He was an expert at carving pumpkins. Each Halloween he carved the most original face then lit it up aglow with candles. One year he fell in love with an Oriental girl who owned the most beautiful dark eyes. Sure enough her face was engraved on his pumpkin that year. Each year he created a new series of pumpkins.
One year he bought the biggest pumpkin "HUGE" then cabbed it to his home and scooped it out filling it with a platora of candles. He spared no expense for his baby beluga. It was a beauty. I stood in his driveway and kept pace with his annimated story of how it came to be. I recalled a lanky kid of 3 ft tall showing up at my door wearing a foil made tele when all the other kids had store bought costumes. His favorite one was a bumble bee costume that outgrew him. Still he managed to fit in each year though busting at the seams. "You know my mom made this."he'd exclaim proudly.
He was a genius IQ 180, compliments of his brainy dad who abandoned him and mom when he was little. Inside lived a child who was unravaged by time and change. Mom suffered from Mysophobia(fear of germs) She only came out at night to protect herself from the sun. He was an unusual boy that lived across the street from us. Each Halloween he'd show up at my door with a white paper towel toppling with wet pumpkins seeds.
"I know how much you like to roast these" he'd say, then walk away with a quick shuffle leaving me smiling on the front porch. I rarely think of him these days. That is until I spot a gray haired once ravened lady driving ever so slowly, out of the community with a1970 Mazda still functioning from disuse. She snails round the corner wearing a makeshift mask and plastic gloves for protect herself from the steering wheel. A smile escapes as I recall Michael's visits and I wonder if he still owns the hand sewn costume, that bumblebee felted costume that came around each year for trick o treat.
No doubt there are a multitude of stories and characters that surround the famous, sometimes infamous, holiday of Halloween. How I remember it well, the dressing up, the costumes, the shopping bag full of candy that would last until Christmas when we kids would stock up again on supplies that would take us into the Springtime.
I'm so ancient, we didn't even dress up for Halloween or trick-or-treating. But we did celebrate and ate too much candy.
Very interesting fellow and his mother. I had a friend in school who has a high IQ and was always surprising us with one thing or another. His mother was also an eccentric and his father was a tinkerer who had a radio shop and could fix almost anything.
Timeless wisdom and advice on the art of living for today’s young and old: The art of thinking, the art of loving, the art of working, the art of leadership, the art of growing old.
A new translation by Sergio E. Serrano of this inspirationa
