Unearthing a life.....

These are three of Santa's elves. They were riding shotgun in his sleigh last December when it took friendly incoming somewhere over Iraq. They are shown here rejoicing over not having to manufacture toys all year at the North Pole. Upon hearing of the unfortunate demise of the three elves, George Bush phoned the polar workshop and said, "You're doin' good work there, Santa. And I know it's hard, hard, hard."

Sidebar: What with the melting of the (northern) polar icecap, Santa's workshop is currently under renovation for the installation of pontoons.

Thus the Holiday Season thrusts itself upon us, outfitted in the trappings of ghosts and ghouls and 672 lb. pumpkins. From this day hence until the 1st of January, 2007, we will be swept up in the arms of festivity, tainted only by the slightest traces of gluttony and avarice. The coming of Halloween signals the need to get that Thanksgiving planning under way. And we have .... Bookworm and I .... we have.

Noapologies and her partner are coming for Thanksgiving dinner, plus her parents, plus a couple other fine ladies. That will be turkey for eight. I can handle that. A quick check of my photo files indicates I did exactly that last year, in this house, and for the same folks. Dangerously close to establishing a tradition here.

Christmas? Daughter Kelly and grandson Morgan are scheduled. No one else is solid so far. My ex-wife of forty years ago is NOT on the Xmas guest list this year. There's always something about it that just doesn't quite work out. Nuff said about that! Oof! I hope Erin and Jessica will show.

Back to Halloween! When I was a second grader at the Smyrna School, the school had a pageant(?), play(?) on Halloween evening. There may have been between 10 and 12 students ranging through the first eight grades. I was the only second grader (a status that remained unchanged until I hit the eighth grade, where I was joined by the school bully, Norman Kruse, he having failed backward by a grade or two over the years). I had two important contributions to the evening's program. Firstly, I had memorized the poem about Lil Orphan Annie ("And the Goblins will get you if you don't look out!"), which I recited with a heart full of terror at the prospect of screwing it up. And secondly there was a scary play of some sort where I played the part of the policeman who came onstage with a billyclub (broom) and clobbered the evil guy (eight grader Jim Booher) and dragged him off stage by his collar. (Is that the source of the police term 'making a collar'?) I lifted his shoulders clear of the floor and he sort of scrabbled himself off stage pushing with his feet. Afterwards, the 'big boys' disappeared into the dark and tipped over a few outhouses. The next morning, their fathers brought them back to town and made them tip the outhouses back into place. Trick or Treating was not a concept we knew of.