Annual events - trigger reminiscences

Moving into a new home, in a new city, is a hassle. It can become an absolute disaster when moving day falls on Halloween and the family includes a six year old, which we will call T, to protect her privacy, and a nine year old we will only identify as J to protect his. Creating a semblance of order sufficient to provide places to sleep was the parents priority. Getting out to Trick or Treat was the childrens'. Conflicting imperatives promised to make this moving day particularly onerous. But this particular Halloween is memorable because a parent -children clash was avoided. A neighbor who came to welcome the menks invited T,and J to join their two children and friends in that evenings Trick or Treat expedition. Disaster was avoided as parents were provided with unencumbered time to address their priority and the children with the chance to make friends and gather Halloween loot.

The loot, as every parent knows, harbors the seeds of problems. There are child to child issues: who got the most desirable items and who got the most. There are also parent /children issues: when and what may be consumed. The loot this particular Halloween promised more trouble then usual. When T,and J returned to their new home they immediately went to an open space, among the boxes in the family room, to examine and compare the fruits of their adventure. Each child had, at the start of the expedition, been provided with a paper grocery /treasure bag . The bag J had been filling produced a mountain of goodies. The bag which T had been dragging through the neighborhood was empty. All her goodies had fallen out through the hole created by the dragging of the sack. A potential calamity was avoided when, without prompting, J volunteered to share his loot.

Halloween , some thirty years ago, was the day the menk clan: moved into a great house, acquired neighbors that would be friends and learned that they had a very generous offspring.