Some Years Ago on Halloween

 Some years ago on Halloween 
       by Douglas M B Reimer

Some years ago on Halloween eve in La Riviere, at a time of year when one could reasonably expect to find snow, or at least cold weather, I remember how warm it was. My grandsons, Johnny and Nicholas, their father, Jeremy, and I walked around town in shirtsleeves knocking on doors and getting treats (the boys knocked at the doors while we men stood on the sidewalk). I remember then being so amazed that it didn’t feel cold at all but instead got warm enough to make me want to take off my light jacket. Little Johnny had painted his face with moustache and little beard in black, and he had his eyes blackened with mascara. He was so excited that he ran ahead of us inevitably. We asked him to stay with the group but no matter how often we coaxed he was too excited and jumped ahead each time. Of course when they got home with their loot bags bulging their mother hid most of the sweet stuff, promising to dole it out during the year. 
     And that reminds me somehow that my father, in the 50s, 60s and 70s, correction, 50s, 60s and some years before that, probably, had at this time of the year always been starting to prepare for one of his favourite little holidays. November 11, which happens to be my grandson Nicholas‘s birthday, was the one day a year that father would go deer hunting. Early morning, long before light, he would get his white overalls ready, his thermos of hot coffee, his buns and farmer sausage, some old cheese and possibly a Pepsi or two. His lever action Winchester 30/30, which he kept somewhere in the house without a case, he had had for as long as I’d been alive. Once, before he could afford the Winchester and had only his Marlin repeating 22, he Shot a deer from a great distance. The way he said it happened was this way. He had been sitting, leaning against his favourite two birch trees, waiting at the junction of two ravines. When a couple of deer eventually came down one of them and stopped, he realized it was too far, much too far, for him to get off any kind of an accurate shot. Without debating too long he decided to and did take aim and fire. To his complete surprise, the animal dropped in its tracks, a distance of some 200 yards, and downhill at that. When he went down to inspect he realized that his bullet had broken it’s backbone.    
     One more little story about the Halloween time of year. When I was about 16, my friends and myself drove to our neighbouring town, Gretna, and unwisely threw balloons full of water from the car window at any person we passed, although not at little children. It wasn’t too long before the police, hearing from complaining constituents that they had been soaked by people in that purple 51 Pontiac, caught up to us and unceremoniously saw us out of town. We felt lucky, we felt brave, we felt excited and joyful that this had been a wonderful, wonderful Halloween evening. Looking back, I marvel at the fact that I wasn’t smart enough to realize that this was not as wonderful as we thought but really rather stupid and foolish. There are more Halloween stories I could tell you, some of them harmless, some of them funny, one or two of them impudent and naughty. I will leave those for another occasion.