By Linda Shaffer
I already know I’ll be stepping on some toes here but life is too short to beat around brightly colored fall-colored bushes. I don’t think much of the month of October. If I’m lucky to be alive I get an official Voter’s Pamphlet from the State of Oregon and a ballot. I love these two things. They make me happy to be an Oregonian and happy to be involved in democracy. I believe I was born with a genetic predisposition to voting. That has not changed. In fact, after 76 years, I still love this whole process. Even when it elevates my blood pressure.
OK, here we go. Those political advertisements on TV make me crazy. I am clever enough to avoid them if I want to but one or another crosses my path each day. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all in for free speech but there should be a caveat on “accurate free speech.” Since we all know this isn’t part of the deal, each of us will go their own way on the “fact or not fact” meter. Me? I wouldn’t think of changing your mind. Just know that I use profanity sometimes when responding to television news and advertising which does not conform to my belief system. Heh, heh… You do the same thing. I know you do.
This is the month we bring on the football and air it on television for as many hours as programmers can find time for. I can guarantee there will be people watching. Football is not included on the addictive substance list for our state but I think it could be. If you think tailgating is a big thing at football games, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are people around you who plan entire weeks, months and seasons of menus around football games. Why? It brings them joy to change team names, colors and food types. It helps them celebrate life in a way that their doctors would discourage. Do they care? Nope. These are fans, short for “fanatics”, a word you may also recognize. These are people with a purpose and October is when they come to life. Kind of like vampires, only different.
OK, stop the spooky stuff. I hate being frightened of anything. I am a pragmatist. I like things to be flat-out honest and true. Don’t you dare scare me for no reason. That part of October has bugged me since I was a little kid. I didn’t like haunted houses or creepy costumes then. I sure don’t like them now. I stopped watching ‘Ellen’ because she kept scaring the bejesus out of people and I didn’t see the humor in it. I went to a haunted place many years ago for my grandson Dawson. Yikes. I went on rides at Disneyland with grandsons Nathan and Jacob with the same outcome. It scared me. I did not like it but I was tough. What boy wants to tell his friends that his grandma is a big rubber chicken?
Trick or treat is another part of this scary thing. Why? Because we are afraid we might get a little kid at our door asking for treats and we might not have any. This is why reasonable Geezers buy enough candy to sink small ships. The excuse is they might have a trick or treater. It doesn’t matter if they live in the Tillamook Forest or Sahara Desert. There is a distinct possibility that a little kid might need candy. If they do, Geezers will be the ones to provide it in spades. When I was a kid, I loved old people because they gave out the five-cent bars of candy. The world was spinning on greased grooves then and now that candy bars are a buck, it still does. We are using this as an excuse to load up on the sweets our doctors told us to avoid.
My mother is 95. She knows that whoever might visit her house on Halloween will want candy corn, orange marshmallow peanuts and peanut M and M’s. If anyone actually shows up, they will get tiny boxes of raisins. No kid ever wanted those but Mom likes to snack on them afterwards. The other candy? Let’s just say we started with candy corn last month. Old people are smart.
The last thing about October? Time to bring in the windchimes, planters, outdoor furniture pads, umbrellas and miscellaneous stuff we don’t want to see flying by the windows this winter. Saying goodbye to summer may be hard but now we have Pampas grass, colored leaves, cold nights and bright blue skies to enjoy for just a few more weeks. The days are shorter and tend to invite us indoors. We haven’t yet considered the scourge of November…time change. What if I don’t want to fall back?
Have a great week my friends.
