Bath Time in the Ol' Stock Pot

Last night was the Halloween parade in our town. The local Jaycees sponsor it every year, and it has grown in popularity over the last 10 years from a hometown event to a regional happening. We have folks coming from 5 or 6 surrounding counties in the state and a few more from down in Maryland. Vendors arrive from the rest of Pennsylvania, from Maryland, New Jersey, maybe even New York. I usually stay home to avoid the crowds, but I thought this might be a good time to take Cone and Ball around for Halloween.


First, though, they needed baths. Cone has been run over a few times -- lots of tire marks -- and Lord only knows what that grey-green-brown stuff is on Ball. I used to have a galvanized washtub, but it rusted through, and I didn't want to put Cone in the bathtub. Thought one of my stockpots might work, so I squirted dishwashing soap in the bottom of it and hit that with the hard spray on the garden hose. In practically no time at all, it looked like the pot was full of whipped cream.

Cone is permanently marked, I'm afraid, but at least it's now a brighter orange than before. Ball was easier to clean, but harder to rinse -- kept rolling off the picnic table right back down in the dirt, until I got the canner rack and placed it in that. Perfect! A ball cage.

Once rinsed, they sat in the late afternoon sunshine to dry off. What a Mutt-and-Jeff pair they make.

Before long, Russell -- another plastic thing, only it isn't a cube -- decided to keep Cone company while it dried. Good thing Russell is plastic, or I might have had to bathe Cone again!

Time to go shopping for costumes!

[All photos (c) M. C. McLemore, October 2008]

Five Little Pumpkins

This is a song my daughter brought home from kindergarten 30-some-odd years ago. It probably is a counting song, and has some hand motions that go with it...which, remarkably, she still remembers.

Five little pumpkins

Sitting on a gate

The first one said,

"Oh, my, it's getting late!"

The second one said,

"There are witches in the air!"

The third one said,

"But we don't care!"

The fourth one said,

"Let's run and run and run!"

The fifth one said,

"I'm ready for some fun!"

Oooo-Ooooo, went the wind

And OUT went the light

And the five little pumpkins

Rolled out of sight!

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We are fast approaching one of my favorite childhood events - Halloween. When I was a kid (and this tells you how old I am, even if I hadn't already mentioned it), we used old clothes from our parents' closets, or costumes made of crepe paper, or things my mom found at the thrift store. One year, my brothers Mac and Johnny got brand new Davy Crockett costumes, including the faux-coon-skin cap and plastic Bowie knife. I was a hobo again, for the third year in a row. Still, I always had a great time and got lots of loot, back when it was safe to eat everything in your bag without having to take it somewhere to be checked out first. We older kids sometimes had to share our loot with the little ones who were too young to go out, so it didn't all make it back to the house. Johnny learned the hard way not to hide chocolate candy in his underwear.

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This year, my grandson is living at a residential treatment facility for kids with psychological disorders. He is autistic: Asperger's Syndrome. He's sixteen, but he is much younger emotionally and has difficulties fitting in with kids his own age. Although he is on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum of disorders, his emotional problems (and the autism) require intensive therapy and treatment, more than his mother or I could provide for him at home.

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He would love to go out trick-or-treating if he were home, so Kareema and I are fixing candy buckets for him and the other boys in his dorm. We went to Wally-World for goodies, and picked up a dozen plastic jack-o-lanterns, which I forgot and left in the back of my Jimmy. There is a lip on the edge of my carport which causes the car to bounce a little if I pull into it too fast, which I did when I came home from work yesterday. I was startled, briefly, to see flying orange pumpkins smiling at me in the rear view mirror when the car bounced up!

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Okay...now, what do we call a collection of Halloween candy buckets?

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[The nightmare of pumpkin buckets photo (c) M.C. McLemore, OCT 2008]