Halloween 2010

My Father loved Halloween. Being a person who valued and loved tradition, he would select our family pumpkin with great care. I can almost smell the newspaper as we would cover the kitchen table, in preparation of carving the pumpkin. I can see the knives and the metal spoon we used to scoop out the seeds and pulp from the pumpkin. And I can see the faces of the pumpkins.. always the same... two triangles for eyes, one triangle for a nose and a smiling mouth with no teeth! Occasionally Lilli and I would convince him to add triangle shaped ears. That was rare, however.

When he died in October, 1983, I began the new tradition of taking a pumpkin down to the cemetery and placing it on his grave. And today, I continued the tradition. I found the perfect pumpkin, the shape that he preferred. I didn't carve it... and I drove it down to the cemetery. It was a beautiful fall day, slightly windy but not too blustery. The sun peaked out from time to time behind the clouds. I didn't mind the clouds.. I think that Halloween should be cloudy. All of this may seem a bit silly but in light of what Halloween is all about, maybe not. And I do believe that he would be pleased. Happy Halloween Daddy.