Boo

In a couple of days, the small person in our house will go trick-or-treating for the first time. I trust he won't be terrified.

Halloween has lost some of its creepiness as more and more people have turned it into the year's second-biggest excuse to decorate their homes (Christmas being the first). I'm still amazed at the light displays and inflatable pumpkins, ghosts, witches, etc., I see as I drive around my town.

In my own trick-or-treating days, I'd go from house to house with one of my big brothers, taking care not to go to the scary ones. Like the house where an ancient man, known for his bone-rattling cough, would sit on his porch all day and sneer at passersby. Or the one where the lady of the house was rumored to be insane.

Later in the evening, vandals would come out and go on a pumpkin-smashing spree. One unusually balmy Halloween night found my brothers and me sitting on our front porch, eating candy and guarding our pumpkins long after the street had grown quiet. Unlike some neighbors' pumpkins, ours would live to see another day.

Now I live on a country road where the worst Halloween vandalism we've ever experienced was the time someone turned our pumpkin upside down. And though we don't get many trick-or-treaters out here, we still plan to stock up on miniature candy bars and carve a pumpkin.

On Saturday evening, we'll set our pumpkin out on the front stoop, light the candle inside it -- and trust that no one will sneak up when we're not looking and turn it upside down.

364 days and counting (Or, why I've started a second blog)

Yesterday marked the end of my 59th year on the planet. That makes today the first day of the year-long slog toward my 60th birthday. I intend to A) get there and B) get there in better shape -- physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually -- than I am today. I have my work cut out for me.

As part of that commitment to myself and to what I hope will be a better year, I'm starting a new blog, my second on blogspot.com. I considered naming it "On the road to geezer-hood" but decided "Pushing 60" was a kinder, gentler way to refer to the year ahead of me -- and any of you who are approaching that birthday. You can find it at www.pushing-60.blogspot.com.

I plan to post a brief message to the blog each day about my successes (and failures) along the way in the hope that you might find something useful there. If not, it should be good for a laugh or two. The last thing I want to do at this stage of my life is start taking myself too seriously.

Feel free to use the new blog to share your own ideas on this next decade of life. Getting older may not be the easiest thing we'll ever do, but we don't have to do it alone.

Gridlock

From a distance it looked as if there must have been a pretty nasty accident at the busy intersection up ahead. I could see flashing lights and lines of backed-up cars.

It wasn't until I'd almost reached the intersection that I saw what was going on: Some elementary school students, with an assist from the local police, were crossing a four-lane parkway after a field trip to a nearby fire station.

Shepherded by teachers and parents, the children walked two-by-two, holding hands, in the brisk morning air. And for a moment, those of us in our cars, those of us in a hurry, could only wait and watch -- and maybe, in that moment, remember how much simpler life used to be.

Of pancakes and fire trucks

The pancake-breakfast fundraiser at our local fire station has become a biannual ritual, and not just because of the great deal on the filling food.

As soon as the small person in my life catches sight of the uber-sized ladder truck parked outside the station, the excitement level in the car goes through the roof. He could spend the entire day checking out the trucks and other equipment and still be ready for more.

Best of all are the people who make that station work, not just during pancake breakfasts but day in and day out -- and all through the night. Most of those people are volunteers, and their devotion to their work is palpable. You can see the pride in their faces as they show off the latest piece of firefighting equipment -- even when the audience of the moment is made up largely of little kids.

I grew up in a small city with an all-professional fire department. When I first moved to upstate New York I was surprised at how many of the fire departments were staffed by volunteers. And, I admit, I was a little uncomfortable with the idea. Not anymore. And not just because they make some mean pancakes.

Thanks to every one of them for helping to keep my family, my community, safe.

Forecast from hell

The man in line ahead of me at the market yesterday was glued to the little TV monitor that's permanently tuned to The Weather Channel.

Me? I was in my late-afternoon stupor, waiting for the people ahead of me to cash out and leave.

A single word from the TV monitor woke me from my daydream: snow.

Say what?

"Here we go," sighed the man in front of me. "You watch. One day soon the north country's gonna get clobbered. It's gonna be one of those years. I can just feel it."

I went into denial mode. Snow? On Oct. 15? It couldn't be. For crying out loud, there was a robin in our pine tree this morning.

But then, en route to the grandchild's day care center this morning, I saw it: tiny white flakes hitting my windshield.

Now I hear that we're under a winter storm watch for the next day and a half.

This is someone's idea of a sick joke, right?

Right?

Well, shut my mouth ...

People sometimes ask me why I live out in the country (or, as my children used to say, in the wilderness). I wish they could see what I'm seeing right now: sunshine turning already beautifully colored leaves into stained-glass-brilliant reds and golds.

It's "peak weekend" in my corner of upstate New York, where you can find people walking and driving around slack-jawed and speechless as they take in the show the maples and other hardwoods put on this time of year.

I need go no further than any window in my house to see what they're seeing. I am surrounded by hillsides that, at any given time of year, make me feel as if I am indeed far from civilization -- when, in fact, the nearest grocery store is only a 10-minute drive away. I have, as they say, the best of both worlds.

And yet ... I felt a pang of jealousy earlier today as I drove atop a nearby hill on my way home from church. There's a lovely house with a view of the Susquehanna River valley that would take your breath away on any given day. This day, though, I found myself wondering how the people lucky enough to live there manage to tear themselves away from their windows to do whatever else the day demands of them. They could sell tickets to that view and probably make enough to pay their heating bill for the next few months.

Now, back home and working at my dining room table, I pause every few minutes to peak at the hill to the east of my house to see which trees are catching the sunlight at the moment. In a while, I'll rouse the dog and take her for a walk down the road for another chance to drink it all in before the colors fade, the leaves drop and, all too soon, the curtain falls on this show of shows.

Tribute

She's a cashier at a supermarket, and I do not know her name.

In fact, if she hadn't had to ask a co-worker to check the price of an item I was buying, we might have exchanged no more than a few words.

But there we were, killing time, and we struck up a conversation.

She'd been having a rough day. And it was far from over.

I asked how much longer she had before the end of her shift.

Five more hours, she said. Then, after being on her feet at the store all day, she'd have to get her baby ready for bed. With her husband in the military, she was facing a long evening alone.

I wished her well and left the store, wondering how many other military spouses would go home that evening to a child -- or children -- who needed to be fed, read to and put to bed at the end of what might have been a long day.

The sacrifices of these wives and husbands, left behind to hold their families together on their own, don't get the recognition they should. This is one small attempt to right that wrong.

What, me worry?

A friend who, like me, has a child in her mid-20s posed a question the other day that's been nagging at me for some time: When does parenting end?

The short answer? It doesn't.

I figured it wouldn't help to tell my friend about my 97-year-old mother's world-class ability to worry about her five offspring. Her latest obsession is my older brother's decision, made decades ago, to stop going to church. She has made it her personal mission to pray him back to the fold. Good luck with that one, Mom.

Worrying is like a muscle: The more it's used, the stronger it gets. And who worries more -- or better -- than parents?

We wake up in the middle of the night to check on our babies and make sure they're still breathing.

We fret over any hint that they might not be developing at the same speed as the baby next door. (What's that? You say your little girl STILL hasn't taken her first step? Why, just the other day our little Gloria climbed the stairs ALL BY HERSELF!)

We worry that our kids will continue to cry long after we leave them at day care, when, in fact, they forget about us five minutes after we say goodbye.

We lose sleep over their first report cards (What is WRONG with that teacher?) and examine every new tooth as it comes in, wondering how we'll ever pay for braces.

Then one day they're adolescents and we find ourselves longing for the good old days when diaper rash was their biggest problem.

My children gave me plenty of opportunity to exercise my worry muscle. I found solace in sharing my concerns with parents in the same boat. It took awhile, and a lot of talking and sharing, to realize that worrying wasn't getting me anywhere but depressed. It wasn't changing anything either.

And that's the trap we worriers set for ourselves. All the time we spend worrying saps us of the energy we need to think clearly and decide how to respond, not just react, to the troubles our children get into. Once we figure out how to do that, we can begin to let go, stop trying to solve our children's problems for them -- and let them grow up. The feeling of release you get when you reach that point is beyond belief. You sleep better, too.

When does parenting end? I hope it never does -- at least, not completely. I want my grown children to see in me someone they can turn to for advice, someone willing to listen when they just need to vent.

Now, if they'd just go to church ...

Fall-out

It's a yin-yang time of year.

One morning brings the mournful honking of Canada geese heading south, which for those of us who call upstate New York home is a certain sign that cold weather is coming. But that same day also brings a bluebird sighting, a bit of winged evidence that while it may be getting colder, it isn't winter yet.

As the sun continues to set earlier and rise later, I find myself feeling grateful every time I hear a robin in the pine tree near my front door, grateful for every remaining blossom on my rose bushes, grateful for the feel of the soil in my hands as I plunge tulip bulbs packed with the promise of spring into their new home.

Seasons change, and if you're lucky enough to live in a place where you can see and feel that change, you know that as winter follows fall, spring will conquer winter and the days will, in time, grow longer.

For now, we'll just have to accept the dark days, safe in the knowledge that they can't last forever.