Don’t Be a Weenie at Halloweenie
An Invitation to tell your NON-SCARY Halloween stories although this title is NOT the PROMPT, Roy!!!
When I find a writer I enjoy reading, I usually go to their page and work my way back to their first post, or start from their first post and read everything they have written since then. This used to be true before I began writing such long hours that I have to set aside a “Reading Only” day, usually when my feet are swollen from sitting at the desk, or my butt is numb from taking not enough tea/bathroom/tea/tv/tea breaks.
The exceptions to this rule is my Quad Squad. I try to keep up with everything Harper Thorpe & Mark Starlin & Jack Herlocker & Roy (with now new honorary member Guérin Asante and MIA member Zev) put into the world. I have been most consistent with Roy and his skeleton alter ego these past few months, scrolling through gazillions of his stories each night to get to the next one on the list. This has become a nightly ritual. It’s almost always really late, and I am usually punch drunk with fatigue. My filters, never too stringent to begin with, are at an even lower bar and most times I leave long rambling stories of my own in his comments. So far, he doesn’t seem to have minded.
For my opening salvo, I am posting this true story: about Halloween in the small rural Midwest town I lived in for 15 years, until I was able to break free, walk through miles of sewage, and stand shirtless in the cleansing rain before collecting a million dollars from several banks and drive away to Zihuatenejo, Mexico…oh wait, that was Andy Dufresne*. Well, it felt a lot like that was me. But celebrating Halloween in that town was what saved my sanity.
I left the following story as a comment on Roy’s Scare Tactics from last year.
Halloween used to be my favorite holiday after I became a mom. But not the scary stuff…the cute stuff like homemade capes and costumes from window drapes a la Carol Burnett for my kids…old Elvis in white jumpsuit, poodle skirts, lil cowboys, all the non-Avenger hero guys: Bat, Super, but not Aqua.
This will prolly turn into an essay, too, but what the hey. And it did.
From 1991–2005 the wrap around porch of my house would be covered in tattered nylon sheers blowing in the fall wind of rural Illinois, scaring anyone walking there after school, surrounded by cornfields. I sat in the small front porch in costume regalia. Everyone from babies to 8th graders automatically got candy. But to get the really good loot (Beanie Babies, Troll dolls, full bars of chocolate) you had to perform in our driveway: dance, sing, tell a joke, ask a riddle, tumble, whatever. The first year, the line of kids pushing their parents out of the way to keep their place wrapped around the house.
By the second year, the line of kids and their parents circled around the block. Kids would come in groups to do skits, stand-up, and band bits, every year getting more elaborate. Sometimes with no expectation of being rewarded at all. Attention hounds who have all probably grown up to become actors or politicians. I went back to our old town 4–5 years later, was sitting in the SHS Band room with the teachers when a skinny junior kept peeping in from behind the glass door of the adjacent space, putting brass away in the instrument storage room. Finally, Mr. McCoy called him in.
Said the boy sheepishly, Mrs. K, I don’t know if you remember me, but I used to come to your house every year for Halloween in elementary school with a toy trumpet, and then I took up trumpet in band in 4th grade and played it for you. It was the most fun I had every year. And now I’m first chair horn in the state band.
You never know what impact you may unknowingly have on someone impressionable, so always be on your best behavior and carry Kleenex when you meet them as adults. ~ The.End.
**If you don’t know Andy Dufresne, please look him up. He’s a good guy.
This is an open invitation to everyone who took part in the Why I’m Here series, as well as the Never-Have-I-Ever impromptu game to share a Halloween story from their own lives, or the life of someone they know. Sweet. Funny. Lighthearted, to lighten the hearts of our readers. No fiction! Nothing SCARY!! I mean it…this is Good News Daily, not The Good Place where every character is not what they seem…never mind, wrong reference.
Roy, Harper, Jack, James, Mark, Daphelba DeBeauvoir, Bonnie Flach Dennett Guérin Asante, Sam Kimberle, Linda Caroll, Kay Bolden, Tre L. Loadholt, Jane Vogel, Dana Sanford, Ré Harris, Jenny Justice, Annie Caldwell, Shringi Kumari, A Maguire, Julia Kantic, Zarina Dara 🥀💃🏻, Susan Brearley Kathy
If you did not write for those wonderful non-prompts, I insist you rectify this error immediately by sending in a story. Each person may submit up to four shorty short stories, one-a-week. We are letting down our hair and allowing people to just shout out ADD ME right in the comments instead of via email, and sending their draft in to Good News Daily directly once they are added.
Tracy Aston, Chris Drew, Wild Flower, Justin Deming, Sherry Kappel, Pamela Edwards, Terijo, Farida Haque, Joe Váradi, Meg, Harry Hogg, Nicholas, DiAmaya Dawn, Charlotte Franklin, Mike Range, Anna I. Smith, Stephen M. Tomic, J. Brandon Lowry, emma poe, Gail Boenning, Noe, Slk.🎈, Jack Preston King, Jef Littlejohn, edh lamport, Benjamin Davis, Mary Holden, Indira Reddy, Gwen Saoirse, Elizabeth Helmich, BFoundAPen, Roz Liddle, Adam, Diabetic Cyborg, johnronand,
For those not on the roster yet, the invitation goes out with a cherry on top. Ashley Evenson, Michael Stang, Deborah Christensen, Christina Ward 🌼, Rebeca Ansar, Jun Wu
Anyone living in a clime where Halloween is not a big deal, but other celebrations are held, tell us your stories about them. Asia, Africa, Antartica! Any county, country, continent!! Any planet, galaxy, solar system!!!
Michelle Monet, Ramona Grigg, Ecem Yucel, Anna Rozwadowska, Maymuuna Bart Elbey, Jenise Cook, Eliot North, ShaRhonda, Christy Kimmerly, Heidi Franklin, Christopher Bellkirk
If we don’t know you yet, but you would like to change that, jump right in! If you prefer we don’t tag you in the future, or reach out in any way, please let us know. Because no one likes someone uninvited knocking on their door repeatedly. Peace.
