This week’s Spin Cycle topic is Halloween.
This is a picture of my friend, Debbie, and I. We don’t really look like this, although there are days when I fell pretty darn close to it. She and her husband came to visit us last October, and we had fun wearing these masks while we rode around town and waved at folks out the window.
I know. Sad what amuses us old women, isn’t it?
My dear Grandmama Gladys passed away last year on October 23, the week after this photo was taken. She was a prolific writer. She wrote poetry and her life story, which I love to use whenever I just don’t have time to be original highlight every now and then.
I also have another blog, which is dedicated to her. It’s called The Rock of Gibraltar. I know she would have loved blogging, if only the internet had been invented a few decades sooner!
When she was in her 90’s, she wrote a new poem every month for her community news letter. Even at her advanced age, she was a stickler for making sure her work was “just so”. I can’t begin to tell you how many times my mother, who served, among other duties, as her typist, was told to redo the whole poem, because Grandmama had discovered a typo!
This is one of her poems she wrote for the newsletter. Since I can’t hold a candle to a ninety-something woman have to work all weekend, I’m going to let Grandmama fill in for me.
OCTOBER DAYS
Winter is coming – its getting cold.
Pumpkins are turning reddish-gold.
And on this colorful October day
Yellow and gold are on display.
It is a wonderful sight
Pumpkins are waiting for candle lights.
And when the children pick one out,
This is it, they always shout!
Pumpkin pie and whipped cream
Are many folks fondest dream.
But children would rather have in place
A silly cut-out pumpkins face.
Halloween comes at last
And at the door with gruesome masks
Are goblins, witches and ghostly things
And “trick or treat” a familiar ring.
This brings memories of the past
But childhood days never last.
We are older and already gray
Giving all the treats away.
Age brings a new kind of joy
Watching the happiness of girls and boys.
Gladys Parker
October 2002
When Ginger snaps..... 
Wow, sounds like quite a lady!
Happy Halloween.
She really was. Thanks Maureen and Happy Halloween to you too!
LOVE the poem. Just love it. I think I’ve said this before, but oh I wish I could have met your grandma Gladys.
And I would have be SO out there driving around in a mask with you.
Jan, you have said it – but I never get tired of hearing it! 🙂 In a way, you are “meeting” her when you read her words. And I ‘m sure you would have fit right in with us two idiots!
A very lovely poem indeed! Your grandma sounds delightful and what a blessing you had someone like her in your life.
Driving around town like that would be so much fun!
Thanks Lori. She was probably the biggest influence in my life. And I was SO blessed to have been her grand daughter!
I love her poems!
They’re so innocent yet clever, every time I read one, I feel like I somehow know her.
You’re linked!
What a lovely tribute to your Grandmama.
I wish we had come back down this October … we could have found some new masks at the Halloween store … and maybe this time I wouldn’t have been ready to collapse!
I’m so happy I got to meet your Grandma that trip. *blows kiss up to Heaven for Grandma*
I wish y’all had come down too. Only problem is, we went to NY on our seven day break. We were both kind of hoping we wouldn’t get the plane, so we could stop by and see y’all again! Jeff said, “Well I know I still have a bottle of scotch waiting for me at Kirk’s!”
I’m happy you got to meet Grandmama too Maybe you were feeling bad that day for a reason? So we would go to the nursing home instead of taking off early to parts unknown!
Seriously though – we need to plan to get together again soon. Here, there, or in the mountains! *Love you*