A few years ago, when my husband was president of a state teacher's
organization, he came home late one night suffering from the slings and arrows
which accompany that office.
I decided to defend the teachers or him or whoever it was who needed
defending and write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper.
My husband, knowing my tendency to "ride a white horse," as he
calls it, asked me, please, not to use my real name.
As I lay in bed pondering great pen names, I finally shrieked, "I
know! I'll be the Scarlet Pumpernickel!"
When he caught his breath, my spouse explained that although he was sure
I meant the Scarlet Pimpernel, he felt the Scarlet Pumpernickel WAS more
appropriate for me.
I never wrote the letter, my ego being deflated and all, but I have
decided that every newspaper needs a secret Scarlet Pumpernickel whose major
reference magazines are Woman's Day and Family Circle and whose medical
authority is Reader's Digest.
The Scarlet Pumpernickel really fits me because although I try hard to be
sophisticated and suave, I usually end up by embarrassing myself.
For instance, I can tie a $10 scarf around my head like models do, emerge
from my boudoir with flair and my family will ask, "Is your hair wet or
dirty?"
I get the feeling sometimes that when God made me, He had His mind on
something else.
It's the same feeling I get when they pray at football games for God's
help. I wonder if He says,
"Hold on just a minute. I'll
get back to you later. Right now
I've got a few hundred thousand starving to death in India."
At any rate, being born of a real need for greatness during these
"trouble in River City" times, the Scarlet Pumpernickel will be here
to "throw imitation pearls before genuine swine," as a friend of mine
back in Texas once said.
The Scarlet Pumpernickel will be here to cast aspersions on the good, the
bad, and the ugly, but most of all on the serious.
For after all, if we take life seriously, what else is there?
Back
to the top
An acquaintance recently remarked to my husband that I seemed distant and
pre-occupied. "Oh, it's nothing," he assured her.
"She's just in moving trauma."
"But you moved six months ago!" Rita said.
"I know, but you have to understand that we lived in the last house
eleven years. Our youngest child,
who is ten, still had teething rings in his closet, and I caught Peggy carrying
boxes from the basement to the porch at midnight one night.
They were labeled "Maternity Clothes."
"Put the Salvation Army sack over them -- quick," she
whispered. "I don't want
anyone to know how long it's been since I cleaned the basement."
"From that point on," my husband continued, "she's been in
somewhat of a state of shock.
"She cried when they put the For Sale sign in front of the house.
She cried as she packed the National Geographics.
She cried at every going-away party.
She flung herself on our dilapidated garage and said, 'I'm glad we never
fixed you up. You were much funnier
to us than you would've been as a real garage.'
"She cried as we drove both cars, three children, six suitcases,
eight boxes, and twenty-one house plants covered in cleaning bags cross-country
-- only at brief intervals passing me with a big plastic cigar in her mouth and
a stocking cap on.
"She cried when we arrived at our new home and had to sleep on the
floor for seven nights before our furniture arrived.
She cried when our furniture came and the picnic table leg was broken.
"She cried when letters came from her friends and when they didn't
come. She cried when the children
went to their new schools. She
cried when I went to work.
"She cried when the new neighbors brought cakes -- 'because they
were so nice,' she said.
"She even cried when there was nothing to cry about just because she
began to miss crying. However, she
gradually quit crying and started just being depressed," he went on. "She is getting better, though. She put our new state on the return address of a letter last
week. I think she'll make it."
Back to the top
Our son was wearing little circles cut from construction paper saying,
'Vote For Phyllis' and 'Brett's The Best.'
"I take it you're having an election at school," I said.
"Yeah."
"Is this for your student government?" I asked.
"Uh-huh," he answered.
"Who are you going to vote for?" I asked.
"I don't know," came his reply.
"Well, what are their qualifications?" I asked.
"Phyllis is pretty and Brett laughs a lot," he answered.
"But what do they want to do for the school?"
"I don't know," he replied.
"Don't you think you ought to find out before the election?" I
asked with a tone of disbelief.
"Okay," he said, saving himself from the lecture on voting
responsibilities he could tell was coming.
A few days later I asked him how he voted.
"I voted for Brett," he said.
"He said he would get us more time at recess."
"That is a better reason," I said, "but voting is too
important to vote selfishly. You
must consider all the issues and decide who will do the most good for the
people."
"But, Mother, Uncle Harvey said he didn't care who he voted for as
long as they would keep the taxes down."
"That's because Uncle Harvey doesn't have recess anymore," I
said.
"I think I have to feed the cat," my son said as my husband
opened the door.
Then I heard him whisper from the porch, "Watch out for her, Dad.
She's on her white horse again."
Back to the top
In the book Passages by Gail Sheehy, the story is told of a mother
named Doris who had to attend a dinner party to impress the head of a company of
which her husband hoped to become president.
Dutifully, Doris read four weeks' back issues of the news of The Week in
Review in order to be able to converse intelligently "with someone over
waist height."
As she was expounding on the major world problems at the dinner, she
noticed with delight that she had the full attention of everyone at the table
and talked on some more.
The retiring president, obviously impressed, couldn't take his eyes off
her. She looked down modestly and
discovered that, all the while, out of habit, she had been cutting up the man's
steak!
I can sympathize with Doris, especially on those days when the most
exciting thing that happens to me is making cookies for the Fun Fair.
I have lain awake nights making up lists of Topics for Discussion which I
thought might elevate me from the lowest of all occupations these days -- the
"just a housewife" to the "smart-as-a-whip housewife."
Never heard of her? You
will.
A beautician in a fancy place told me the other day that of all of her
clients, the housewives were the most "with it" because, she said,
they read a lot and know what is happening in other areas besides their own.
I tipped her as much as the housewife before me had, only slightly
noticing it was too much.
Anyway, it's funny how discussion topics get rated, depending on where
you live and with whom you're talking. I
have found, generally speaking, though, that the following topics can be safely
discussed in most circles:
1. Rising prices -- Include
everything from groceries to taxes. EVERYone
is against these. Gasoline may be
included if you are not talking to people in the oil business.
2. Governmental bureaucracy --
Everyone is against this also -- even governmental bureaucrats.
3. Schools -- Since everyone has had at least one good or bad teacher,
experts on this subject abound.
4. Pollution -- Practically everyone is against pollution, but depending
on where you live, you may have to modify which source you are against.
5. Gardens -- Even those who don't have one are thinking about having one
someday, and usually want pointers.
6. Dieting -- This is very good except in the company of someone 100 or
more pounds overweight.
7. Exercising -- This, also, is very good except in the company of
someone 100 or more pounds overweight.
8. Career changes -- This is an exceptionally good topic with those
around 40 years of age.
9. Restaurants -- Someone is bound to have been to one to which you've
never been, and that makes them feel good.
10. Housing and/or automobiles -- If one of these topics doesn't interest
the person, the other probably will.
Now, it has been my experience that you may only talk about the other
issues when in the company of others called together for that specific purpose:
religion, politics, women's liberation, abortion, a new book, a new movie, a new
play, children, freedom of the press, music, art, professional sports, amateur
sports, labor unions, military spending, rich people, poor people, welfare,
divorce, senior citizens, health care, child abuse, world hunger, population
control and capital punishment. Once
you know who called the meeting, then you may talk for hours on the subject.
There is a word of caution, however.
If you become really adept at this, you may be asked to run for public
office.
Recently I was introduced to a Las Vegas star who had been in the movies,
on television, traveled, written books and probably played par golf.
For two weeks prior to meeting her, I had read her books and studied her
career in order to converse intelligently with her.
During our brief encounter, she talked about her daughter and asked about
our children.
You can't win them all.
Back to the top
After the recent non-ban on saccharin, my parents came to visit.
Daddy, being a diabetic, had brought his own saccharin, knowing I
wouldn't buy any now.
"Shame on you!" I admonished.
"You had cancer surgery just two years ago, and you're ignoring the
warnings about saccharin! It's
incredible -- the government tries to do something for the people's good for a
change, and we won't let them. We
love convenience and our taste buds more than life itself.
Our motto ought to be 'Instant gratification or death!'"
"Don't talk to me about what to eat anymore," he said with the
air of a parent who's been tried to the limit.
"When I was young, we had biscuits and sorghum every morning for
breakfast. Then someone said we ought to eat bacon and eggs, so we did.
"Now eggs are bad for you and you say you won't buy bacon because it
has sodium nitrite in it. We
thought margarine was unhealthy because it had artificial coloring in it and we
only ate real butter. Not butter's
out and margarine's in.
"It used to be fine to drink coffee; then the doctor told me to
drink only decaffeinated coffee. Now
some study says decaffeinated coffee is carcinogenic.
I wasn't supposed to have sugar so I started using artificial sweeteners. Now they're talking about banning those."
"But, Daddy, the bureaucrats knew in Teddy Roosevelt's day that
artificial sweeteners were bad for us. It's
just that it takes awhile for the rest of us to get the word."
Daddy went on, "Now I'm supposed to eat twelve prunes a day.
Everyone knows it. Someone
even gave me a button which said, 'Prunes Keep the Country Moving.' I'm supposed
to eat bran and lettuce. I feel
like a cross between a rabbit and a cow.
"Last month we visited all four of my brothers.
John panicked when we cooked eggs in our trailer for them on Tuesday. 'I only eat eggs on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays!' he
shrieked.
"Tom wouldn't eat any dairy products or onions.
Sam wouldn't eat white sugar or bologna.
Dennis wouldn't eat lettuce or tomatoes.
"Their wives had different but equal ailments requiring all the
ingredients in a health food store. They
gave us a candy bar for lunch when we visited them, telling us it had all the
nutrients we needed. It was exactly
like eating cardboard. I had just
finished half of it when my jaws gave out completely.
"I finally decided that since the youngest of us was sixty and we
had all lived to this point, I wasn't going to become as inflexible as they had
in the past year. I'm going to eat what I want and die of whatever comes so
PASS ME THE SACCHARIN."
"Daddy, I read about a lady who existed on liquids for forty
years," I offered.
"Pass me the saccharin," he repeated.
"And buy some bacon -- I may not have much longer."
Back to the top
An acquaintance in the nation's capital called awhile back to ask if we'd
be home on a Saturday afternoon. She
explained that she and her husband would like to visit us while their daughters
were taking riding lessons in our area.
"I didn't know your daughters were interested in horses," I
said.
"Oh, they aren't," my friend explained, "but in order to
marry Right in this area, you must know how to ride."
"You're kidding," I said.
"In Texas we never told our boyfriends from the East we knew how to
ride. They'd have thought we were
cowgirls."
"And they would've been right," said my friend.
"There is a way to ride and there is a WAY TO RIDE."
"You mean you don't ride a horse just because you like riding a
horse."
"Of course not," said my friend. "You poor dear, I'll
never be able to teach you everything in time."
"In time for what?" I asked.
"The fox hunt," she said. "First we have the blessing of
the hounds.."
"You're not serious," I said.
"A hound blessing?"
"Of course," said she. "It's
part of the ritual. It's all part
of English culture and tradition."
"I thought we came to this country from England because we didn't
like their traditions," I said.
"But we kept the cultural ones."
"Oh, foxhunting promotes culture?"
"Of course," said my friend. "Fortunately, the base can't
afford the sport, so the cultured are left."
A few weeks later our family was all in the car driving along the highway
when we saw an entourage of hunters and hounds chasing one small fox.
"Isn't that the most cultural thing you ever saw?" I asked,
trying to be dignified.
"Mother," said our 13-year-old indignantly, "you must go
see Mary Poppins. I'll never be
able to teach you everything in time."
"In time for what?" I asked, wondering what it was I didn't
know this time.
"My fox-blessing," she said.
"I wrote an environmentalist and he said he would do it."
"Who else are you inviting?" I asked.
"Only the base," she said.
"You can come."
Back to the top
I was recently reminded of how badly we in America treat our elderly when
a friend of ours asked his mother to come to his Sunday School class and talk
about the benefits of old age.
"You know," his mother told me, "I just couldn't think of
any."
A subsequent discussion with senior citizens renewed my belief that
rejection is probably the worst emotion we deal with and that we Americans dose
it out to the elderly as if it were a tranquilizer for our own consciences.
In our discussion, the older people said they weren't sure where they
belonged. The young laughed at them
when they did something they enjoyed, like dancing and singing, and told them to
act their ages. Yet at other times younger people treated them like children.
One woman said, "My daughter doesn't want me to travel alone or even
live alone. She doesn't realize I'd rather risk injuring myself and
suffer alone before someone finds me than be totally dependent on someone else
in a nursing home for years -- yet my daughter talks constantly about being
independent. Also, she is ALWAYS
telling me to Be Careful. If I do
hurt myself, I'm more fearful of the reprimands from my children than I am of my
bones not healing."
A lady from a large city nursing home complained about her total lack of
privacy. I visited her room, which must have been designed by someone
who never thought anyone would have to live there.
In a room 15' by 15' there was only a short curtain, which could be drawn
between two beds for privacy. The
sink was centered along the opposite wall, which meant that neither person could
wash in private.
Since the lavatory was in the corner, neither could use it without
turning on the light and disturbing the other.
Neither person could listen to the radio, watch TV, or visit with friends
privately. There were no locks on the doors, which led to stealing by
personnel and patients alike.
The patients got a bath once a week, supervised, of course, and were not
allowed to bathe by themselves, even if they were capable of it.
The food was barely edible.
This lady asked me not to complain to the owners.
She had complained twice before and had been treated worse afterwards.
Having been a pianist in nightclubs for 45 years, she was, even at 88, an
excellent musician. There was,
however, no piano available to her now and the social director wanted her to
learn to knit.
As I left the home, I thought about a study I'd read in which three
college students voluntarily lived in a nursing home as an experiment.
They were removed after three months when they began developing senile
characteristics.
We don't just waste energy and material resources in America.
We waste human ones as well. If
it gets old, we throw it away.
It's time we recycled our senior citizens.
The new product might surprise us.
Back to the top
My friend Estelle came over the other day and looked me squarely in the
eye and said, "Peggy, you have got to be fulfilled."
"I do?" I queried. "What
do you mean?"
"You're nothing but a maid," she said.
"You spend all your time meeting other people's needs."
"You may be right," I pondered.
"What can I do about it?"
"Get a job," she answered.
"It will be wonderful for you."
The thought of me with a job sent me into fantasies of Wonder Woman.
I would slip on my magic belt, the house would be cleaned, the children
carpooled and the meals put on the table while I was rescuing the rest of the
world.
"If only I had a magic belt," I said aloud.
"What else could I do?"
Estelle shook her head and replied, "Maybe macrame would be more
your style."
"I did that," I told her.
"I made my brother a plant holder for Christmas.
The square knots turned into triangles and he claims the dog ate
it."
Estelle tried again. "What
about pottery-making?"
"I got a C- in Teaching Elementary School Art in college," I
answered.
"I've got it!" Estelle was excited. "You can learn to
sew."
"I don't want to destroy my mother's relationship with my
family," I replied.
"I don't understand." Estelle's patience was wearing thin.
"Well," I tried to explain, "my mother is a heroine to my
family now. She makes the girls'
dresses, takes up my husband's pants, and makes flags for our son's forts.
"They have bee n known to cheer when she comes and cry when she
leaves. I don't want to deny her
that role. Besides, I hate
sewing."
"You're hopeless!" Estelle was mad.
"You're not good at anything, are you?"
"Well," I cried, "I thought I was there for a second --
before I had to be fulfilled."
Back to the top
Although many scientific reasons are being given for the declining child
mortality rate, everyone who has a child under 18 knows that the real reason
there fewer deaths among children in the past two or three decades is the advent
and popularity of cereal as a life-sustainer.
My husband really made me think about this on a visit to Texas a few
years ago. We passed a wheat field and our small son asked what that
crop was.
My husband answered immediately (since wheat was one of the few crops he
recognized), "That's wheat, son. That's
what they make cereal out of. You
would have passed away a long time ago if it hadn't been for that."
It is true. When our son was
two months old, the doctor told me to start feeding him cereal.
At one year, he started feeding himself cereal, sort of. He never stopped.
While the rest of the family is eating fried chicken and baked potatoes,
Mike will be crunching on Super-eminent Chocolate-chip Flavored Toastems. There is never a clean bowl in the house.
We are always out of milk.
On a recent trip to some friends' beach house, Mike got the flu.
After two days he felt better and we hoped he would eat something.
He asked for cereal.
We gave it to him, fearing the worst.
"Yik!" he cried after the first bite. "I can't stand
it!"
Then we really began to worry. For
four more days Mike would not eat. Our
friend was a doctor. He gave Mike
medicine. He cajoled, begged and
pleaded with Mike, who continued to waste away.
The day we left, Mike told us he would really be glad to get home so he
could have some cereal with real milk on it.
That was the problem -- our friends had nonfat milk.
It's a good thing we had to come home when we did.
We might've lost our son.
I expect soon to see cereal fast-food chains with spaghetti and
pizza-flavored cereal popping up next to McDonald's.
They will probably be in the shape of Frisbees and the waiters and
waitresses will be dressed like "Star Wars" characters.
The entertainment will consist of all the cereal television commercials
we ever heard.
When I was in the sixth grade I was in a play entitled Better Breakfasts.
I was draped in a sheet and called
Ceres, the goddess of grain. Now
when my son comes home and asks where the cereal is, I realize what a portent my
role was.
"Here, my son," I say in my drama voice, "take the cereal
-- take the cereal and LIVE."
Back to the top
After attending a wedding at which my husband had sung
"Because" (which I love) for the 200th time in his "singing at
weddings" career, my college-age nephew was uptight.
"Weddings are nothing but a tribal ritual!" he shouted.
"The people dress up in clothes they are not used to wearing.
They have to read a book in order to put them on right.
They spend money they don't have for a 20-minute ceremony.
The bride is given away as if she were chattel.
"One groomsman was chewing gum and another had on hiking boots under
his tuxedo.
"Why don't people get married in keeping with their lifestyles? This
is nothing but a show -- and an expensive failure of a show at that! Double
ugh!"
Not long afterward he invited us to a wedding of a friend of his so we
could see how a proper wedding should be conducted.
The setting was a grassy hillside at sundown.
The guests were dressed in jeans and each carried a candle.
The bride and groom emerged together from the bushes and greeted the
guests singly and then stood before the minister who had on something that was
tie-dyed.
The bride had on an old sheet and the groom was dressed in what appeared
to be a long loincloth.
They said the vows they had made up and the minister pronounced them
married.
All of us then lit our candles and danced around them in a circle,
shouting wishes upon them chanted by the group.
Accompanied by guitars and drums, we sang love songs to them and drank
homemade wine out of gourds.
It WAS lovely and I could appreciate the economics and the honesty of it
all, but the part I liked best was walking away from the ceremony with my
nephew, who asked in all sincerity, "Now wasn't that better than attending
a tribal ritual?"
Back to the top
My former neighbor Constance should have been a hostess on a Gong show
for housewives. She gave every housewife in the neighborhood an inferiority
complex whenever she came out the door.
She always matched perfectly. Every
hair was in place. Her hem length
was IN and her shoes and purses had little A's on them.
When we played bridge, three of us would wear jeans we had in college and
our best tennis shoes. Constance
would come in smelling of Chanel No. 5 and wearing her tweed slacks, cowl-neck
sweater and the shoes with little A's on them.
When she shuffled the cards her bracelets would jangle just the right
amount to draw attention to her 54 charms and her glued-on nails.
"What did you do today, Peggy?" she would ask politely.
"Oh, not much, really. I
made five quarts of chili sauce and then realized I didn't know how to can, so I
froze it. It's just as well. I
knew a man with botulism once. How
about your day?"
"Well, I had a two-hour lunch with the producer of Channel 6 about
our telethon and then I had to run to the capitol and talk to some senators
about an energy bill. I barely got
home in time to take my crown roast out of the oven."
There it was -- the gong again.
My other neighbors always had a chance to recoup and one would say she'd
been reading "Centennial" (she'd really been cleaning her bathrooms)
and the other that she'd been shopping for a fine wine (she had gone to the
store for lunch sacks).
After one such experience, I went home and asked my husband if I could
have $50 for a purse.
"Fifty dollars! If I gave you fifty dollars for a purse you wouldn't
have anything to put IN your purse. As
a matter of fact, you don't have anything to put in your purse now -- except
junk."
"I guess you're right," I said.
"It's just that one time I'd like to step out of here all matching
and have a purse with an A on it."
"Look in my drawer," he said.
"I think there's an old tie tack shaped like a little horseshoe.
Maybe if you glued it on and walked fast..."
Back to the top
Several years ago my neighbor Nancy and I were trying to decide how we
were going to make it through the month on our husbands' teachers' salaries.
Favoring scurvy over rickets, we finally decided we would buy milk
instead of fruit that week.
The doorbell rang and Nancy's former college roommate breezed in to tell
us about how her rich husband was having her whole kitchen remodeled for her
while she was on vacation. She even
asked us for advice.
It was quite a put-down, but when she left, Nancy turned to me and said,
"So what? I bought an avocado last week."
We both laughed, and I wondered when Nancy had learned to look for the
humor in life.
In remembering my own first experiences with humor, I thought about Pat
who, as a student of my father's in his early teaching career, had adopted our
family as his own and vice versa.
Later, after Pat had graduated from college and my father had become a
school superintendent, my father hired him to teach and he lived with us.
Pat was better than an older brother to my brother and me.
He spoiled us wonderfully and he did all the things for us that parents
hate to do.
Looking back on it, I can see that he must have felt enormously grateful
to my folks, because he took on the nerve-wracking task of teaching me to drive.
We would get in his car with the starter coming out of the floor like a
jack-in-the-box and I would try to step on it.
Then I would grind the gears, we would lurch forward and the motor would
die.
Over and over we went through the ritual.
Occasionally, he would become exasperated and then suddenly he would
burst out laughing. His laughter
surrounded us and gave me the courage for another try.
It was wonderful the way he saw the humor in our frustrations.
In retrospect I don't know whether he was teaching me more about driving
or about learning to laugh that summer. I
suspect it was the latter.
Back to the top
My husband and I were talking about ethics among government officials
over a late breakfast.
"I don't think television is doing us a favor by showing these
Congressional hearings," I said. "We
are depressed enough already. We
have a shortage of everything, nothing we want to eat is good for us, and we
can't pay our utility bills.
"Now television is showing us firsthand what we suspected all along
-- that Congressional ethics are about as good as big business ethics.
It is too depressing. We
needed to have some hope left somewhere."
"Look at it this way," said my husband.
"Now that television shows the true faces of our Senators and
Representatives, we can get rid of the sick ones."
"Dreamer," I said hopelessly, "now no one will want to run
for office. When everyone knows
what a crew we have up there, who in his right mind would want to be identified
with them?"
"I know!" said our teen-aged daughter who wants to be the first
woman President. "We'll get women. We women will tackle anything."
"You're thinking of a cereal commercial," our younger daughter
interjected. "It's 'Let's get Mikey!
He'll try anything.'"
"Where IS the cereal?" asked our son.
"I seem to have lost my train of thought," I sighed.
"Forget it," said my husband.
"The football game's on anyway.
Now that they have ethics in football, I want to see what happens."
Back to the top
"Have you ever considered being a saboteur for a spy
organization?" asked my husband after coming in late at night.
"Not since I was 10," I replied.
"Why?"
"I just hate to see such extraordinary talent wasted," he said.
In this, my middle life, any talent was worth something.
I got excited. "What
talent?" I asked.
"Well, you never leave the light on when I have to work late like
this. Tonight I stumbled over the
lawn mower and bruised three knuckles trying to unlock the door.
Yesterday I emptied the trash and stepped on two rakes, which promptly
hit me in the mouth."
"That was a trap for a dog who keeps getting in the trash," I
said.
"I had to drive your car to the store," he went on, "and
it was completely out of power steering fluid."
"Is that important?" I asked.
"I heard a noise at midnight the other night and got up to protect
you and the flashlight was in three pieces."
"Oh, that...the kids wanted to see who could put it together the
fastest."
"I asked you to run me some bath water this morning and when I
stepped in the tub, I scalded my right foot."
"I LIKE a hot bath," I said defensively.
"You built a fire again with the damper closed, during Monday night
football, when you knew I wouldn't be watching you closely."
"Honest, I just forgot."
"You leave everything from scissors to Frisbees on the stairs.
I have to tiptoe up them to be sure I won't break my neck."
"Best training in the world for a saboteur," I said.
"When you get my age, you have to be really good at your job, or
they won't take you."
Back to the top
As the leaves fell from the huge cottonwoods in our yard in Colorado, our
old farmhouse, surrounded by new subdivision homes, looked even older and more
in need of repair.
One night before Halloween, I told my husband we simply must fix up the
place. He nodded in agreement.
On Halloween night our children covered the furniture with sheets and put
green light bulbs in all the lights. A
record of chilling Halloween sounds was playing on the stereo.
The pumpkins were aglow on the front porch.
The candy was by the door. Each
of us had on greasepaint for the occasion.
We were ready.
Our house was ready, too. It
sat way back from the street and the branches of the trees looked eerie in the
dusk. The old garage had broken windows and its doors barely hung
on.
To get to the house, trick-or-treaters had to cross an irrigation ditch
and brave the sounds of the rustling leaves under their feet.
The first timid knock at the door came and we saw a little surgeon
complete with mask and cap before us. "My
daddy works at the hospital," he offered.
"He's waiting for me."
Little rabbits, sharks from Jaws, fairies, witches, cowboys and
astronauts came to our door, mostly in the safety of groups.
Finally, there were the unmistakable voices of Eric, age six, and his
younger brother Jason, the red-haired "Six Million Dollar Boy" of the
neighborhood.
"Guess who I am," said Jason in his huskiest voice.
"You can't fool me. You're
Groucho Marx," I said, as I opened the door for them to come in by the fire
for a minute.
Jason giggled. "It's
really just me--Jason," he whispered.
Eric, always the dignified one, looked around him.
"Peggy," he said, "I love your house.
It always looks like it was made just for Halloween."
My husband smiled. "And
to think you wanted to take all that away from little children," he said.
"Every dog does have its day, doesn't it--" I said,
"even if it's only on Halloween."
Back to the top
"I can't believe it," my cousin Susan was telling my aunt at a
recent family reunion.
"In the Iroquois nation 300 yea
