I’ve discovered what I have in common with bears – we both get hungry in October. It could be that’s its colder, could be the vestigial impulses left over from caveman days, could be the decrease in sunshine from shorter days, could be the increase in opportunities to overeat, could be the impulses created from memories of fabulous fall meals. Whatever the reason, I’m going to have to temper it because vacation looms at the end of October, and it involves swimming suits. What was I thinking?
I don’t know why but October feels nostalgic to me. Maybe because Halloween was my mother’s favorite holiday. At our home the decorations would begin to appear in September. Mom had a taxidermy rattlesnake frozen in ready-to-strike pose that would be moved around the house so as to always catch you by surprise. She always baked witch finger cookies and mummy hotdogs, and one special night in October we would be treated to brain meatloaf. I remember like it was yesterday how excited she was when she discovered the idea for “Ghosts in the Graveyard,” concocted from crushed Oreos, Cool Whip, pudding, and gummy worms. She would make “ghosts” our of the Cool Whip on a cookie sheet and store them in the freezer until it was time to serve so that they would stand up and not flop over.
The small mid-west town I grew up in did not have a Christmas parade or a 4th of July parade, but we were well known for our Halloween parade. We actually had two Halloween parades, one for children in the afternoon and the big one in the evening, complete with floats and marching bands and Shriners on little motorcycles. I marched in the children’s parade as a small child and marched with the band in the ‘big’ parade in junior high and high school. What I remember the most, though, was attending as a spectator as an older teen. I had my first libation at one of these parades, a combination of hot chocolate and Peppermint Schnapps called a “Girl Scout Cookie.” I thought it was delicious and it went straight to my head, lending to the night a sense of wildness and unreality that I assumed was how grownups feel.
Memories are funny and decidedly selective, and nostalgia is largely why we don’t like sequels and tend to forget the pain of childbirth. We remember only the good things, and they are often distorted. The danger of nostalgia is that is creates an unrealistic image of life that no present reality can compare to. But the beauty is that it can reconnect you to your roots, to who you are, and that can feel like returning somewhere safe. Like my fall diet this year, everything in moderation!
—
Christina Pierce is the publisher at Hattiesburg Publishing, which produces The Pine Belt News and Signature Magazine.
