Red Admirable

I spent last night in two different libraries and felt very virtuous; potentially as virtuous as I looked on the Halloweens of my first-, second-, and third-grade years of school. I was a Pilgrim Girl for each of them. My mother made a long-skirted, high-necked dress out of black Rag Shop fabric and every year we kept letting out the hem. I wore it to Lent services, too. I was very sad Jesus was going to die. So sad I needed to massacre a lot of Indians.

I love history.

After the last pirate had been put to bed, my mother and I filed Halloween Reports with each other. My parents live on a dead-end, and are always very disheartened by the paucity of trick-or-treaters. She writes:

The report from South Orange is that we had a total of only 18 trick or treaters, so I have quite a lot of pretzels and snack size bars left over.

My mother is the kind of woman who gives out small, appropriately festive bags of mini pretzels on Halloween. And I am a Puritan when everyone else is a nurse but a sexy nurse! It follows.

It was mostly our usual crowd except that none of the boys from up the street participated. Emily Schnorr, who is as tall as you, had a large group of female friends with her, and there was a separate group of three (much shorter) males who must have been somehow associated with her (or hoping to be) because one of the latter was juggling his cell phone and rubber ghost mask, reporting to his parental figure that he was currently “on Emily’s street,” as he struggled to simultaneously open his pillowcase for the chocolate and dreaded pretzels.

She has, at least, moved on to chocolate and pretzels. This is a huge improvement even though it did not come in time to rescue me from prepubescent humiliation. I once told my mother that I was sure “embarrassment” was the first emotion I ever felt. I think her following reminiscence confirms this:

I thought about Halloweens past with not much nostalgia because I loathe Halloween and always have, but one memory surfaced: my total disconnect with the parental zeitgeist during your kindergarten year when I sent you to school without your costume (you HAD one, a homemade Tinkerbell affair — I just didn’t realize kids would wear them to school). I really regret that, and am still SO sorry.

Wrangler Jeans? Why wouldn’t you wear Wrangler Jeans?!

My father and mother share an email account. He seems to have been worried about feeling left out, and so at 8:30am this morning filed a rejoinder:

I remember the year I went around with you dressed as a cowboy. I think I did that once in each neighborhood.

We lived in a few neighborhoods, each one safer than the last, and it’s likely my father was not exactly necessary by the end. Also, he dresses like a cowboy every day. I have owned Wrangler Jeans since I was in sixth grade. He concludes:

I also remember eating left over pumpkin shaped pretzels for snacks on New Year’s Eve.