Haunting Memories

So, I am not sure why fall tends to be everyone's favorite season. I hate the knowledge fall brings that winter is inevitably going to come again and that by February I will be begging spring to arrive. However, there is a nostalgia around fall that does not come with the other seasons. Sure you get nostalgic at Thanksgiving and Christmas and maybe some other holidays, but not through a whole season like fall. So, I do have to say it is probably my favorite season and that I have thoroughly enjoyed watching our neighbor's pumpkins grow (they gave us some!), the smell and feeling of crisp cool air in the evenings, etc.

The Halloween I think about every year would have to be the Halloween I was probably 5 or 6 years old. In Boise, we would go trick or treating at the elementary school and then around to our friends houses in the ward, which, not being Utah, our parents has to drive us around, ward boundaries being unwalkable. Anyway, we went to our bishop's house, it had a big front porch with a life sized scarecrow on a rocking chair. We went up to the door, my sister was in front of me and I was standing by my dad next to the scarecrow. I have no idea what we were dressed up as, almost every detail of that night was scared out of my poor young moldable brain. And As we were standing there, as my sister was knocking on the door, the scarecrow said "Hello, Charity". Scared me to death. I ran screaming off the porch. For the next few years, no matter how much my family tried, I could not comprehend that it was just Bishop Porter dressed up as the scarecrow. I refused to go trick or treating at his house for years and when I saw Bishop Porter 10+ years later visiting, it was a topic of conversation. Maybe this is why I hate scarecrows to this day. Very small and short Halloween memory, but it became securely planted in my young mind. 

I'm a wuss, It is easy to scare me. I probably shouldn't put this out there for everyone, but there it is. I think this is why I have always had a hard time with Halloween. I don't think I saw the scary rides at Lagoon (Terroride and Dracula's Castle) until I was married. Not that I didn't ride them, but my mom always told me that if you get scared, just close your eyes. So I did, for almost 20 years. Well, this year I am turning over a new leaf. A new red and yellow leaf, if you will. I let Chris decorate our front yard like a cemetary (works really well with our wrought iron fencing and lack of grass) and next week I am going to a haunted village. Pray for me.... ha ha, no, just cross your fingers I don't scar Chris with my nails digging into his skin...