GLIMPSE: Once a hobo, now a farmer.

Never did I get asked, "What do you want to be this year?" Each year as a child, when Halloween came a-knockin', I was issued the standard "hobo" outfit. No cool plastic Heman mask, no dangerous pirate sword, no trip to K-mart to meander down the aisles of store bought costume mania humming and hawing, ooh-ing and ahh-ing, over what I would parade through the streets wearing on the eve of the great candy fest. Until I was in middle school, I was handed one of my dad's old flannel shirts, a stick with a sack made out of an old pillow case fastened to one end, and told to go grab some charcoal briquettes to smudge on my face. Seriously. I vividly remember going into the garage, locating the white and blue bag of Kingsford charcoal, and smearing it all over my mug. Without fail, each year my "costume" had a terrible plight: it was the product of a mother who despised October 31st.

Needless to say, there wasn't much anticipation when a new Halloween dawned. I knew the routine. And I followed it as I didn't have any other options (as mom hates Halloween). But inside... inside there was always this longing, this want to have the coolest costume, to wear something new, to be surrounded by a flurry of excitement when the big night finally arrived and I had it, the most fantastic, most glorious, most outrageous costume to score the most fantastic candy.
The years passed. I continued to get older, and the trick-or-treating days came to an end. But my love for the holiday has only grown, and left me with big ideas of over the top costumes, and gigantic, regal, orange pumpkins, and spooky parties, and... excitement. I've gotten a little taste of Halloween as a parent; we've made a pact to go to Bate's Nut Farm annually in search of the most ginormous pumpkin, we've created original costumes (last year, Olivia was a tutu-wearing, flower toting skunk), and we've partied it up on a mini-scale (as she was only, uh, one). And visions of no, not sugar plums, but candy corn continue to dance in my head...

Averaging about ten pumpkins annually for our Halloween spooktaculars, I've learned with all the pumpkin carving over these last few years that in order to make one menacing jack-o-lantern, you need a good flat face. So I am opting to grow my own. Yes, folks, just call me Farmer Dan, for out behind them there corn fields is a pumpkin patch. Well, not really, as my "patch" consists of two entangled vines growing on the side of my house, but they still need to be tended to and watered in hopes of being able to say, "Oh yeah, that big one, I grew it myself." We'll still go to Bate's for the sake of Olivia's childhood memories, but the pumpkins I'm growing are for the sake of my own.

I'm sure as Halloween continues to creep up, there will be more updates of my pumpkins' progress and Halloween in general. Oriental Trading company, Pottery Barn kids, Party City, ya'll better be watching out. My debit card is a-comin' in honor of all those kids who had to be hobos (or hippies!) each and every Halloween. And this year, when you see the decked out house on your block with the hairy spiders, the wispy webs, the gravestones and skeletons... you'll know who we are.

What will she be this year? Only time will tell...