The Essays
"It was a dark and stormy night . . . THE WORST HALLOWEEN OF MY LIFE!!"
I will always remember the Halloween of 1991. There is no place like Minnesota if you love the change of seasons, and fall is the best season of all. Every October, I put together the scarecrow that I had made myself out of a burlap bag, some old jeans, and a straw hat. I hung orange lights on the porch for trick-or-treaters and carved pumpkins to light the way up the steps to the door. This year was going to be the best Halloween ever, because my twin daughters were 5 years old, and they were so excited to go trick or treating. Because they loved the Disney movie "The Little Mermaid," I decided to surprise them by trying to sew two mermaid costumes. I went to the fabric store and found the most exquisite blue sparkly material for the fins, and bought some shiny coral material for the shell tops. I soon realized that the slinky material I had bought was not the easiest to work with. In fact, it was almost impossible to sew a seam without it getting snagged and tangled. Somehow, the night before Halloween, I had pieced together two somewhat recognizable mermaid tails and two sets of shell tops. I waited for their delighted smiles, but instead of being happy, the girls informed me that they did NOT want to wear those fins and shells because they did NOT look like the Little Mermaid in any way. That's when I broke down and started to cry. "I thought you would be so happy! I worked so hard on these!" I sobbed. Even though the girls were only 5 years old, they took pity on me and assured me that they would wear the costumes after all. Excitedly, I helped them put on their pale pink tights and leotards and then helped them slip on the tail and elasticized shell tops. In my eyes, at least, they looked beautiful! Off we went, candy bags in hand. The first thing we noticed was that it is mighty difficult to walk in a mermaid tail. The girls found they could not run from house to house, but instead had to take baby steps. They couldn't cover as much territory as they had hoped, but they trudged on. We had just reached the halfway mark on our long block when it began to rain hard. The wind was picking up too, and the girls were getting cold. After a few more houses, we had to turn back. By the time we got back to our house, the rain was turning to snow! We decided that the girls would instead go trick or treating as Eskimos -- in their snowsuits and winter boots! After we bundled up with layers of warm winter clothes, we headed back out into the snow. In no time the snow had covered the streets and yards. My scarecrow was hunched over from the rain and wind, looking miserable. The candles in the pumpkins had blown out and the festive groups of trick-or-treaters had disappeared. The toys in the back yard that I had not had time to put away were soon covered. Little did I know that we would not see those toys, or pumpkins, or anything else in the yard, until the following spring. As for the two Little Mermaids, it wasn't long before their favorite pajamas were two huge T-shirts that read: "I survived the Halloween Blizzard of 1991!"
Elizabeth Holman