Grandma will remember last Halloween forever. No, it was not a good one. Sit down (near a grown up friend, or your Mom or Dad), and I'll tell you about it.

Just as the sun was going down, the wind started to blow so hard it made the trees groan. All day it seemed like a storm was coming. It got dark very early, kind of smoky dark outdoors with lots of heavy gray clouds and the wind kept blowing. Everyone had their car headlights on by four o'clock.

Grandma stopped by a friend's home for a visit, because she always misses her children and grandchildren on Sundays and holidays. They wanted her to go with them to a party in downtown Dallas. Instead, Grandma decided to go on home and relax before the storm really hit. A light rain had already begun to fall, slowly, but in big drops.

Finishing her visit with her friends Grandma wished them a "Happy Pumpkin Day," and said good-bye. She stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up some food and sneak a peek at the Trick or Treaters.

By the time she got home it was nearly seven o'clock at night. The storm had started, so she parked in the "No Parking" area, close to her front door just to take her groceries inside. She had to go find a parking spot after that. The closest one was way around the corner from where she lived, by some trash dumpsters.

Just as Grandma got out of her car and closed the door, she heard a "Whoosh" sound come from one of the trash dumpsters. Her heart felt like it had stopped beating, and she stopped breathing, after uttering a sound. "Eeeee Yipes!" through her scared stiff jaws. Grandma tried to get into the car, but she couldn't get the key into the lock, so she ran for her door as fast as she could.

Grandma had left the door unlocked when she went to park the car, so it opened right away. She quickly slipped inside, put on her security alarm, and leaned against the door until she could get her breath.

The groceries had to be put away, so she began that task thinking she would not eat the fresh shrimp she had just bought, but jump into bed and watch television, all cozy and warm, so she would be ready for work in the morning.

As Grandma was pulling the milk in the refrigerator, she heard something fall and hit the patio. It made a 'thud' sound. Thinking that it was "Gypsy," the friendly dog next door, Grandma peeked out through the mini-blinds. As her eyes moved from the patio cement up toward the railing, she felt a very cold breeze sweep past her, and then, she suddenly saw a big cloud on the patio, spiraling about in one place. "It" stopped and moved over close to the door. She was scared still! Again!

Backing away from the patio doors, very slowly, Grandma sat down in her chair right under her security alarm buttons, to wait to see if she had seen what she though she did. Nothing happened so she got up and went to her bedroom to put on her "jams (if only she could have taken a deep, warm bath she thought, but it was still lightening outside).

Grandma finished putting on her warm nightclothes, and left her bedroom, with a pillow tucked under her arm, heading for the sofa. Turning back to switch off the light, she heard that sound again; the one she had heard by the dumpsters.

She spun around looking back into her room. There, looking right through the closed mini-blinds, was a huge pumpkin face. It asked her, in a hoarse voice, "Whhhhyyyy doooon't yooooooo liiike Halloween?"

Grandma pulled her bedroom door shut, with a bang, and fled into the front bedroom that was her office, so fast that her feet didn't touch the floor. She slithered under the covers and pulled them over her head. Grandma could feel her heart banging away, a hard, "lub-dub." In the same rhythm she kept saying, "I DO like Hal O Ween! I DO like Hal O Ween! I DO like Hal O Ween!" over and over again, until she fell asleep.

The next morning Grandma woke up and went right to her patio doors. She peeked out the blinds very carefully. There was nothing there. Grandma loves the morning air; so she slid the door open, like she always did, and went out to sit in a patio chair, to drink her cup of coffee.

There, on the patio, was an old candle stub inside a huge broken pumpkin shell!

So, no, Grandma did not have a good Halloween. In fact, she doesn't want to have another one, unless she is with her family, or friends, who knew her well. She said that a stranger would think she was 'coo coo.'

But, Grandma does love to make jack-o-lanterns (she no longer says the "p" word, any more), and her love for "P pie" hasn't changed, and harvest scenes are one of her favorites, and the weather... but no, Grandma does not like Halloween.

~by Carol Joyce Hinkley Thompson~

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