Woodrow Wilson once famously said, "If you want to make enemies, try to change something." Whatever controversy caused Wilson to utter that statement, I'm fairly certain it couldn't hold a jack-o-lantern to the heat town officials took during this year's "do we postpone trick-or-treating due to weather" kerfuffle. Let's face it, General Eisenhower took less flak for postponing D-Day for 24 hours due to bad weather. (The Boxford Facebook pages haven't been that lit since the Russians tried to rig the town's vote on a new library several years ago. Kidding! Too soon?) But now that the dust has settled, allow me to tip my hat to three people who made my kids' Halloween much better this year.
1. The Selectmen who changed trick-or-treating to Saturday. Don't let anybody tell you any different, you did the right thing. My kids trick-or-treated in Shrewsbury on October 31st, and it was wet ,windy, and miserable. By contrast, November 2nd in Boxford was cool, calm, and wonderful. And while the weather wasn't as bad in Boxford on the 31st as predicted, a road in Bedford had to be closed that night due to a fallen tree, and a house in Douglas was split in two by a tree as well. The weather was much more trick that night than treat, and what was the point of risking it? Thank you, and I hope you aren't all voted out of office in the next election.
2. The lady on Porter Road who was handing out Choco-Pies! When was the last time you had a Choco-Pie? For my kids the answer is never, and they were as excited about getting those Choco-pies as they were about any full-sized candy bar they got that night. I bet there was no one else in the entire Commonwealth giving out Choco-pies, but my kids got to trick-or-treat at that house was, and they were elated. Looking back on it, I actually feel a little guilty that my wife and I ate those Choco-pies after we put the kids to bed that night. Ah well, there's always next year kids.
3. L. Frank Baum. My kids hadn't seen the Wizard of Oz until this summer, but the second they watched it, they knew they wanted to trick-or-treat as characters from that movie. In particular, my five-year-old son Owen was locked in on wanting to be a flying monkey, and so he was. Sure enough, he rang the doorbell at one house that had a Wicked Witch pumpkin out front, and a guy opened the door and blurted out, "that's the coolest flying monkey I've ever seen!" My son has reminded me of that guy's comment at least fifty times since last Saturday, and this week Owen took out his first book from the school library this Monday. Sure enough, it was a copy of L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz". Maybe I'll buy some Choco-pies for when we sit down to read it together later this week.
-VB