Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘halloween’

Honk Parade, Somerville, Massachusetts.

For the first time in years, I’m at home for Halloween. I’ve been alternating between Suzanne and John’s homes, which has been a lot of fun. Besides, all the children in my neighborhood grew up and moved away, so there have been no trick-or-treaters on my street for a long time.

Now some young families have moved in. I want to see the little ones in their costumes — and avoid driving on such a night. I’ll let you know if I get any takers for the candy, Goldfish cracker bags, or juice boxes.

Meanwhile, I want to share a few photos of the season and hope you like some even if you don’t like Halloween.

I’m starting with the Honk Parade in Somerville. It is on the Columbus/ Indigenous People’s Weekend every non-Covid year.

The band playing at a local church’s fall festival is the wonderful bluegrass group Southern Rail. I can’t resist putting one of their videos at the end of this post.

The boaters are enjoying the Sudbury River in Massachusetts. The meditative bench is on the Seekonk River in Rhode Island.

I love the idea of six-word novels. The creative woman on Sudbury Road had numerous “novels” on pumpkins this year.

Across the street from her yard, the public library featured children’s story books. I’m sure you recognize Curious George.

Don’t know who the banjo players are, given they lack any features, but one seems to be a Union soldier.

Read Full Post »

There were quite a lot of opportunities for photos on sunny October days this year, and I’m not even counting funny pictures from Halloween in Providence, where one grandchild was Harry Potter, another was Princess Aurora, Suzanne was the Fairy Godmother from Disney’s Cinderella, and Erik had turned into a vampire after getting vaccinated (as some would have you believe).

I didn’t get to see my young Captain Marvel and her scary brother the Mummy in person. Fortunately, their mom sent a dramatic action shot.

I do try to be a bit restrained with family photos on social media, so today I will show you other shots I’ve collected. The photo above is of a kind of mandala that a Providence resident is in the process of creating near Blackstone Park. She encourages passersby to add something. I added more red leaves.

On the library lawn back home, I got to see Dr. Seuss’s famous Thing One and Thing Two and Eric Carle’s Very Hungry Caterpillar. There was also a “walking” book, consisting of signs showing page spreads. The current choice is The Water Protectors, by Carole Lindstrom and Michaela Goade (illustrator).

My husband had been reading about Ralph Waldo Emerson — particularly about the influence that Quaker thinker George Fox had on him — and so decided it was high time to visit Emerson’s house. Among other things we learned was the fact that in the early 1800s, people didn’t know that tuberculosis was contagious. Emerson’s first wife died of it at age 18. Also, the original Emerson family still owns the home. It’s a rather dark and gloomy place, though. I preferred the recently restored barn and took a picture there.

Moving right along, I have art for you from the Umbrella. The two pieces of door art are “Pop Art on the Trail,” by Howie Green, and “Remember the Future,” by Amy Cramer.

Then there’s the art center’s fabulous annual Art Ramble in the Hapgood Wright Town Forest, which I generally hold off on visiting until the first frost kills off the mosquitoes that breed in Fairyland Pond.

The Shibori hanging series, “Windblown,” is by Kiyomi Yatsuhashi. The beautiful Luna Moth Life Cycle is by Jude Griffin. The lungs of the forest are depicted by Barbara Ayala Rugg Diehl (BARD) in a work called “In and Out.”

The next photo shows Lisa Nelson’s “Waves of the Aerial Sea.” And last but not least is a huge dragonfly, or “Ethereal Dreamer,” by Laurie Bogdan and Kimberley Harding.

Thanks for joining me in New England.

Read Full Post »

Pumpkins and More

Huge selection of pumpkins and gourds at Wilson Farm, Lexington, Massachusetts.

Most people regard Halloween as simple fun — a moment to indulge in humanity’s playful side. That’s especially true for the very young, if not for the gruesome-looking teens or mischief makers. I always love seeing the littlest ones in their Spider-Man, Snow White, or witch costumes,

But even the creepy stuff is sometimes fun. I went trick-or-treating with John when he was 10, and we loved being startled by what we thought was a bundle of old clothes on the Dallas family’s front steps when it suddenly started moaning.

Back at the house, I would usually put on Halloween-ish records and turn up the volume: “Night on Bald Mountain,” “The Ride of the Valkyries,” a pre-Cats version of TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (narrated in a spooky voice by Robert Donat), and the Lambert, Hendricks & Ross song below, “Halloween Spooks.” Not sure anyone else listened to that background music, but it always got me in the mood.

Nowadays, we alternate between John’s neighborhood Halloween and Suzanne’s. Since we went to his in 2019 and did nothing in the pandemic, we will be with our younger grandson and granddaughter today.

Enjoy a few pre-Halloween photos from around these parts.

Read Full Post »

101319-curly-pumpkin-stem

There’s a blogger I enjoy reading although his posts are often sad. He is Bereaved Single Dad. Subtitle: “A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his partner and becoming a single parent.”

He lives in an isolated English village where his main goal is to make a happy life for his son, whom he describes as being on the autism spectrum. It’s a challenge partly because there is a lack of empathy at the local school and very few special needs services. The other issue is that Bereaved really doesn’t do anything to take care of himself, which to my way of thinking is bound to affect his son’s happiness.

But the two of them do seem to have some wonderful times together, and lately I’ve been enjoying a series of posts on their plans for a fun Halloween. Here is the post called “Halloween 3.”

“This Halloween has to make our son happy. Failure is not an option. Best way to achieve that simple goal was to let him choose what spooky activities we will fill our time with. At the start of the week he came up with his list. …

” * Halloween Costume. Dad I think we should try and go for a Freddie look. We don’t buy a costume, we see what we can rustle up. …

” * Watching as many Scooby Doo DVDs as we can find. Finish off with his three favourites. Boo Brothers, Kiss and Witches Ghost.

” *Watch a Hammer Horror movie. These are atmospheric but relatively tame these days.

” * Have a Lego building competition. This year it’s who can make the best haunted castle.

” * Make a spooky music playlist.

” * Make up a Halloween story. Dad, this year I think it’s a couple of kids stuck in a scary computer game. …

” * Any TV has to be spooky-related like Ghostbusters.

” * Monster knockout competition to decide the greatest ever horror character.

” * Apple Bobbing

” * Late night reading in the garden of Hound of the Baskervilles.

” * All dog walks have to be after dark.

” * Build a garden monster out of what we can find lying around. Then leave it for nature (or the dog) to dispose. …

” * Eat the cookie/biscuit game. Put a cookie on your forehead and then without using your hands try to somehow get the cookie into your mouth and it’s the first person to eat the cookie wins.

” * Jelly Bean roulette. We have stocked up on some new flavours. Cat food, Snail, Earthworm, Earwax, Squid.

” * Make Pumpkin Chilli Soup. Even I can manage that.”

You can read this devoted dad’s blog here.

102519-Halloween-witch

 

Read Full Post »

Boo!

072318-ghostly-Sycamore-bark

Boo!

Is that a ghost emerging from the earth beneath the sidewalk or a piece of sycamore bark? Is that the Grim Reaper scratching around inside the wall of your bedroom or a squirrel? Is that a witch tapping at the kitchen window or a tree branch?

Is that an invading army at the border with tanks and surface-to-air missiles or ragtag neighbors praying for compassion?

It’s OK on Halloween to imagine dangers that don’t exist, but how about on the next day, All Saints Day, we go back to being logical.

Read Full Post »

101917-giant-spiders-ConcordMA

We join John’s family or Suzanne’s family for Halloween on alternate years. This year, we were scheduled to hang out in John’s neighborhood, where a park at the end of the street bubbles over with festivity and John serves as the master of ceremonies for the costume fashion show.

Leading up to that event, I took pictures of the fun ways Halloween lovers decorated this year — noting, for example, the proliferation of giant spiders on houses and some upside-down zombies in an otherwise innocent-looking yard.

Suzanne’s family cut Jack O’Lantern designs using templates from the Internet. I’m posting the cute owl, but they also carved a crocodile, an octopus, and a cat.

the costume parade

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

103117-skeleton-Halloween

103117-fierce-fighter-Halloween

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

103117-Waldo-Park-Halloween

103117-costumes-Halloween

Read Full Post »

Photo: Evensi

My husband and I alternate between our two sets of grandchildren on Halloween. Last year we got a kick out of seeing John perform the role of MC for the costume fashion show at the park on his street. Although we won’t be there this year, I’m glad I got to see my oldest grandson in this year’s Yoda costume and his sister as a mermaid. Her puzzlement about the way the bottom of her costume was cut led to explanations of mermaid anatomy and collaboration on mermaid drawings.

This year we join the Providence grandkids (one gentleman fire chief, one lady construction worker) for the gathering at Brown Street Park and the annual parade through blocked-off Providence streets.

Brown Street Park has many Friends (changed to “Fiends” for the holiday). It’s in an upscale neighborhood near the university and flourishes because of people who both care about it and know how to raise money. If only all Providence neighborhoods were like that (which I say because behind one place where I volunteer, there’s a filthy campsite where drugs are sold. I am told the city cleaned it up once, but the vacant lot reverted to its current sorry state. How I wish the city would try again and neighbors would feel that they could go in and plant a garden or something!) But I digress.

If you go to the Friends of Brown Street Park website, here, you will find a well-organized group of volunteers soliciting help from other potential volunteers for initiatives such as the Hallloween party and parade, the summer concert series and the Earth Day clean-up.

In poor communities, good things can happen, too, but no outsider can come in and decree what those good things should be. First come efforts to build trust among all neighbors, as suggested here, then come deliberations about what neighbors actually want. I am going to look into getting the city to deal with that no-longer-vacant lot. It’s so disturbing for children who attend nearby activities. All neighborhoods should be safe for children.

Read Full Post »

There’s something mysterious about this time of year that brings out more than nostalgia. Halloween’s naughtiness license (to do mischief like moving the neighbors’ swing set from their backyard and putting it in the middle of the driveway) is really a creativity license.

I always looked forward to making the funniest Jack o’ Lantern, or the scariest. And wearing a pink taffeta princess dress (which unfortunately was not visible under all my outer layers on cold Halloweens). And parties (did anyone ever actually catch an apple by bobbing for apples?).

One year at school, the big kids made a Tunnel of Horrors for the younger ones. I was new to that school, and holding on to others as I stumbled up and down stairs in the dark, I had no idea where I was. It was spooky in a fun way — scary faces lit from below by flashlights, ghostlike figures brushing by, skeletons dropping down, haunted wailing, sudden swaths of spider webs … and a witchy voice croaking, “Come closer, Dearie, put your hand in the bowl of eyeballs” (meticulously peeled grapes in water)!

Imagine the creative brainstorming sessions that went into choosing gags that could be pulled off in darkness without breaking anyone’s bones! I was in rapture. I went home that weekend and created a mini version of a Tunnel of Horrors for my younger siblings.

103115-toothy-pumpkin

Read Full Post »

Usually when I ask adults, “What are you going to be for Halloween?” they laugh, and really I am just joking.

But when I posed that question to a co-worker yesterday, he said, “A cereal killer.” He told me with some enthusiasm that he was going to paste the front panel of a cereal box on a red-splattered T-shirt.

I had to laugh. “Well, good for you, Nick!” I forgot to ask what killer cereal he was going to use. Probably one loaded with sugar.

Although I don’t have a picture of my colleague the Cereal Killer, I can show you a zombie in John’s yard, decorated pumpkins on his steps, an upside-down bat carving at the the restaurant Trade, and a stormy sky that a witch just passed through. (You’ll have to take my word for that.)

101715-just-a-zombie

102415-front-stoop

103015-bat-carved-into-pumpkin

101815-fir-spooky-sky

Read Full Post »

In my part of New England, Daylight Savings is drawing to a close with cold, wet, dark presentiments of the season to come. Seems like a good time to think about the fun we had in October.

Artist Don Eyles floated a pyramid in Fort Point Channel until a storm blew up. Suzanne, my husband, and our middle grandchild visited the sheep and other animals at the Audubon Society’s Drumlin Farm.

At work, we had a pumpkin-decorating contest. My team did Miss Piggy, porcine Muppet diva, to use the Wall Street Journal identifier. (Left to right, Elvis, the Monopoly Man, Miss Piggy, Edgar Allan Poe, Chia Pet, and Gonzo.) A Halloween band marched surrounded by babies, kids, and adults in costume all around blocked-off Providence thoroughfares near the Brown Street Park.

More quietly, chrysanthemums soaked up sunshine.

Here is a bit of background on the pyramid, in case you are interested.

“In 1998 Fort Point artist Don Eyles floated his first pyramid in Fort Point Channel, marking the water as a venue for art and opening the doors to years of temporary art installations to come. The installation was a bold move, made independently, and completely self-funded.”

“ ‘Consider the history that has passed along the cobbled streets of Boston — all the men and women, famous or unremembered, who have walked and rode here … always with granite cobblestones beneath their feet and wheels. I have long dreamed of making this history tangible, by constructing a great pyramid from the cobblestones uprooted by the City’s recent development.’ ”

More on the Pyramid and other Fort Point projects at tumblr, here.

pyramid-Fort-Point-Channel
101914-Drumlin-Farm-sheep
Halloween-team-bldg-at-work
Halloween-in-Providence
flower-pots-in-fall

 

 

Read Full Post »

Pumpkin-Smile-2014

 

Back in the days when we had more trick-or-treaters coming to our door, I used to play a series of Halloween-ish records nice and loud, like “Night on Bald Mountain,” the original “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” (with Robert Donat), and jazz trio Lambert Hendricks & Ross singing “Halloween spooks outside my window/Halloween spooks behind the tree./I wish that the children could see,/But I can’t find them for the life of me,/And there’re Halloween Spooks outside my window pane/Whoooo.”

Nowadays, families take their kids to housing developments where lots of children live. Last year no one knocked on our door. Fortunately, we’ve been able to join John’s two Halloween spooks at their neighborhood park’s festivities near Boston. And this year we’re hanging out with our middle grandchild, a Pirate, in Providence.

Here are a couple local photos that have been getting me in the mood.

graveyard

Read Full Post »

More pictures of the season, including a Pumpkin Fest in Concord and a Halloween party in the neighborhood where my older grandson and his sister live.

Today there must have been 40 costumed kids, from infants to 10-year-olds, rolling down the hill, posing for pictures, and eating hotdogs in the playground. After the parade, everyone went down the street to knock on doors looking for treats. (Meran’s treat for my husband and me was homemade potato and leek soup and some very yummy bread.)

John wore his scary fangs and asked a little Yoda if he was tasty to eat.

“This is what I look like,” he explained to friends, “after a week of being up all night with two kids who have fevers.”

light-on-leavesAh, yes. All part of the season!

pumpkin-fest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cowboy

Halloween-pirate-2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

About a week ago, I noticed that a homeowner in town had placed sweet little pumpkins on her fence posts, about 20 pumpkins in all.

Something must have gone wrong soon after, because today her pumpkins all have anti-theft messages on them. Cute, if somewhat contrary to the original festive spirit.

The first one below says, “No — stop! Think of the Guilt! What would your grandmother think?”

The second one says. “Help me! Lost pumpkin. Please return to Sudbury Road.”

Will the messages shame the target audience?

It reminds me of volunteering in seventh grade to paint approved pictures on shop windows at Halloween. The idea was to co-opt the kids who soaped windows on Mischief Night. Alas, I don’t think any of them volunteered to do the approved paintings.

what-would-Grandma-say

return-stolen-pumpkin

Read Full Post »

Nicholas Kristof ‏of the NY Times just tweeted: “Sandy has left our neighborhood perfect for Halloween: darkened houses, spooky streets, fallen trees. Just no kids out.”

My sister, a doctor, lives in New York City. She writes: “It’s like there are two cities, one north of 34th St, the other south of 34th St. The ‘south’ city has no traffic lights, no electricity, every block is patrolled by police cars day and night, stores and schools are closed, people are climbing up 10 to 25 floors to get to their apartments because the elevators don’t work, cars that were parked on the street have floated away, etc.

“The ‘north’ city, where we are, is pretty much normal but with traffic jams because everyone is using cars to get around due to the lack of subways. … Many patients cancelled. One walked here today, from 49th to 102 St.”

Meanwhile, Halloween. Suzanne and Erik are taking their dragon-costumed baby around their old Harlem neighborhood.

Erik’s mother and sister and kids had to give up the idea of taking Amtrak to visit their old haunts in New Jersey, as Amtrak Northeast Corridor service  is cancelled post-hurricane. Still, they came all the way from Sweden to trick or treat with old friends in Princeton, so they rented a car and are knocking on doors right now.

My husband and I went to our two-year-old grandson’s neighborhood park, where all the little kids dress up and there are hot dogs and delightful festivities of all sorts. One event is a “fashion parade.” Each costumed kid emerges from a little tent, is announced to the adoring, camera-clicking adults, and walks down a runway.

My grandson had a fireman costume to go with his spiffy fireman rain boots.

Read Full Post »

Lisa W. Foderaro writes in today‘s NY Times (here) about several elaborate carved-pumpkin events in and around New York City. Her article caught my eye because yesterday Suzanne and Erik took their baby dragon and Erik’s mother, sister, niece, nephews (in costume), yours truly and my husband to something pretty dramatic along those lines. In Providence.

As I was reading Foderaro and feeling competitive with New York, this bit in the story jumped out:

“Two carvers, Ray Villafane and Andy Bergholtz, who developed a national following on the Food Network’s ‘Halloween Wars’ show, were at the [New York Botanical] Garden in mid-October, using six-inch rinds of Atlantic Giant pumpkins to sculpture the zombie, whose organs and intestines poke through his cracked ribs. Their assistants were busy harvesting chunks of pumpkin with handsaws and, for the zombie’s jeans, steaming pumpkin rinds.

“Mr. Villafane, a commercial sculptor who has made a year-round business out of carving pumpkins, said … his one disappointment this year was that the official ‘all-time biggest pumpkin,’ the first to weigh more than a ton, did not make it to the Bronx, as was planned. The 2,009-pound specimen, grown by Ron Wallace in Coventry, R.I., ran into trouble.

“ ‘It sprang a leak and rotted on the way,’ Mr. Villafane said. ‘We wanted to carve the world-record holder, so that was sad.’ ”

Well, excu-use me! A Rhode Island monster pumpkin should have gone to the Roger Williams Zoo’s Spectacular, which was way better than anything the Times described. I’m afraid that Mr. Villafone tempted fate. Clearly a curse struck that giant pumpkin when it crossed the border.

The Roger Williams Zoo Spectacular lasts the whole month of October, involves 25 carvers carving 25,000 pumpkins (replaced as they decay), and many fun themes (with piped-in music). We wandered from “Star Wars” to Beatles to “Gone with the Wind” to “The Wizard of Oz” and on and on. I was as amazed as the relatives visiting  from Sweden.

The idea of 25 people carving pumpkins for a month is in itself amazing to ponder. How much do pumpkin carvers get paid? What work do they have during the other 11 months? Are any from Rhode Island School of Design?

The Spectacular would have been a bit scary for the youngest among us, I think, but he was jet-lagged and zonked out in the stroller. A buffet before the walk around the lake was super and got us in early, in front of incredibly long lines. Read more about it all here.

Photograph by Suzanne, Luna & Stella

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

%d bloggers like this: