announcer saying something like this:

“We have breaking news hot off the wires, folks. People all over the midwest are hurling themselves out of their windows over the cost of heating their homes. We’ll keep you updated on our top story.

“Now, let’s see what the weather will be like for the weekend. Eric? Does it look like rain as we end the work week?”

Yeah, something wicked this way comes all right. But it isn’t a late-fall carnival with an evil merry-go-round and it’s not a monster of a man who refuses to stay dead. What we have to be afraid of on these foggy moonless nights are the swirling thoughts of never-ending doom that our friendly news people are putting inside our heads.

Let’s all do something completely outrageous. We’ll turn off the TV and the radio, call up a friend or two, pool our gas money and take a leisurely drive. The leaves are changing, some are falling and covering our lawns. What a beautiful world we live in; just look around and see for yourself. Laugh with your loved ones, go out for coffee and pie or a bowl of homemade soup.

Grab a good movie and snuggle up with a bowl of hot, buttered popcorn and turn out the lights.

You have the right to scare yourself - if you want to. It’s almost Halloween, and I plan to have a really happy one.