Beggar's Night Revisited...
November already! This year is flying away at record speed! It is hard to think about, but at my workplace the holiday music will be played throughout the store this weekend. Really! Can't we wait until Black Friday? It's no wonder that by Christmas we are all so sick of rockin' around the Christmas tree and doing the reindeer stomp. Here in Ohio we are enjoying a few days of late autumn bliss. It is cool, but not cold. Sweater weather. It's not raining (yea!). And there are still some trees sporting colorful leaves, hanging on until the next big rain wrestles them to the ground. I've had a bit of fun shooting a senior portrait outdoors. It has been a while since creating any portraits like that, so I am a bit rusty, but the results have still been pretty good. Now I remember why I like doing portrait work. Being outdoors is always wonderful for me. Those photos are always a fun session for everyone concerned.
So far everything outdoors has a lightly spooky look, so characteristic of November landscapes. Speaking of spooky, I never saw any ghost stories posted from my Facebook friends. Did the ghosties stay home this year because it was cold in Ohio? Guess I'll have to break out the Haunted Ohio series of books to read for my ghost stories this year. Barberton has always been a pretty haunted kind of a place. The Barberton Historical Society has seen to it that they have a book available telling the tales of local ghosts and hauntings. Good times for the Magic City!
And for all the Barbertonian alums, can you remember the days of dragging old pillow cases around to collect the treats from all over the town on Beggar's Night? As if I needed all that candy, my folks took me to my cousin's neighborhood in Akron the night before Barberton's beggar's night haul to cash in on their neighborhood goodies. Somehow their neighborhood didn't measure up to the Barberton haul. The next night, the cousins came to Barberton and we hit all the good spots and more for candy, candy, candy! I have one memory of a local "beer joint" as they were called, and that when we told them about the "big boys' who soaped their windows we were given whole big sized candy bars and some loose change for telling about the tricks that were done. Admittedly, I was a little cutie, and the bartender gave me extra candy just 'cause I was cute! Those were innocent days. Nobody grabbed you, nobody put razor blades in the homemade cookies or the candied apples. It was safe and just good times for one and all. I'm not sure what went wrong or when, but now Beggar's Night is quite different from those kiddie fun times. If I see one more zombie I will scream. Does no one have any imagination for costuming anymore? And now the warnings to the public are that you should not home make your child's costumes anymore. They should be commercially produced so that the fabrics will have flame retardant in them. Really? I can't remember ever catching fire all those years that I wore the great costumes my mom made for me. Well, so now we must see to it that Beggar's Night is totally sanctioned through people we trust to give treats to our children that won't poison or maim them, and to not set their costumes on fire. Is there any hope of putting the genie, or in this case the zombie back into the bottle in the hope of starting all over again to have a tamer, more gentle evening of Halloween fun? I guess it's still possible within guarded perimeters. At any rate, I hope the youngsters of the day had a fun time dressing up and begging for goodies. My Barberton memories were all good ones. I hope yours were good, too! Happy Halloween Facebook friends!
So far everything outdoors has a lightly spooky look, so characteristic of November landscapes. Speaking of spooky, I never saw any ghost stories posted from my Facebook friends. Did the ghosties stay home this year because it was cold in Ohio? Guess I'll have to break out the Haunted Ohio series of books to read for my ghost stories this year. Barberton has always been a pretty haunted kind of a place. The Barberton Historical Society has seen to it that they have a book available telling the tales of local ghosts and hauntings. Good times for the Magic City!
And for all the Barbertonian alums, can you remember the days of dragging old pillow cases around to collect the treats from all over the town on Beggar's Night? As if I needed all that candy, my folks took me to my cousin's neighborhood in Akron the night before Barberton's beggar's night haul to cash in on their neighborhood goodies. Somehow their neighborhood didn't measure up to the Barberton haul. The next night, the cousins came to Barberton and we hit all the good spots and more for candy, candy, candy! I have one memory of a local "beer joint" as they were called, and that when we told them about the "big boys' who soaped their windows we were given whole big sized candy bars and some loose change for telling about the tricks that were done. Admittedly, I was a little cutie, and the bartender gave me extra candy just 'cause I was cute! Those were innocent days. Nobody grabbed you, nobody put razor blades in the homemade cookies or the candied apples. It was safe and just good times for one and all. I'm not sure what went wrong or when, but now Beggar's Night is quite different from those kiddie fun times. If I see one more zombie I will scream. Does no one have any imagination for costuming anymore? And now the warnings to the public are that you should not home make your child's costumes anymore. They should be commercially produced so that the fabrics will have flame retardant in them. Really? I can't remember ever catching fire all those years that I wore the great costumes my mom made for me. Well, so now we must see to it that Beggar's Night is totally sanctioned through people we trust to give treats to our children that won't poison or maim them, and to not set their costumes on fire. Is there any hope of putting the genie, or in this case the zombie back into the bottle in the hope of starting all over again to have a tamer, more gentle evening of Halloween fun? I guess it's still possible within guarded perimeters. At any rate, I hope the youngsters of the day had a fun time dressing up and begging for goodies. My Barberton memories were all good ones. I hope yours were good, too! Happy Halloween Facebook friends!
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