Fall in the Time of Covid

     I was in Bay City with family celebrating my mother's 88th birthday when suddenly the skies opened up. Buckets of rain deluged everything below. Though I was sitting on a couch socializing, a dreaded red flag rose in my mind. Our mini-van's windows sometimes operate on their own, courtesy of a dysfunctional key fob. I ran to check, and sure enough, the windows in front were fully down, rain pouring in.

      Racing outside, I hurriedly started the car and put the windows up once again, but not before I was soaked to the skin. My dad loaned me a spare sweatshirt and trousers while he tossed my wet garb into the dryer. Very thankful.

     These mini-van windows occasionally have operated on their own occasionally for years. It's probably my fault since I'm too cheap to spend $200 on a new key fob. But my seven-year-old grandson Luke has a different explanation:

     “Your car is haunted because you own so many scary movies.”

     True, I do own a lot of scary movie, both DVDs and VHS. And this Halloween has given me a chance to watch them and a few new ones too. In fact, Halloween in the time of Covid hasn't been that bad. You can still go to the fruit farms for your apples, masked up and socially distanced. And with a new surge in cases locally, our favorite activity has been the leisurely drive around the county to see the pretty fall colors and enjoy the ghoulish yard decorations. I even had time to create a particularly scary graveyard myself.

     We don't spend a lot of time shopping in order to avoid the crowds. Dining out is becoming a rarity since we can't sit outdoors now with the cooling temperatures. But it does give wife Wendy a chance to test her baking skills with pumpkins, when she can find canned pumpkin which is not that easy. So we've had pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin donuts and pumpkin tartlets. She did nix my suggestion of pumpkin ravioli . . . without comment.

     Every year for the past seven years' we've taken one or more of my grandsons to the pre-school pumpkin hunt sponsored by the local recreation center. They made a few changes this year that I thought actually improved the experience. Instead of sitting on the floor of an overly warm gym listening to a local librarian read a spooky story, we did a story walk into the woods, posted signs telling the tale of pumpkin . 

      The kids wore masks, as did the adults, but nobody seemed to mind. Instead of sharing decorations and snacks after the kids had found their pumpkins in the woods, we were handed a packet of decorations and a bag of snacks, one for each kid. We decorated pumpkins outside with one family to a table.

     No overcrowding, no hoarding snacks or supplies and not a Corona-virus in sight. Okay, we were lucky to have sunny and warm fall weather but still it was a memorable time.

     I've indulged my inner artist (I'm not, by the way) to color some rocks to hide for a local painted rock hunt for families, something else to entertain folks who might be suffering the effects of Covid fatigue. My two sons and I separately tested our Halloween trivia knowledge in an on-line trivia contest sponsored by our library. Though I held first place most of the night, my younger son who lives in St Louis, nipped me right before the contest officially ended. He was very proud of that. Too proud for me, in fact.

     Perhaps this pandemic has given us more time this fall to enjoy close family as well as the sights, smells and tastes of a Michigan fall. And when we're not outside or watching TV inside, we can turn on the Halloween music channel on TV while catching up on our reading. For me, that means a magazine I bought called “The World's Most Mysterious Places.” I've been to at least a half dozen.

     Meanwhile, I can't help but see the irony in the song playing on my music channel:

     (Don't Fear) The Reaper.