HALLOWEEN MEMORIES & KIDS WITH THE "RIGHT STUFF"

Ahhh.. Halloween! The time for spooks and goblins, and the little "kids" who love to dress up and beg for treats. I remember so many fun Halloweens when I was growing up. Parents control their children much better today than when I was a kid. I don't think mine ever knew some of the things we were up to.

In high school, flour bombs were the thing to do. Days before the big Halloween Carnival at the Carnegie Library's upstairs ballroom, we began to buy penny paper sacks that we filled with flour, and wrapped with rubber bands. We then bought every cheap bottle of perfume at the local 5 and 10 Cent store, and every water pistol we could find as well. To this day, I remember how Evening in Paris smelled! We filled the water pistols and any pump spray bottles we could gather from home with the cheap perfume. The night of the Carnival, all the guys with pickups loaded the backs of their trucks with flour bombs and teenagers armed with perfume-filled water pistols. Everyone "made the drag" through town and back, waging war with our weapons! First, you threw a flour bomb on someone, hoping it would burst, then quickly squirted them with the cheap perfume! Talk about a smelly, sticky mess! The town itself was floured white for the night, and most teenagers looked like ghosts, covered in flour, with only eyes peering out. As most of us girls would stay up nearly all night at slumber parties, it would be the next day before we could wash all that goop out of our hair! I wish I had pictures from those nights... we were unbelievable. But, I don't remember anyone vandalizing or doing any serious damage. Unless you call putting a pig on top of one of the buildings downtown vandalism. The owner of the pig probably thought so! Senior boys were the perpetrators of that stunt! (My late, first husband was among them!)

Come to think of it, my parents must have known what we had done when I came home covered in flour and smelling like a French.... oops! Family blog!

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It's time for first report cards for most of my grandchildren. I checked in with the parents, and got the following about her three from my daughter Carajean. I cannot believe how much Ashlyn has grown up since last winter! She is now 5'3" tall - taller than her mom and grandmother as well. The braces have come off, and as you can see from her photo, she is quite beautiful! She has always been athletically inclined, and now appears to be an extremely fast runner. I have to mention here that her mother won the Field Day race when she was in the first grade at Bandera, Texas. Her photo was in the paper, listed as "fastest kid in first grade" -- she beat all the boys as well as the girls!

"Ashlyn made all As and one high B. At her last cross country meet she placed 12th out of 150 girls. She also ran 2.5 miles in 15-min. 30-sec., and ran a 6-minute mile. She is very happy at Amarillo High. She has a solo violin performance Tuesday and another cross country meet on Thursday."

(Grandson, Age 12) "Tanner is doing very well too. His lowest grade was a 97. He continues to excel in tennis, and plans to start participating in tournaments this spring. We bought him a tennis ball machine. It has improved his technique a great deal. He continues to tolerate cello. He plays well but doesn't like to 'waste his time' practicing! He and his dad are very close and like to do a lot of the same things together. They biked this morning to Barnes and Noble, spent a couple of hours there reading, and then biked to lunch. It was the perfect weather today for a bike ride."

"Audrey started a vegetarian club at SMU. Within two days she enrolled 30 members. She has applied for grant funding. Doesn't surprise me. She has always been good at leadership. We flew to Dallas last weekend to watch her perform a hip hop dance, go to a vegan fair, and last but not least, go to a haunted house."

Audrey is my activist granddaughter, in her third year at SMU. She has recently written all of the Japanese embassies in the U.S. in regards to their slaughtering of dolphins. She was very disturbed about this after watching the documentary, "The Cove". She emailed me a video of the hip hop performance her parents went to see. The "crew" she dances with won a cash prize last year.. and they are really, really good!

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My oldest, son Craig, sent the following news of granddaughter Hannah, age 10: "On her latest report card, she got her second B ever. (She was) really disappointed. Both times they were in Math. Told me she 'sucks' in Math. I told her a B, especially at a TAG (talented and gifted) magnet, wasn't 'sucking'."

"For the last two years she has been once or twice a month attending a program at SMU called W.I.S.E. - Women in Science and Engineering. They are mentored by female students there that are majoring in those fields. She really, really enjoys it, especially when they study the environment."

Another budding beauty in our family! Beauty and brains! I am very proud of Hannah's being in the W.I.S.E. program at SMU. Who knows? She might end up being mentored by her cousin Audrey, who is an Environmental Science major at SMU! Audrey could help with her math, as she went to State in Calculus when she was still in high school.

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I haven't received a report yet on the youngest of my grandchildren, Travis and Kelly. However, they will be spending the weekend with me in a couple of weeks and I can catch up then. The last time they were here, I was cooking dinner, when Kelly came into the kitchen and asked me for a baggie. I told her I would get her one in "just a minute". I got busy and turned around to see Kelly pulling out the bottom kitchen drawer and extracting a plastic baggie. I apologized for forgetting, and asked her how she knew where to find them. She looked up at me and said, "Grandmommy, I know where everything is in your house!" I tried not to laugh, as she was very serious. Such a little busy body. I find things like feathers in a little silver jewelry box on my dresser, and little drawings tucked into other little boxes here and there. I'll bet she does know where everything is in my house! I can't wait for her and big brother Travis to come again in two weeks!

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By the time I do my next post I should have a report on how Cameron's first professional opera performance (in the chorus) went in The Barber of Seville. His dad and Anat will be there to cheer him on.

I hope everyone who hasn't voted already is sure to do so this next Tuesday! I voted early so I wouldn't have to stand in line too long.

I was disappointed that I wasn't home today to see the "Sanity" rally held by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. I was at Hope's Closet, but as soon as I got home I checked online to see a few reviews. From the looks of the photos, they had a terrific turnout. And from the lineup I read about, seems there was fantastic entertainment as well. I was glad to see that.




Until next time..





Peace, love, and pumpkins!
Marilyn