EDITORIAL: Breathe in another beautiful autumn
Today is Oct. 1, one bookend of the leafy, spooky season that disappears like a specter in Forest Cemetery late Oct. 31.
In-between? All sorts of good stuff, whether it goes bump in the night or floats gently down from sleepy trees.
Our world is full of real terror. There’s not a whole lot you can do about most of it because most of it isn’t in your control.
But the month of October presents a multitude of opportunities to put all the truly scary stuff on a shelf and focus on ways not just to feel better, but to help others feel better, too.
Maybe today you can take a few minutes and put together a short list of October activities that warm the spirit, pun intended. For background music, go to YouTube and type in It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown soundtrack.
Ah, good. Now, here’s a nudge to get your list started:
• Buy a pumpkin spice latte at your favorite hot beverage watering hole, but don’t stop there. Purchase an unexpected and anonymous prize for the next person in line, too.
• Even if you’re not into carving, pick up a pumpkin or two and plunk them near your front door. Putting up some black and orange lights nearby will signal that trick-or-treaters are welcome at your haunted mansion on Oct. 31.
• Make the seasonal sojourn to Green Bluff farms north of Spokane. You’ll have company — maybe too much for comfort — but the pumpkin doughnuts are still worth the big crowds, aren’t they?
• Take short drives as time allows and behold fall foliage in its final, spectacular phase of 2023. Mother Nature has saved the best for last!
• Let your friendly neighborhood newspaper know if you’ve got one of the better Halloween yard scenes this side of Sleepy Hollow. Email a photo or two of the display, as well as the spooky scene’s street address, to the Mistress of the Macabre and the Mysterious, Devin Weeks: dweeks@cdapress.com
• And if you’re privy to some haunted headline news — you know, the possessed cash register at work, sounds you can’t explain in the old house you recently moved into, anything that appears perfectly normal in a paranormal world — you know who to call: Devin, your favorite ghost-chasin' journalist: dweeks@cdapress.com
• Indulge a little. OK, maybe more than a little. Convince yourself yet again that the bag(s) of candy bars you’re picking up now will be put away for Halloween night. Then have no regrets when somehow, those dang things evaporate by Oct. 15 and you have to go back to the store to stock up. Repeat as needed.
• Relax at every available opportunity. Let a little bit of autumn's nesting instinct settle in. Life slows down in October, and unless a swamp creature is chasing you, that’s a good thing.