Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[Guest guest]

Dearest Joyce,

What a fun piece for Halloween you’ve sent us! It’s inspired me to

share two stories, two Halloween stories from the Mazie memorabilia

files, miles and miles of funny-incident files for your amusement.

 

Wide-eyed wonder

of the moment...

breathless night - stirred

When I was about nine years old, maybe eight years, I dressed up like

a witch. I had the entire gear, a real and bona fide store-bought

outfit. To me, it didn’t matter that it was a cheap and tacky

dimestore get-up. It was store-bought! All my previous costumes had

been supplied by my mother’s talented hands. With five children, she

had a great knack for creating something from nothing. But that year,

the year of my journey’s real beginning, I guess I begged enough and

Daddy had worked over-time long enough, that I finally succeeded in

acquiring the sought-after and longed-for Halloween attire. Was I

ever jubilant! This moment may have even perhaps rivaled the joy of

the night before the carnival adventures.

 

All the children, all five of us: Karen, Denise, Charlie, me and Eva,

we arranged ourselves inside the brown Pontiac station-wagon with the

sleek bumper fins promising a swift and hip trip to the neighborhood’s

known to be a bit more “affluent” than I was used to. So we set off in

the highest of spirits with the thought of all our brown grocery bags

being filled and over-flowing with candy, candy candy.

As Daddy pulled the car over to the side of the road so we could all

disembark and head up the drive-way to the first house, I thought I

couldn’t contain my eagerness. As soon as that engine shut down, I

threw open the door and leapt out, ready and dressed for a killing,

both goody-getting wise and getting the attention I thought my

exquisite costume should be afforded. I felt as if my feet had wings

and I could fly, with or without the stick-broom I was carrying. I

shot off like an arrow in the night with the concentration of Arjuna.

All I saw was that golden-pumpkined window, the bird’s eye of all my

desires that night – Candy! Recognition as an up and coming,

fashion-wise little wonder! “Good grief!” as Charlie Brown so

eloquently ejaculated in response to the promise of the Great

Pumpkin. What a goofy little kid!

 

 

One might use this evidence about to be presented as proof of the

necessity to discriminate in the objective world. “As-If” I could

fly…

And fly I did. Straight over the edge of an irrigation ditch and into

a cold, wet, frog-saturated scented, swampy mud-cup of come-uppance.

I couldn’t have been more mortified if I had found myself at the door

naked. Well, maybe I could have been more mortified…

 

Mort-i-fied:

Death preferred

over experience...of humiliation.

TeeHee Honorary member since 1962

I started crying my slick with grit, grey-mudded head off. Muddled

with memories I’d had not ten minutes earlier of a supreme coup on

the candy King and a coming-out party I was throwing for myself as

the newest ingénue of incredibly fine couterie, I was aghast that all

my perfectly laid plans had somehow not come to pass.

 

 

I sat in the car stewing in my juices and refused any consolation from

my father. Wonderful man that he was, he didn’t make me feel foolish

for my behavior. He drove me home and my mother whom always had a

quick and brilliant flair for creating something from nothing, (she

was the example I followed in the art of “make-do,”) whipped me up

into a Gypsy Princess in full regalia. A stunning green skirt of

hers, a scarf with delicate roses embroidered on it by her own hands,

big, black belt with a shiny silver butterfly buckle and the final

flair of “Yes, we are wonderful,” was met with the big hoop earrings

she clamped to my little kid ears.

That first store-bought Halloween costume was my last one. Somehow, I

couldn’t work up that same, original enthusiasm as before. Ahhhh,

conditioning monkey mind, eh? Costume from store – humiliation –

costume from home – safe and secure and still a fancy-pants-er.

 

The second story comes from the Halloween when I was twenty-one. I

went to a local tavern which was the hot-spot for the young crowd.

Bands played regularly and each year they had a Halloween contest for

the best costumes. A male and a female best of show one might say. I

dressed up as Jane with an old friend from grammar school dressing up

as Tarzan. We were a tad lit when we decided to the bit and we ended

up in very skimpy leopard-skin outfits which we both sewed together.

Not in a million years did I imagine that I would win for being the

best-dressed. Well, we did win, Dennis and I. We had to go up in

front of the entire place and get some award, a little statue of two

people dancing (yes, I was actually dancing in public thanks to the

“rum-fueled view.”) Ordinarily, not on your life, Sister!

Thanks again, Joyce, for the fun romp with you at Halloween when we

have our flings with the ghosts of ‘Alloween past and present and,

hmmm, with some future stories birthed from repast and revelry?

 

Skull-domed doin's

Tao of D'oh full-blown -

Ditch-Witch Kitch!

Thanks, Danke, Domo, Grace-Is for the great Gif-Giving

you've given us this halloween 10-31-03

LoveAlways,

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