Thursday, November 01, 2007

Valdosta Halloween--2007

We had 4 kids stop by for tricks or treats, a pirate, a witch, a batman, and a kid who didn't know what he was dressed as.


The pirate kid was proud of his costume even though he didn't have a hat or wig. He left them in the car his mom was using to drive him from one house to another. He said, "It's just too hot for a wig. That's why I'm not wearing one!" We gave him a quarter.

This pirate boy stopped by at about 7 pm.

After that, it was quiet.

At about 730, I went outside and stood on the front porch for a while to see if there was anyone coming. There was no moon yet, and all the houses on both sides of the street were dark. A car drove past going west toward the Walmart near I-75.

I looked across the street at the house where these 3 young girls live. It's a big old Victorian just like ours. Every year we've been in Valdosta, the girls have made it over--even when the youngest was 1. She wore a white and gold princess costume that year, and had her big white cat with her. The cat didn't wear a costume.

This year they didn't make it.

Their house was dark.

8 comments:

Urkat said...

John, Did you hear the one about the Polish man who called the police and reported that his wife was plotting to kill him? He found a bottle of Polish Remover in the medicine cabinet--haha.

Geo-B said...

I think it's the Republicans. They wrecked everything. As soon as the Democrats get back in power, the kids will be out there trick or treting like crazy.

John Guzlowski said...

Hey, George, you give me hope to breathe and live and wait for next Halloween!

Frequent commentator Lisa Childress reports that all the fear that apparently is responsible for the death of Halloween as we know it is greatly exaggerated.

Here's what Lisa says:

The sad thing is that the fear is based on a lie. All that stuff about people poisoning Halloween candy was made up. In fact, according to snopes.com, the only documented case of a child being poisoned with Halloween candy was one kid who was poisoned by a family member. Not a raving maniac stranger lurking around, someone the kid knew. Just like molestation. It’s nearly always someone the kids knows.

Sad old world, isn’t it?

Thanks, Lisa and George.

Manfred?

I'm still not sure I'm ready to thank you for the joke!

Marty said...

A quarter. Damn, John, I would have dropped by in my high heals for a quarter.

Anonymous said...

John, I doubt that you still receive WKU e-mails such as WKU-Voice, but the day after Halloween there was a posting by a fellow bent out of shape because some homeowner was taking pictures of trick-or-treaters who came to his/her house. Isn't it sad that people think a simple Halloween ritual has become a vehicle for pedophiles? Or am I just too naive?

John Guzlowski said...

Dear Anonymous,

I think part of the problem is overpopulation.

When there are too many people in too small a space, they start looking at each other and thinking strange thoughts.

You can probably call this the "Stuck on an Island Syndrome" (SOAIS, for short).

We need space between our oddness and our neighbor's oddness. Otherwise, we start getting bugged by their oddness and want to put a stop to it. Pronto.

I think that in the future we'll be conducting more and more of our human business via computer/internet.

Really, it's the only way we can maintain distance in a world growing increasingly more susceptible to SOAIS.

Anonymous said...

Interesting that you say more & more human transactions will take place via Internet. I don't know which Sunday supplement your local paper uses, but the one here had an article last Sunday asserting that your best friends may be people you've never seen F2F. Maybe it's part of my oddness, but I've used the Internet to keep ties w/ friends & relatives who have moved out of physical sight. I'll admit the Internet can't really replace those lazy summer evenings when all the neighbors took their lawn chairs & their conversations to the front yard & sometimes to others' front yards. [Yes, I also remember that it was always hot & sometimes boring in those days; I'm not suggesting I'd give up air conditioning or television.]

John Guzlowski said...

Dear Anonymous,

I'm with you. I do feel that the internet brings us closer to family and friends. My sister Donna recently got a computer and internet from her daughthers (Cheryl, Kathie, and Denise), and I've heard from her a lot since that.

And I can't believe how many old friends I hear from. I hear from people I haven't seen or heard from in 20 or 30 years.

But I also have relatioships with people I've never met--except on line, and these relationships are in some ways more intense. I think the process of writing opens us to ourselves and to others that is different from a face to face/verbal relationship. The contact is in some ways more thoughtful, more open.

I see this in the online classes I teach. In a face to face classroom, there are people who never speak, never open up. That just doesn't happen online. My online students think and feel and talk about what they think and feel in ways that are amazing to me.

I sometimes think that all teaching should be online.

But all relationships?

Probably not.