Around 4 am the rain started. I was in bed so I heard it, heavy and loud, above my head. The storm started fast and ended fast. It is a chilly morning, just 56°, and it will stay that way. The sun comes and the sun goes. Right now it is cloudy. I have no plans for today though I do need a few groceries, but not enough to get me motivated to go out.

My mother mostly grocery shopped on Friday nights. My father had to drive her as she didn’t have a license. She did her big shopping at the start of the month when my father got paid. During the rest of the month she’d send one of us to the red or white store usually just for bread but sometimes for milk. She used to try to hide the cookies so they’d last for lunches. We could always count on Oreos.

When I was a kid, the future was tomorrow except when we counted the days before a big holiday. The big three started with Halloween, moved into Thanksgiving then in what seemed like years and years later came Christmas. With a week to go before Halloween, we’d start planning our costumes. We didn’t buy costumes. Back then the bought costume masks covered the face and were plastic and the costumes tied in the back at the neck. The masks had one elastic spanning the sides. The costume I remember seeing the most was a clown.

My mother was inventive. She was our costumer and make-up artist. She’d buy Lone Ranger type masks. The rest of the costume was homemade. My sister was a hula dancer one year. She wore her dancing recital grass skirt and a lei. I was once a bum holding all my possessions in a tied bundle at the end of a stick. Another year I was a farm girl with jeans and a flannel shirt. I always carried a pillowcase.

Last night I ordered my Halloween candy. I always buy what we used to call nickel bars. I bought a box of Mars candy and another of Hershey’s. I have some leftover Halloween pencils so I’m going to tape one on each candy bar. In case you’re wondering, my Mars box has Snickers. Those I’ll keep.

This entry was posted on October 23, 2023 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.