Some Dads Just Know About Halloween v.2.

This blog was originally posted in 2009.  This is a revised version to catch up with the goings-on in 2015.  Happy Halloween, Everyone!

My Dad always knew about Halloween. This is not a trait any kid should take for granted because many fathers don't understand Halloween at all. I know my brothers and I appreciated our Father's unique talents in this regard because right around the first of October we would automatically shift into our best behaviors so as not to interrupt the unearthly workings of our Father's imagination as he set about planning for the Great Night.

How does a Dad acquire this knowledge of demons, witches, ghosts and goblins? I'm convinced it's handed down from his own Father, a special inheritance resulting from years of carving intricate jack-o-lanterns, endless hours of thinking up costumes and countless miles traversed with trick-or-treating kids.

One of my earliest Halloween memories was being cradled in my Father's arms as he took my older brother and his friends trick-or-treating. I swear I can remember the scratchiness of his beard against my cheek and the smell of coffee on his breath as he laughed and admonished the boys not to run too far ahead. I must have been no more than four because once I got into kindergarten, I was allowed to wear a costume and walk holding onto my Father's hand.

As we got older, my Father's Halloween schemes got more elaborate, perhaps because he realized the number of Halloween's we'd be sharing together was dwindling. My father was a stuntman and screenwriter, and one year he "borrowed" the costume from the movie "Creature From The Black Lagoon." At our front door he planted a sign written in blood (okay, red paint) challenging the brave of heart to follow the path of glowing jack-o-lanterns around to the back of the house. All night long adventuresome kids pushed and shoved each other down the trail of eerily grinning faces until they reached our backyard gate. Usually at least one out of the crowd was courageous enough to open the screeching gate and cautiously step into the yard. Sitting in our den behind partially opened blinds, my Father (dressed as The Creature) would blink the desk lamp on and off so that our visitors could catch a scary glimpse of him. Sometimes that was enough to send kids flying in all directions, but for those brave enough to creep forward, The Creature, who had now stepped onto the porch with a huge bowl of candy, were rewarded for their courage.

Then there was the Halloween I came home from school to find our front yard transformed into a cemetery complete with headstones, ghosts floating in the tree branches and a "dead man" hanging from a rope. I'm not sure what my Mother thought of all these antics but she was always a good sport, sending us off with a good hot meal in our tummies and lots of homemade oatmeal cookies awaiting our return.

My brothers also inherited my Dad's Halloween gene, especially my brother Leo who makes his house and yard so scary, I think I'd have nightmares sleeping in his house at night.  I'm more of the fun, kid-cute and friendly Halloween type of celebrant.  From decorations to parties with apple bobbing, games and, of course, trick-or-treating, Halloween was always a special night when my girls were little.  The ghosts and goblins around our house were more fun than really scary.

Now we have a new generation initiated into the spooky fun of Halloween and I am eagerly looking forward to strolling down the street tonight with three of my ten (yes, ten!) grandchildren. Whether dressed as witches or ninjas, sharks or cartoon characters, kids and grown-ups alike will be having a spooky good time.  Ah, isn't life grand?

Tonight, when all the festivities are over, I may just take another late night stroll, this time with my own cup of coffee in hand, to share some silent memories with my Dad. You see, the man who always loved this day, left this earthly realm in 1995 on Halloween. Always one for a dramatic entrance, Dad knew how to make a dramatic exit as well. See you out there, Papo.

Finding Grace In A Graceless World

I've been thinking lately about grace, that subtle pleasing quality that seems to have gone out of favor in our country right along with the woman's name of the same spelling.  I guess one of the reasons I've been thinking about this is because Grace is my middle name.  Like most people with first and middle names, often chosen by their parents after months of serious deliberation and debate, I generally have relegated my middle name to its least common denominator, the initial "G."  I wonder sometimes how my Grandmother Grace might feel about this; after all, what is the point of having a baby named after you if the baby grows up and never uses the name?

I think I stopped liking my middle name because of my Father.  When I was growing up, I actually thought my name was Alicia Fullofgrace McMahon.  Yes, thanks to my Dad who must have thought this nickname cute, I stood up in front of the whole class that first day of First Grade and introduced myself that way.  Well, it's not a very good idea to tell a nun who will soon be teaching you the "Hail Mary, full of grace," that you're already full of it and won't be needing Mary's help.  I remember Mother Dorothy opening her eyes wide and saying, "Is that so?  Well, we'll just see about that, won't we?  Sit down now, Alicia Fullofgrace," and I sat down so fast, the desk and I all but crashed to the floor.

From then on I generally ignored my middle name.  Most of the time I didn't even use its initial.  After all, it was an old-fashioned sounding name and I was having enough trouble being the only Alicia in the school.  But something happens as you get older.  You start thinking about your past and your origins and in my case because I like to write, about the origins and meanings of words.  I guess it was only a matter of time that Grace and I would find each other again.

Although composed of only one syllable, grace is not a simple word.  Unlike most names that won't even be found in a dictionary, grace and its derivatives comprise almost 2/3 of the page in my old World Book Dictionary.  It has thirteen definitions as a noun; three as a verb.  Grace is beauty of form, movement or manner.  Grace is a pleasing or agreeable quality.  It is good will, mercy and forgiveness; it is the love and influence of God (for those who believe) in our lives.  Grace is a blessing before meals and a little extra time to pay our bills.  It is a title for an archbishop and an ornamental note in music.  It is kindness and courtesy and elegance in five simple letters.  How could anyone not like such a name?  How could I have ever stopped liking it?

Perhaps the answer (apart from my Father's influence) is that I never felt like any of those things growing up.  I never felt elegant or beautiful or, dare I say, graceful.  I was the middle sister of two brothers who wore coonskin caps and ran around the neighborhood tracking bears or shooting bad guys or throwing footballs.  One of our favorite summer activities was "dirty apricot fights" where any rotten fruit from our prodigious tree was thrown at each other like yellow summer snowballs.  If there was anything graceful about me back then, I can't imagine what it was.

I hate to say it but it seems to me that there isn't a whole lot of grace in our society these days.  Believe me, I'm no prude but I don't think you have to be some kind of saint just to be courteous and kind to one another.  Too often manners and common courtesy have been replaced by rude gestures and ruder remarks.  I know that fashions and mores change but grace is somehow timeless.  It is that quality of beauty, kindness and gentleness that has less to do with one's outer appearance than with the inner make-up of one's soul.

And, now that I think about it, perhaps that is what my Grandmother Grace hoped most that I would inherit from her and not just the five letters of her name.

Rainbows And Other Perfect Moments

We haven’t had much rain here in Southern California thanks to our relentless four-year long drought.  And what little we have received likely has not made the slightest change in our state's water table.  But, thankfully, we did have some earlier this week and there's a possibility of another storm this weekend.  Apart from the fact that we need this rain or SoCal will go back to being the desert it was (which might be what we deserve and nature intends) before William Mulholland piped/bullied it from the Owens Valley, one of the things I have missed is the sight of the graceful rainbows that would arc their lovely colors across our sky after a storm.  With the San Gabriel Mountain Range as their backdrop, they were both breathtaking and majestic, a radiant tiara of red, orange, yellow, green, indigo and violet.  (Yes, I had to look up all the rainbow colors and their order - it's been that long!)

One of the things I love about my house is that it is wonderfully situated for viewing any storms that do rumble down from the north, darkening our mountains with drenching showers and crackling blasts of lightning.  From my living room windows, and especially from my upstairs office window, I have witnessed clouds with cauliflower heads white as snow and underbellies the color of tarnished copper sweep across the aerial landscape.  And it was during just such a storm a few years ago that I chanced to look out my window to see a brilliant rainbow delicately arching its way across the sky.

Rainbows are physical manifestations of natural laws, that we know.  But I actually had to look up the definition of a rainbow as I'm afraid my physical science education took place many storms ago.  So in case you also need a refresher, a rainbow's colors are the result of the refraction and dispersion of the sun's light by rain or other water droplets in the atmosphere.  But rainbows are so much more than that.  Rainbows also fall into the category of such ethereal phenomena as fairy dust, angels and good luck charms.  For rainbows do more than just refract the sun’s rays into beautiful colors; they weave together stories and legends that cross boundaries and span centuries.  From Noah’s time to today, they symbolize our hope after the devastating storm and our dream for a better life.  We chase them, write poetry and prose about them and seek their golden riches where they bend to kiss the earth.  By their very nature they are fleeting and ephemeral and perhaps it is for this reason that we feel blessed when we see them grace our skies.

Some people spend their lives chasing rainbows, meaning they are chasing unattainable dreams for rainbows never seem to touch the earth anywhere close enough to reach them.  To stand at the end of a rainbow and bask in its colors might be akin to what Maslow called a peak experience, a single moment when all the elements of one’s life seem to come together in glorious perfection.

In my life, I have been blessed with several such moments.  At the top of the list has to be the birth of my daughters.  Nothing before or since can match the intensity of feelings, both emotional and physical, that culminated in that one precise moment when they each drew their first breaths.  Well, at least until that moment when I stood by my daughter Heather and watched my granddaughter Cadence breathe in hers.  Such an exquisite moment, such a privilege to witness:  it was a perfect moment.

Another was the helicopter ride with my husband to view Cristo’s Umbrellas along the Santa Ynez Mountains.  To swoop over those yellow umbrellas in a helicopter—well, my heart nearly exploded with the excitement.  It, too, was a perfect moment.  As was standing at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for the first time.  Or heeding Zion’s call to walk in the shadow of its towering walls.  Both moments, so rooted in the earth, yet as ethereal and fleeting as a rainbow at the end of a storm.

Speaking of rainbows, the most amazing thing about the rainbow that I saw through my window was that it actually touched the earth right on the hill across from my neighborhood

.  I knew I had been granted a once in a lifetime opportunity so I jumped into my car and drove to the corner, parked and raced up the hill.  Nervously, I stepped into the rainbow.  The colors that I could see from my window, the red, yellow, green and violet bands, all seemed to meld into one sunny golden hue and I realized I had indeed found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  It was a perfect moment.

Just A Little Valentine Story

       Clarence looked in the mirror and straightened his bow tie.  This was ridiculous; nobody wore bow ties anymore.  Then again, nobody was named Clarence anymore either.  That’s what came with getting old.  The clothes you’d always liked to wear, the name you’d always been comfortable in, were no longer in fashion; in fact, had been out of fashion seven presidents ago.  Seven presidents ago?  Clarence frowned and shook his head.  I’m too old for this, he thought, too old.

He walked to the bedroom window and peered through the curtains, the same eyelet lace curtains Helen had sewed the year before she died.  They were faded and paper thin now but he couldn’t  bring himself to replace them.  His daughter called him sentimental, saw no point in saving worn out curtains, or for that matter, her mother’s old hair pins adorned with rhinestones and fake pearls.  Well, perhaps someday he would replace Helen’s curtains, but he would never throw out her hair pins.  He was sentimental; that also came with old age and he wasn’t going to apologize for it.

But how could he explain what he was about to do now, the reason for the bow tie around his neck and the butterflies in his stomach.  He looked out the window again at the house across the street.

When Helen died, Dottie Johnson and her husband had come right over.  As the weeks went by, Dottie would often send Herb over with a casserole; more times than not, Herb stayed and played dominoes with Clarence or they’d all get together and listen to music.  Dottie was the one who went through Helen’s clothes for Clarence, instinctively knowing which items were best donated to Good Will.

Two years ago when Herb died, Clarence immediately took over some of the tasks Herb had done, like taking the trash to the curb each week and cutting the lawn.  Clarence liked doing these things for Dottie partly because she never asked him to, but mostly because she always rewarded him with her smile and some special dessert that just happened to be coming out of the oven that very moment.

Clarence crossed the room and looked at the red heart-shaped box of chocolates on the table.  Across the top of the box in fancy gold script were the words “Be My Valentine.”  He couldn’t believe how nervous he was.  After all, it was just a box of chocolates, just an old fashioned show of friendship and affection.  It didn’t really  mean anything.  But his heart was pounding and he felt wonderful.  And he knew Dottie would love them.  Then with a smile Clarence thought how both their names had been out of fashion for at least seven presidents.

To Resolve Or Not To Resolve

After weeks of holiday celebrations, beginning with Halloween and running right through Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanza, the celebration of New Year's Eve almost seems an afterthought.  In fact, it is the last hurrah of the Old Year, the culminating breath, that final sigh of relief, It's over at last, let's move on to something new.

It's the something new that always grabs my attention.  At some point in November, I find myself gravitating toward the aisles of calendars and day-planners that begin showing up in all the stores.  (Actually, you can find them in many stores in August but I refuse to give up on the present that early.)  By the time January 1st rolls around, however, I'm ready with new calendars on the walls, a large planner on my desk and, of course, fully synchronized calendars on my computer, cell phone and iPad.  And then comes the big question, to make New Year's Resolutions this new year or not.

New Year's Resolutions have come into disfavor in recent years, probably because too many of us are quick to rattle them off our tongues without really thinking them through and, more importantly, without incorporating the required commitment into our hearts.  And commitment it is, since most resolutions involve the changing or eliminating of habits that are considered bad or undesirable. Unfortunately, habits are usually the result of years of repeatedly choosing paths of least resistance and it is never easy to suddenly change course and head upstream against the strong moving current of past responses.

I don't think, however, that just because we've broken our resolutions in the past that we should give up on the practice all together.  After all, it is a very old one dating back to pre-Christian times, and usually customs that have survived that long have done so for a reason.  Like natural selection helping us sort out the genes that don't work, customs that stand the test of time usually (though certainly not always) help us get in touch with our inner better selves.

Like Janus, the Roman god of doors and beginnings who had two faces, one looking forward and one looking back, our month of January, named for that very god, is a good time for us to look back and learn from our past even as we look forward to the New Year.

But looking backwards and deciding to change or eliminate certain behaviors can be extremely difficult if we don't have something to fill the void.  Giving up smoking, for instance,is hard enough on the physical body without the emotional void it leaves.  What do you do with hands while you're talking on the phone or having a drink with friends?  Just knowing that it's the best thing for your health very often isn't enough to keep you from lighting up one more time.  And knowing that you should exercise 4-5 times a weeks probably isn't enough motivation to keep that New Year's Resolution when the weather's cold and rainy in February.

But I'm going to try not to get discouraged.  I've been through a lot of changes this past year, some of them quite scary for me, and this New Year promises even more of them.  I have to resolve to not let these fears get the better of me but to push forward with confidence, even if it means taking just baby steps each day.  To this end, I have a feeling I'll be putting my calendars and planners to really good use this year.  Moving forward each day, some days just baby steps, some days leaps (I hope).  Whatever it takes, keeping my goals constantly in my sights.  I hope you will do the same, too.  

Our Most Important Investment

Every year an amazing transition occurs during the first weeks of August and September: kids who have spent their summer hours lolling in pools, on bikes or in movie theaters; kids who swore in June they never wanted to see the inside of a classroom again, suddenly can’t wait to load up on pencils and paper, don the latest “Back to School” fashions and head back to the world of books, desks, chalk dust and computers.  This remarkable phenomena, eagerly awaited by most parents, is also happily exploited by teachers who understand that September enthusiasm must be harnessed and recycled like precious fuel if it’s to last all the way to the following June.

But keeping that enthusiasm alive is harder than ever these days as declining budgets force many school districts to cut back on services, classes, salaries and supplies.  Many teachers in our area begin their back to school preparations with a trip to the educational supply store where they spend their own money to purchase not just enrichment materials for our students but the basics as well: paper, pencils, maps, study aids.

It seems to me that when our economy suffers, the first items we cut from our budgets are those that appear to be the least painful in the short term: the Arts (the soul of our country), Economic Aid to the Needy (the heart of our country) and Education (the future of our country).

How shortsighted we have become, especially considering that our country has had a long history of respect for and belief in the importance of educating our children.  As early as the 1600’s, our colonists were establishing the first schools.  Our first institute of higher learning, Harvard College, was founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and by 1647 Massachusetts had passed a law requiring the establishment of public schools in every town with at least 50 families.

By the early 1800’s, public education had become a priority of our political leaders who wisely saw that the economic and social well-being of a world class country inevitably depended on well educated citizens.  With that in mind, many states followed the example set by Massachusetts in 1837 by establishing state boards of education.  And it wasn’t long before states began to pass compulsory school attendance laws.

With our long and rich history of improving our lives and country through public funded education, with the monumental tasks that face us in the 21st. Century—a fiercely competitive world economy, shrinking resources, global pollution and climate change, new and yet untreatable diseases—why, would we even contemplate cutting funds to schools and education?

I realize there are those who don't want their tax dollars spent on educating someone else’s children but if we’re lucky enough to reach old age, those children will be the doctors and legislators, the firefighters and police officers and the caregivers we will come to depend on.

Sure, schools don’t always teach what we’d like.  Sometimes the method of the moment overshadows the end result.  Sometimes emphasis on certain subjects seems misplaced.  So I suggest becoming an involved citizen.  Attend your local school board meetings and let your thoughts and concerns be heard.  Vote responsibly for school board members and other local and statewide leaders.  Question where funds are being spent and watch that they don’t get wasted or misused.  But please, while you’re voting, don’t vote away much needed tax dollars from public education.  Yes, the public education system can certainly do better but we have some great teachers out there who are working diligently to do the best for our children.

The future of the United States, indeed that of the planet, depends on well educated global citizens.  Our children are that future.  Today, their education is in our hands; tomorrow, our hopes and well-being will be in theirs.

An Almost Forgotten Art

From as far back as I can remember, one of the highlights of my day has been the arrival of the day’s mail.  When I was small, almost all of the cards and letters that the postman dropped at our door were addressed to my mother.  She had left her life and history two thousand miles away on the South Carolina shores to live in what she most surely thought were the wilds of California.  The many cards and letters that traversed the continent were her lifeline, her connection in vellum and medium card stock, to the friends and family she might never see again.

I began writing to these unseen relatives, my Grandmother Alice, great Aunt Hester, Uncle Avery and Aunt Lutie, almost as soon as I could print my name, and some of my most cherished treasures are the few cards and letters of theirs from the ‘50’s and ‘60’s that survived my many moves and spring cleanings.  The most special letter that I have though is one that was written by my Grandmother Alice to my cousin Ruth, who was my Mother’s age.  My Grandmother was living with us at the time helping my Mom who was pregnant with my brother (I was about 3 years old).  In the letter, she describes my Father laying the cement walkways in our backyard, the very ones on which I would later ride my bikes and roller skates.  She talked about him planting fruit trees, those marvelous apricot and fig trees that would become such an integral part of our lives, trees that in my child’s view had been there from time immemorial.  It is so hard to imagine our parents as young men and women; to read my Grandmother’s description of my youthful parents is to share an intimate moment with them that I would have never been able to experience otherwise.  For that irreplaceable gift, I will always be indebted to my cousin Ruth who graciously sent the letter to me shortly before her own death in 1994.

My Dad with my big brother Leo.  In the background you can see a young alder tree and his recently planted fig tree.

Regrettably, letter writing has lost its popularity in our country.  Whereas, at one time it was our major form of communicating with loved ones and friends from afar, today the technology of our harried society—text messages, email, telephones, facebook, fax machines—have pretty much replaced the slow and thoughtful musings of the pen.  People complain that they are too busy to write a long newsy letter, but I suspect that we are really no busier as a people than we ever were, that instead we have replaced the time we could write letters with time in front of the television set or the xbox or the computer.  Instead of committing our thoughts and impressions of the world to paper—a physical act that can leave a permanent mark of us in time—we have allowed ourselves to become passive recipients of someone else’s images and viewpoints, a process that will likely leave nothing more permanent than an indentation in our sofas.

I am not guilt-free in this leaving behind of letter writing.  I love my computer; I love the instant communication it allows with email and the wider audience one can achieve with blogging and the instantaneous dissemination of important news and ideas.  And I admittedly spend many hours sitting in front of it.  But there is something very sad to me when I walk down to my mailbox and find only flyers or ads or bills - and not even very many of those.  The Grandmothers and Aunts and Uncles who used to write long interesting letters to me are gone now and with them, my sense of anticipation and eager excitement for what the mailman has to bring.

Throughout history, some of the greatest literature ever written has been in the form of the letter.  Whether from kings and statesmen, lovers or friends, letters have provided a more intimate view of ourselves as a people and nation than newspaper or history accounts could ever provide.  And one of the reasons they provide this stunning and insightful viewpoint into ourselves is that letters allow us to muse, to simmer our thoughts, to let our defenses down at times; to show ourselves as we truly are.

The invention of the telephone was admittedly a landmark in human communications and no one can deny the thrill of hearing a loved one’s voice from miles away.  But verbal and written communications are very different.  We don’t speak the way we write and it is the written word that years later can still bring a tear, a smile, a memory.  If Sarah Bernhardt had told her love by phone, “Your words are my food, your breath my wine. You are everything to me,” her words likely would have been lost to the rest of us forever.  And what a shame that would be.