Just Cured - Experience Fine Foods

Halloween was one of my favorite holidays when I was a child.† Perhaps it was the limitless quantities of candy I was permitted to consume.† Perhaps it was the chance to be someone different for the day, or a few hours.† Perhaps it was that Halloween is the one holiday that is just for kids.† Certainly, it was some combination of all this and more that made the day so special.† And although it has been many years since I have participated in Halloween celebrations, I still have a soft spot for the day.

I recall only glimpses of the Halloweens that preceded our moving into the house that is still the family home.† It is the Halloweens that immediately followed that move that I recall so vividly.† I am not sure I remember everything about the first Halloween in that house; but I know my new friends instructed me on the homes where the most generous helpings of sweets could be had, and we mapped out a plan to maximize our take.

It was only a couple of years later that we sponsored a haunted house in our basement.† The scary face painted in day-glo colors adorned the enormous furnace until it expired many, many years later.

It has been many years since I have seen a trick or treater.† My wife and I live in a Halloween disadvantaged neighborhood — few children, no sidewalks, no streetlights, houses set back from the street with intervening trees, and stupid, crazy drivers on the street.

And so tonight, my wife and I returned to that same childhood home to help my mother pass out treats and control her energetic, adolescent goldendoodle.† For two hours, the stream of trick or treaters was unabated.† I served up treats to supermen, batmen, spidermen, football heros, ghosts, goblins, witches, warlocks, wizards, pirates, grim reapers, fairies, princesses, ballerinas, lions, tigers, leopards, bears, dinosaurs and goodness-knows-what-else.† Virtually every costume was well conceived and executed.† Many of the children took a short break and played with the dog.† More than a few children and parents stopped to chat a bit before heading to their next destination.† All but one or two kids remembered to speak a clear “thank you.”

I was particularly drawn to a fairy of about three who would have stayed and petted the dog for the entire evening but for her older sisters’ desires to score more candy and a grim reaper who would have done the same despite his mother’s entreaties that he would be late for his band performance at the high school football game.† This young man with Down’s Syndrome turned out to be the youngest son of the friend who mapped out the prime trick or treat houses for me all those years ago.† The joy the son felt and projected tonight was valuable far beyond all the treats given or consumed.

Did I really write just a few paragraphs ago that Halloween is just for kids?† Tonight I reminded myself that while Halloween is all about kids, it is for

all of us.

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