Haloween is coming

There is something about the last day of October that makes me nostalgic for all those wonderful Halloween parties and "trick or treats" of my youth. After I entered, I saw the day only as the eve of all Saints until I came to Miami and we decorated the house for Halloween. We actually had a coffin with a skeleton in the living room and cobwebs hanging from everything. Some of it was really spooky but fun. I am still thinking of the great parties of my childhood. I think that those kind of memories give joy no matter how many years later. In sixth grade I was invited to go out in costume with a classmate who lived in Parkview Place and also went to the Visitation Academy with me. I remember mostly going back to her house and having hot cocoa and sandwiches served for just the two of us - I think it made me feel so grown-up. In seventh grade I had some classmates from St. Roch's over and my mother helped me plan an old-fashioned Halloween party: we decorated the third floor, bobbed for apples in the bathtub up there, and did all sorts of fun things as well as enjoying a feast complete with caramel-coated apples and cupcakes with orange icing and the face of a witch or pumpkin on each one. My friends still remember that party that was 69 years ago! Then, at St. Charles, we had great parties given by the Juniors in the High School. As we were boarders, the party began with a special supper and then, when it was my class giving the party, we went to a darkened, decorated varsity room where the three witches from Macbeth were muttering over a false fire in the corner. I know we had a "House of Horrors, and then, the crowning moment of the party was a walk to the graveyard (the nuns were still buried in a cemetery on the grounds) and just as we passed through, ghosts hidden behind bushes began to moan. It was all great fun and I am sorry that it is not safe for the children today to go around the neighborhood - some, of course, still do and that is why we have a huge, unopened bag of miniature candy bars sitting in our kitchen and tempting me to recall the loot of former days. Most of the children today come to the door with their parents standing just a few feet behind them. Well, this again is not a very spiritual blog, but we do want to prepare for the feast of All Saints on Friday!