Whoosh! Here and gone!
NORTHERN NEWS
by Maxine Deeter
That kind of describes our first winter snow of the season. One day there is three or four inches of white fluffy on the ground and two days later it is blue skies and “let’s go for a walk in the warm sun.”
The only reminder of the snow and cold is the mud left behind. It just indicates we’ve received some much-needed moisture.
Halloween has also come and gone with a quick “whoosh”. You could not ask for a more perfect day weather-wise than what we had this year. Things all got underway at the scheduled witching hour of 5 LST, which elsewhere would be 5:15 p.m. All kinds of mysterious creatures converged on the Community Center.
First on the agenda was – as always – is the costume contest. The preschoolers go first. Let me say, I’ve not seen this cute a bunch of critters in a long time. There were bugs and turtles and princesses (that seems to be the most popular costume for the little girls). There were characters from the Wizard of Oz, one of Santa’s elves and lots of hairy and scary creatures.
The winners are: Preschool, 1st – Kayme “the pirate” Freestone, 2nd – Shayden “the turtle” Freestone and 3rd – Berkken “the scarecrow” Swafford.
The K to 3rd grade group sorted out as, 1st – Chance “ghoul in black” Deeter, 2nd – Princess Tessa Jimenez, 3rd – Werewolf Crispin Johnson.
On to the 4th through 7th graders we have, 1st Pirate Sean Fuller, 2nd Skeleton Michael Powell and 3rd – the Karate Kid Dakota Johnson.
Last but not least the 7th grade and older folks, 1st – the ghoulish Derrick Powell, 2nd – the ghoulishly lovely Mikaela Hughes, and 3rd – vroom, vroom, motorcycle dude Nathan Fuller.
Lots of other folks showed up throughout the evening – some in some really cool costumes. They just made it too late to be in the contest. And as always, some show up wearing a get-up which you can’t really tell is a costume or just their regular apparel!
Prior to the convergence, parents had dropped off carved pumpkins for judging. I personally talked to the judge and she said it was a real hard task to pick a winner from each category. But, in her defense, it was a “blind” contest. No she isn’t blind – not entirely. She did not know the identity of the carvers.
Winners here are: preschoolers, Shayden Freestone, K-3rd Tyler (sorry I did not get a last name) and in the older group, Justise Robison. By the way, Shayden beat out her two sisters for the top prize. They were the only other contestants in that age-group. Since she is ten months old, I suspect she had some help from her dad!
Let the games begin! And they did. The kids made the rounds of the various carnival booths, garnering more and more goodies. They stopped now and then to gobble down a hot dog and chips or some nachos, which were being served by some goofy dude in a big fuzzy purple hat. I’d tell you what he called his hat but this is a family paper.
At 7 p.m., the festivities suddenly shifted to the out-of-doors for “Trunk or Treat” aka more sugary feeding frenzie. Then we all packed up and went home. The end.
The crowd was a little slimmer this year, probably due to folks heading to “town” for the old traditional “trick or treat” routine. Expect to see Halloween possibly shifted to a night other than October 31 next year, which is the normal routine in these parts. Well, especially since I think Halloween is on a Sunday next year.
As I rocked back in my easy chair after the festivities I heard a Kaboom in my neighborhood. I live next to some crazy guy who likes to blow things up. I suspect he talked one of his children into giving their Jack-O-Lantern a blazing send-off as an adios to Halloween. Crazy guy – hope he took of that big purple hat first!
Halloween is over, it must be time for the official Holiday season to soon be here.