Halloween

                So this weekend may as well be Halloween and I don’t have a costume, nor do I know where to get a costume. I’m not familiar with the stores in the Blacksburg, Christiansburg area so finding a place is hard. But regardless from the costume thing I’m excited about Halloween. It’s going to be weird because I’m not with my friends trick-or-treating, and I don’t have to take my little brother trick-or-treating during the early child safe hours, and I’m not going to have to  give out candy when people ring my doorbell. It’s just going to be a new experience having Halloween at college. I wonder if I should put out a bowl of candy outside my door in case there are people going door to door wanting candy.

                I remember last year during the Halloween time, my friends and I had a great idea to go trick-or-treating even though we were 17-18 years of age. When we were going around we would see the some of the kids with an adult following them, and we could just tell that the adult was judging us and giving us looks of disapproval. Which was hilarious, we had absolutely no shame of going around and getting free candy, if anything in our minds the people who weren’t doing it were missing out. Sometimes when people would answer their door for us we would get surprised looks, and some people would even say “aren’t you guys a little old to be trick-or-treating?” and of course we would say you’re never too old to trick-or-treat. As we walked around we would occasionally meet nice people who would offer apple cider or cookies and at other times we would be surprise by other teenagers screaming at us from their cars to scare us. But in all it was a good time, I just hope that this year I can also have just as good of a time. 

Pieces of my Childhood

When I was young my favorite channel I would watch was cartoon network. I would forget that there were other channels because I was so focused on cartoon network. I remember that my favorite show was Captain Planet. I thought he was the coolest hero ever, I mean he came out when the planeteers put their rings together and he would then save the world from the evil pollution villains. I remember that they would only play it at 6:00am, so I would get up at that time just to watch it. I didn’t really get into Nickelodeon until after Captain Planet, and then it was about The Rugrats. There was something about these babies going on adventures that were very appealing to me. I just noticed while typing this that the word “Rugrat” doesn’t sound that appealing when you think about it. What is a rugrat? I know it refers to these babies/kids, but where did the term come from? I know that my mom calls my little brother a rugrat from time to time, but is that how the word came about? Was it just a common word that was used by people for years or was it pioneered by Nickelodeon?

Anyway as I got older I eventually moved on from captain planet and got into Pokémon. I remember actually buying Pokémon cards, but I did not know how to use them. In elementary school it was cool just to have them, so playing with them wasn’t as important. Now that I think about it, that didn’t make any sense, it’s not like I was even collecting them, I just had them. Anyway I remember when the first Pokémon movie was playing in theaters, and I just had to go see it. With each movie ticket sold the clerks would give the each kid a shiny Pokémon card, so then I had even more reason to go. My mom took me to the movie theater and when we got there, there was a line like no other. Till this day I don’t think I’ve ever seen a line that long for a movie. There were kids and parents everywhere, it was ridiculous. But my mom and I got to the back of the line to wait to buy our ticket. When we were halfway there the movie theater people said that they sold out of tickets. I was so crushed that I started crying right then. I was so excited to see this movie and get my shiny card only to be rejected after waiting because there were no more tickets. So to calm me down my mom took me to my favorite place to eat, McDonalds, so I could my McNuggets and a toy. I eventually get to see the movie on DVD, but it wasn’t the same. 

Ms. Monica

                Babysitters are a necessary part of life. What happens to children when their parents have to work late, or when they want to go out late at night for an special occasion? The children  are sent to babysitters. Babysitters are supposedly kind people that watch young kids, which in my experience is true. I had sitters since I was young, but I barely remember most of them. But there is one that will never forget. She was a big part of my childhood, and I still remember to this day, Ms. Monica.

                Ms. Monica was an elderly lady in her 60’s, but she was full of energy. I first met her, because she lived in my neighborhood and every Tuesday I would go to her house and practicing playing the piano. It was then that she informed my mom that she also ran a daycare service at her house for a wide range of hours. I remember during the summer I would be there from 7:00am to 7:00pm, and I loved every minute of it. In the morning she would feed me breakfast which was usually a toasted bagel with strawberry jam. And then we would do whatever activities she wanted to do that day. Generally I helped her outside with her garden, by digging holes to plant flowers, and weeding it, and other times I would play with other kids she also watched. Her house was by these woods that we would explore, and we once found a tree that fell down, but was caught by another tree, so basically it was at a diagonal. We would climb this tree all the time, for some reason it never get old or even found it dangerous.  We would also have and “adventure” by wondering deep into the woods past the thorny vines to find this one creepy house that we would pretend was haunted. All this was just a regular day.

                One major thing that Ms. Monica did for me was that she taught me how to play chess. She would have chess tournaments at her house that I would occasionally win. I still like playing chess till this day, and I’m grateful that she took the time to teach me. She would always do kind things for me, actually one year for my birthday she made me a pound cake with strawberries and a whipped cream frosting, and it made me so happy that still clearly recall it.

Now as I type about this I realized she did more for me than I thought.  She was probably the biggest reason I had such a happy childhood.