Because today is Halloween my thoughts naturally turn to the golden days when Nick and Natasha were small. Though they were born only nineteen months apart- Natasha being the prototypical older sister- they were light years apart on EVERYTHING else.
I won’t bother to waste my time and your eyesight on the list of things about which they violently disagreed. For brevity’s sake, just let’s say they only concurred upon three topics:
1. Homer’s strawberry ice cream. (They lost me there, pal. I am strictly a vanilla guy myself. Or peanut butter, if I can get it.)
2. Beinlich’s hamburgers.
3. Yann Beise. A boy with whom they went to boarding school. They both thought he was great.
That’s it.
EVERY other person, place or thing was up for debate. If she liked it, he’d hate it. And vice versa.
It made for constantly squabbling in the car, dissension at camp, and it’s finally manifested itself in frequent flier miles. She lives in Boston- loves that East Coast. He prefers Cali or Colorado. Detests the right side of the country.
It showed up in Halloween, too. As far back as I can remember, Natasha hated Halloween. She simply refused to dress in a costume. No fairy tale princess or ballerina tutu for her. Ever.
And woe be unto to them who tried to get her into one.
I have one photograph of Natasha- age three. ONE. In which my housekeeper had dressed her as a ballerina in a home-made crepe paper pink outfit. Her faced was painted like a china doll. And she looked precious.
(Or she would have- had not the baleful scowl on her face spoiled the overall Pavlova Swan Lake effect.)
Nick, on the other hand, was a clothes horse of an entirely different color. He loved the creativity and freedom that being someone else brought, and he looked forward to Halloween as a time when he could let his little freak flag fly.
He would always enlist my help, and together we would come up with some hot cultural pop icon of the moment that he could emulate.
In kindergarten, he brought the Avoca school house down dressed as Sonny Crockett from Miami Vice. Complete in every detail from the pastel tee shirt (borrowed from his sister for the occasion) powder blue sports jacket, loafers and no socks, candy cigarette clenched between his little teeth- and an Uzi.
(I would never try that accessory in a school these days. Sadly- before Laurie Dann, Columbine, or worse- Newtown, Connecticut- when five year old Nick brought the toy machine gun to school, it brought a smile. Not terror.)
Nick had his own unique approach to trick or treating as well.
When the kids were young we would troop around en masse- mothers and kids ringing local doorbells in a gang.
Then we would all adjourn to Indian Trail restaurant. (A Winnetka institution. Gone now. I will never get over the loss of its chicken kiev, chicken croquettes, turkey fricassee dinner and their great green goddess salad dressing.)
But before the group dinner, we would hit the local doorbells. All the kids knew the drill. They would expectantly shove their bags out and wait for the owner of the house to fill ’em up.
All the kids did this without fail – except little Nicky.
He would use the cover of darkness and the camouflage of the horde and then dart into the house as soon as the distracted owner would open the door.
And I wouldn’t notice that he was missing until about three houses down. Then I would have to backtrack, ring old door bells and go on recon until I’d find him.
(Usually under Shelly Zucker’s piano for some reason.)
There he’d be, happy as a clam, just chillaxing.
Nick never got the memo about eating the loot a little at a time, either.
One Saturday after Halloween Friday, when he was thirteen, I drove him to him to his scheduled morning tennis lesson. When I picked him up two hours later, Nicky greeted me with some very disturbing news.
“I’m blind,” he reported. “I can’t see.”
Huh? Repeat that, please.
“I’m blind. I can’t see.”
I drove home at top speed, threw him in bed and called his pediatrician from Nick’s bedside.
He came on right away.
“Oh, Fred, “I wailed. “I just picked Nicky up from a tennis lesson and he says he’s blind! What could have happened….”
And then my voice trailed off as I spotted Nick’s wastepaper basket FILLED to the brim with mini Snickers wrappers.
“Never mind, ” I informed the doc. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
And when I told him what I had just seen, he confirmed my diagnosis.
Nicky had given himself a “chocolate” migraine. His vision had split.
He was just going to have to sweat it out in a dark room for the rest of the day. There was nothing else Fred Cahan could do about it.
Nick had a miserable day, poor kid, and I don’t think he has ever touched Snickers- or chocolate- since.
On a personal note, let me just say that I enjoy Halloween myself. I, too, love being someone else for a change. Once I even won a Halloween costume party contest with a “fifties” theme.
All the rest of the women came dressed in poodle skirts, bobby sox and bouffant hair dos. They looked great but…
I came as a guy.
Wearing a letterman’s jacket, high top Converse sneakers, hair slicked back with pomade and smelling of Old Spice aftershave.
And the detail that clinched me the title and the prize?
A Trojan condom in my wallet.
Nick’s not the only one who knows how to Halloween around here.
Trick or treat.
How do you think I feel today? My mother used to tell me,”The stork didn’t bring you. The witches did.” Yeah, you guessed right. Today I am a man, 87 years a man. Can’t really believe it. As usual, I loved the trials and tribulations you had with your children. Fortunately we are all able to go thru it. Allan
Is today your birthday, fellow Scorpio? Right on and many happy (and spooky) returns of the day! Congratulations. You have to be the youngest 87 year old I ever met. No lie. Thanks, buddy. Make a big birthday wish for me.
Thanks for the kind words. We Scorpios can really be tough. I remember when my plant was in Rockford, I use to drive to it every day. My plates then were “SCORPIO,” and I can’t begin to tell you how many calls I got on my cb wanting to know if I would like to sell my plates. Allan
I bet. I love my Scorpio birthdate- and nature- but I don’t always like to advertise it. Sometimes I like to be a stealth bomber and sneak up on people and then wham..!!!
’tis the Season. Last Halloween we were at Hogly’s, celebrating Judy Passman Kitzes’ Halloween birthday (how much would Nick have liked to have THAT birthday). Hogley’s is in a crummy and sometimes dangerous part of the San Fernando Valley, with very little in common with the best places to trick-or-treat, but, crossing the busy street, here came a young, and clearly not-from-Bel Air, couple with a couple of bright little princesses, ready to plunge into that dicey neighborhood in search of candy. Very brave. Human spirit even more than Halloween spirits. Made me sad and happy at the same time.
And then there is the opposite end of the spectrum when great big old teen age boys would sometimes go prowling for “candy” in Colorado. Come on! They were like 15 and just looking for trouble. The best and the worst of the holiday.
My grandfather described Halloween when he was a boy, in Oak Park, and mayhem and fire were the main features, with houses sometimes being burned down. More gentle now, for the most part.
I had NO idea. I’ll stick with candy cigarettes. Who are you going as this year?
I will never forget Halloween of 1991. It was a Thursday. Michael was 4, Deborah was 2. I had a November 1 grant deadline, but first things first — our family motto, even then, was “when there’s fun to be had, just go to your Dad.” Their grandmother had made them both very cute horse outfits, so they looked like they were riders. We started our rounds just as some sort of precipitation (freezing rain, perhaps?) had started. Neighbors kept saying how horrible it was, to which my kids took umbrage, not understanding that they were referring to the weather rather than the costumes. Finally, we had collected our quota of candy (I must have carried Deborah for 3/4 of the route), I tucked them both in, and headed back to the office for an all-nighter. Around 5 a.m., the grant was done, and I called a same-day delivery service to arrange a pickup — in those days before electronic submission, a dozen hard copies needed to be in Bethesda by the end of business. The dispatcher said, sorry, no pickups today. I got frantic and upset, how can you do this to me? She said, have you looked out the window? At the time, I worked in one of those energy-efficient buildings with no windows (very depressing, but that’s a whole other story). I went downstairs, and there were at least 2 feet of snow on the ground, and it was still coming down. If you don’t believe me, google “Halloween storm, Minneapolis, 1991.” Anyhow, I called NIH as soon as they were open on the East coast, and told my tale of woe. They just laughed, said they were a clearinghouse for “acts of God” nationwide (that would include California earthquakes and Florida hurricanes), and gave me an extension through the weekend.
And as for that Trojan in your award-winning 50’s get-up, I’ll bet it was never used … way past the expiration date.
Thanks for the memories, George. Glad this triggered one in you. As for that Trojan? It’s probably still viable. It’s ME who’s passed the expiration date.