Minutes to Memories

I trust everyone thoroughly enjoyed the Columbus Day activities in your respective home towns. Columbus Day brings back such fond memories: long lost family members returning home in cars tastefully decorated to resemble the Pinta, extravagant parades on Main Street with the grand marshal dressed like an ancient Haitian “Indian,” school kids in a heated Christopher Columbus look-alike pageant, neighbors gathered together for a stirring rendition of the timeless hymn, “O Columbus, Thou Sailor Of Round Worlds,” all topped off by a breathtaking fireworks display. Oh, the memories…

Kidding, of course. Is this really still a holiday?

It must be. My banker had his shutter down, and my postal carrier did not leave her FEMA trailer today. It must be Columbus Day, that holiday that no one remembers until their bank is closed and the mail doesn’t run.

Everyone knows there’s really only one holiday in October, and it is not in celebration of that famed explorer who bumped into Haiti, established the capitol of Ohio, misnamed the “Indians,” and in so doing discovered a whole new side of the world. The only holiday that matters in October is Halloween, the devil’s day.

I shouldn’t have made that last statement. I know I’m running the risk of opening a touchy subject for some folks, and those are risks I probably shouldn’t take. To me, despite its original intentions, Halloween has always been a harmless day for kids – a day for candy and dressing up and having fun, all the while jesting of the darker elements of the world as the year literally grows darker itself.

So thanks to my friend, Big Dave, and his advice to get a memory card reader, I’ll show you a picture of the “scary” front to our house now, all of which involved a mother and nine-year-old daughter having a blast together. They did good work if you ask me…

And if it offends to many people, next year we’ll decorate our house like the Santa Maria.