October 20, 2009

Today I take a cue from my dear friend Rebecca. Several years ago, she started doing her own October Thoughts. This was both reassuring and inspiring to me. She reassured me that I wasn't the only crazy out there and she inspired me to keep going at a time when I was just about done. Seriously, how long can one person drone on about the wonders of October before being involuntarily committed to some sort of October rehab facility?

Ha. Fifteen years and counting.

Anyway, Rebecca's Thought a couple days ago (or was it just yesterday?) was that when October rolls around, she is flooded by school memories.

Come to think of it, so am I.

So much of what I bring to the October table is from those formative elementary school years I spent in lovely Morongo Valley, California. It was there that I watched horror movies on Movie Macabre (hosted by Elvira herself) on Sunday afternoons. It was there that the Greatest Halloween Party Ever was held. It was there that Holly and Brenda and I watched "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" while laying on the shag carpet in front of their tv. 

It was there, in a school built mostly of temporary classrooms situated around a sandy playground, that my mother first glued a plastic spider to her face and became the witch in the school carnival. 

I think a lot of us feel this way. So much of how we think of October and, more specifically, Halloween, is formed when we're little. When you look back over your childhood, how many Aprils or Septembers do you remember? When you look back over your October memories, how many fall between the ages of six and twelve? 

What's your favorite childhood October memory?