Halloween

This is a story that I’ve only shared with my close family members and it was both painful and joyful to write. I hope you enjoy it.

My father was a good man but he had his downfalls, just like everyone else. Since his death, I have learned more about him than I did in life and I don't forget but I do forgive. He was the type of man that was one way, his way, or the highway. I have heard most people say the same thing about their fathers and, I guess, in a lot of ways it's true and, then again, it's not really true in other ways. The one thing that I wish he had never said to me was that I was stupid. Not for my sake but that of my daughter (who just graduated from college and is continuing her higher education, I'm so proud of her!!!xoxox) and my grandchildren. I have fought hard not to say that word to them but it was imbedded in my brain. I try to stop myself when I use it and say they are not stupid, it is what they did that was stupid and that they are as smart as they want to be. I will tell them why I really use that word when they are old enough to understand the whole explanation. Their Great Grandfather got most of his parenting skills in the fields where you worked or you were punished, because what was made in the field kept the family going through the coming winter.

The life that my father led was normal for most of our parents for the late 30's up to the 50's. They were in their early twenties when we came along. Not much of a break to find out who you really were, was it? I proudly tell people that I started working when I was 13 and I haven't stopped yet. Kind of hollow, don't you think, when you look at what had to be done on the farm in the 30’s and 40’s in Mississippi. Even if you played sports, you still had to come home after and do your chores after the game. The schools in those days stopped when it was harvest time and at the end of school for planting time and the children had to help. Some schools today are talking about running all year long, oh, that was intermission, now back to my original story.

Harvest time is the time that we celebrate Halloween, All Hallows Eve, when witches and goblins come out and, speaking of which, this is the gist of my story. My Father had worked a long day at the refinery and came home tired and frustrated. He had gone out to get my brother and me Halloween costumes, late as usual, so there would be very few pickin’s in the store at that time. He bought my brother what I remember to be a cowboy costume and for me, what was it, oh my goodness, it was a witch’s costume. I'm a little boy, what was he thinking!! This had to be a joke, but it wasn't. He tried to force me to wear it. Can't you just imagine it, a little preschool boy that had been teased about his curly hair and called a little girl all his life (till he got big enough to frighten the other boys), in his fruit of the looms having a tantrum yelling that he would not go out dressed like a little girl in a skirt, even if it was a witches skirt. (I've always had a fascination for witches ever since, even my wife has two different colored eyes). I broke away, ran to my room, flopped down on my bed and cried myself to sleep. This was the worst Halloween ever. The next morning when I got up, outside my bedroom door I found a bag of trick or treat candy.

 

I never found out if it was my father or my brother that did that for me (or maybe my mother), but I like to think it was my big brother. Even if we never got along that much, I have always looked up to him and been proud of him and loved him. We were over 5 years apart and the times had changed so dramatically by the time I grew up. A little brother will always need his big brother. Now that I am an adult, I look back and feel like I understand my father a little bit more. He was a good man and I loved him too. We never seemed to see eye to eye either, but I know that he loved me and, just maybe, he didn’t know how to show it.