Small Town America: Halloweentown

A total home reno. Oh, the horror. Hi, Pete!

I live in an Irish town, and let me clarify once again: not "Irish-American", but an actual hamlet that's predominantly 1st generation "off the boat", as they used to say, though now it's straight off the flight at JFK to Pearl River to the massive supermarket, with an Irish Foods section that's mostly tea, canned beans, and biscuits. I know, because I've seen the jet lagged Paddy wandering the massive store aisles with the same look of shell shock that I have when confronted with American excess. I also get it when I travel, though it's going across the pond in the other direction, with more crystal and wool sweater shopping involved. We have a shop for that here in town, too.

Wonder Woman!

There's been a recent interest in the spooky and supernatural in pop culture, what with teenage vampires and Sleepy Hollows that go bump in the night. Truthfully, the Hudson Valley has always been perfect for Halloween, because this is where the very traditions we celebrate as Americans began. Happy Samhain, Celts.

Yeah! I'm Batman, and you're SuperGirl!

Welcome to Halloweentown:

http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/halloweentown/.

Once Upon a Midnight Dreary...

 

Today's post is inspired by the ever-darkening gloom of Autumn that we have in the Northeast. It is a time when the day wanes early, the nights turn stormy, and those among us who are not of our stock turn to their various "Club Meds" seeking solace.

Because here in the Land of the North, winter is always coming, a time that separates the boys from the men. We celebrate the holidays from The Old World in the same climate from whence they sprang.

In the swirling mists of our nights, there is a sense of spirits lurking around dark corners, casting long shadows. No one narrates those tales better than the voice of The Dark Lord, James Earl Jones. 

I once read aloud tales by Edgar Allen Poe on Hallow's Eve at midnight on a graveyards' hillside that overlooks the same vistas in Providence that inspired him. The night was so thick it coated every surface in the same ebon hues that tinted his very vision hundreds of years prior.

While the mists danced on the cobblestone streets, we lost a sense of time between then and now. I didn't see any ghostly white specters like in the movies, but I felt his heartbeat and heard his footsteps as we trod the very same streets he wrote about, our footsteps echoing in the night, our hearts hammering in our chests.

Halloween is almost here.