The official, un-official end of fall

Yes, this last Sunday marked the Halloween holiday: the official, un-official end of the fall season. Fall is now obligated to take a step back and let Winter begin its warm-up (a decidedly poor choice of words, accuracy wise, for an activity for Winter to engage in to prepare for its big show). Now the pretty leaves on the trees have no remaining reason to stay on the tree. Very soon you can expect them to do the equivalent of a leaf hanging "base jump" down from the branches to join the others of their kind in a sort of homage to the Million Man March, only leaf style.

Today, being the first day of November in the year of our Lord 2010, I noticed the sun had taken a day off and let the clouds run the show for a change. The red stuff (possibly hummingbird food) in the thingy which indicates the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, hovered right around the high fifties today and more or less heralded (yes thermometers are old school that way, they like to herald things like "It's now officially 57 degrees Fahrenheit on this day, the first day of November in the year of our Lord two thousand and ten Anno Domini, according to the Greenwich Mean Time of blah, blah, blah") that Fall had been bum rushed out of the way so that Fall's big bully brother, Winter, could show up, take Fall's football away from Fall and chase Fall away while Winter and all Winter's bigger, bully friends play their own game and not let pesky, cute little Fall play with them!This perhaps unfortunate turn of events notwithstanding, it was nevertheless a glorious weekend for Halloween.

Beginning with Thursday night (the weekend's official, un-official beginning) I worked my last evening on the chain crew for the varsity OHS Cyclones football team for the 2010 season. I operated the down box and had a pretty flawless game, if I do say so myself. This, despite the visitor's sideline official's (the guy in the stripes from whom I take my cues) best attempts to befuddle me with what he called his "Three simple rules: wait for my signal; wait for my signal; wait for my signal!" Several instances in the game we were clearly observing his second rule (or was it his first or third rule?) and he apparently "forgot to signal; forgot to signal; forgot to signal!" This caused a few awkward instances where we were late to arrive at the line of scrimmage and the other officials were yelling at him to get his chain crew together, and he was more or less yelling at us to get our chain crew together. Despite these minor glitches and a valiant effort on the Cyclones' part, alas their season ended with a loss one touchdown and a two point conversion away from a tie.

The Cyclones fared better than a regionally local high school boy who died that same Thursday night as a result of the injuries he received from playing football. I can't think of a more lousy thing to die for than a stupid game of football. I can tell you after moving along up and down the visitors' sidelines of these varsity football games, and sitting behind the home team crowds of our varsity, junior varsity, and freshman teams, (and even junior high a couple of times) there's few things I find more distasteful and angering than listening to some of these parents live vicariously through their sons' performances on the football field. The ugliness that comes out of these peoples' mouths and the priority they place on that game is enough to make me foster a profound dislike for the game as it appears in an organized manner under the banner of high school athletics. Some people in the United States would label me a communist for this next statement, but Mare and I plan to promote baseball, soccer, track and field, chess, debate, forensics, choir, band, Scrabble, Monopoly; just about anything over football. My knees have not been 100% right since my days of playing high school football. If Jack and Leo wish to play football we will not hesitate to support them, but we have a feeling their physique and brains will lend themselves better to success in these other pursuits.

Friday, the official, official start of the weekend, ended with a sigh. I rode back to town Friday evening from six to eight o'clock, after supper, to audition for the ACT Ottawa production of It's A Wonderful Life. I purposefully left the line labeled "role desired/trying out for:" blank, because I'm a team player and I'll fill whatever role they need. Secretly, in my heart of hearts I wished for (and dreaded)  to be cast as George Bailey, the lead role. It would have been a big deal for me to play that role. Alas, I was informed by the director they have another actor in mind for the lead role and I was to play George Bailey's competitor for Mary's affections, most likely.

Saturday, we all ate breakfast together and rode our bikes downtown to the Ottawa downtown business trick or treat parade. Quite a number of kids and parents showed up to converge on the downtown area and beg for sugary snacks; we were right in there with the thick of them. Jack wore his elephant costume and Leo wore his puppy dog costume (formerly Jack's; formerly Tuker's). I dressed as a middle aged English teacher and Mare dressed as my wife. People kept looking at our clothes and saying, "Thrift store! Keeping it real!" We just played along with it. At close to halfway through the appointed trick or treat time, Marian ditched us boys in order to go hang with the girls of Baldwin City Children's Choir in order to help distribute helium filled balloons bearing their logo, and to make rude "little people" comments in their funny helium voices. The boys and I stopped in the sunny Franklin county square in order to sample some of their booty, then made our way on down to city park to seek out the second most powerful kids' drug after sugar: adrenaline.

Mare met up with us after a bit and we stopped at sunny Franklin County courthouse square again, this time to enjoy a round of hot dogs being peddled by my neighbor Scott, who also dressed for the Halloween occasion as a whoopie-cushion.

After the dogs were down, we pedaled back home and the boys went down for a nap and I did too, for a short one, before returning back downtown for the ACT Ottawa year end awards show. I received a participation certificate for my roles as Judge Taylor and Nathan Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird; I also received a Certificate of Appreciation for my help with set construction on Star Spangled Girl. We watched a slide show of photos from the 2009-2010 season and I caught up a little with some people. I ate some popcorn and punch and enjoyed myself for an hour or so before retuning home again.

At close to 3:45 we left for Wellsville. Now, it's not usually like us to go to Wellsville. We just don't do that willy-nilly. We had a plan. At four o'clock Wellsville would be sponsoring a costume contest and, while we were there, Mare had arranged to distribute more balloons with her group. As it turns out, we weren't late (miracles occur in the strangest of places) and Leo won second prize in his age group for his costume. But, geeze, c'mon, Leo is so cute he could have won it dressed as Freddy Kruger, or Jason Vorhees, or that Leprechaun guy who's so surly. Jack and Leo had a ball seeing all the kids and adults dressed in costume, I enjoyed more comments about my wisdom of shopping for a costume at Goodwill, even though I was just dressed as me, and Marian, of course, enjoyed insulting people in a high pitched "little-people" helium voice which people just think is funny and never stop laughing long enough to listen to the deprecating comments she's making toward them (jk).

Saturday night, safely snug at home, and away from the angry hands of insulted Wellsvillians who felt betrayed at the thought of the son of an Ottawa mom who's there on behalf of a Baldwin City Children's Choir winning a costume contest in Wellsville, we watched most of a lousy Stephen King movie from the 80's and generally mentally prepared for Sunday.

Sunday, as it turns out, is the un-recognized, official beginning of the week. It's a great day to get up with your sons and make egg, cheese, and bacon biscuits. It's an even better day to eat those biscuits with strawberry preserves and mama. After we cleaned up the kitchen I switched the bike trailer to my bike and me and the boys pedaled to Wal-Mart on the south end of town and got enough supplies to fill my two collapsible, metal wire baskets. On the way back we found a pumpkin in the ditch and it fit into the trailer as well. Mare's mom was visiting when we arrived back home. We were expecting her, of course. They baked pumpkin seeds, carved pumpkins, and colored pictures. Then we had lunch and I had to take off after we put the boys down for a nap in order to go to a read through for the script. It was there, at the script read through, that I began to question my judgement of not including a bath on my list of activities I had already completed; I began to reek! I was so embarrassed, I just knew everyone could smell me, cause I could sure smell myself. And you know how badly a person can get to smelling, especially after riding their bike to Wal-Mart on the opposite end of town without a bath. As soon as I got home I immediately took a bath.

Interestingly enough, or not, despite being told I would not be playing the role of George Bailey, the lead role, that's primarily what I spent the two hours reading for at the call backs on Sunday. I sang a duet with no less than four potential Mary Baileys, and acted confused about the extreme change which had come over Violet's lifestyle when it was shown what life would be like if George Bailey wasn't born, with no less than four girls. Also quite funny, I was warned early on George's role would require a tender, affectionate kiss to the lead lady role no less than six times, and would I and Marian be okay with that? Sure, we were okay with that, we've seen the movie and know it's family friendly. Well, one of the girls trying out for the lead lady role is a former student of mine, just graduated last year. They asked her if she'd be comfortable kissing ME, Mr. Broyles, if she got the role as Mary Bailey, and she said NO! Can you imagine that poor girl's embarrassment had she done it?

Back at home Sunday night we lit the carved Jack-o-lanterns and Mare took the boys around to the four corner houses to trick or treat. We then sat on our front porch and watched Jack and Leo play in the front yard in their costumes and let Jack hand out fruit snacks o the occasional visitor. It had a been a pretty nice end to a busy weekend.

Monday came and it was the official, official start of the work week. Not much to be said there. I'm watching the ACT Ottawa page for the cast list.

God bless you all. God bless my enemies. We are rich. We are blessed.
cb