What Happened To Halloween?

My family gathered for Halloween, except for my daughter-in-law, Wendy, and new Grandbaby, Nicholas, who were sick. Our son, Jeff, took a train from Palo Alto, which is down the peninsula from San Francisco; then caught our local commuter train which brought him all the way into Berkeley where he was picked up by my husband, Jerry. Our other son, Glenn, came on the freeway with our Grandson, Theo, a trip of some 40 minutes. This was going to be a big Halloween; the first one that Theo would remember so we were gathering.

We had every expectation that we would have a big turnout. Our neighbors see us on the street or heading up our steps these days and they corner us and ask if they can see our garden. Here was a chance to see it without having to grab one of us when we started up the steps. Our lights were on and that means we were well lit.

No one came, except for this adorable bunch of kids--and one other bunch about the same age--and that was hours later. No one was on the sidewalks, none of the house were lit that you would expect to see lit, even a house across the street from us who had gone to the trouble of putting out a really adorable Halloween exhibit was dark. I thought of Halloween nights in Minnesota when I was a kid--the smell of burning leaves, the crisp Fall air, groups of kids darting across dark streets. Halloween was a big deal way back when.

Glenn took Theo over to another neighborhood earlier to be with the other Grandma and the two of them went from door to door. They came back in plenty of time to see the festivities. We waited and waited. Nothing.

My husband had gone down to our neighborhood shopping street to pick up some things which were needed for dinner. He said the merchants had all opened their doors and were handing out treats. This explained part of the mystery. It seemed very strange that they would do that, actually. I have always thought of Halloween as a neighborhood thing and merchants were opening up their doors to hand out treats? It also turned out that families were having Halloween parties in their homes. The final thing suggested as an explanation was that Halloween this year fell on a Saturday when people would naturally have time to throw a party. If it had fallen on a weeknight we might have had a totally different story. I'm wondering if we're not afraid of Halloween now. Too many scary things have happened so we keep our kids close to us. Parties are fine, going to neighborhood merchants are fine, but going door to door is Verboten.

When these kids showed up I was so excited I grabbed my camera. Halloween at last!

Untended Children Will Be Given a Double Espresso And A Free Puppy.

Untended children can be cute but oh my. I thought this restaurant's bar had a funny solution.
Who would want to have their child given a double espresso and at the very same time--a puppy? Chaos would reign.

One of our group, next year, will join the number of us with children. We're so happy for you, Jen! I'm at the top of the heap having two sons over forty, but it is not always a good place to be because of the regrets. It is awesome being close to young women now bringing up their children. I wish I had done some things differently: first and foremost I wish I had fed my children in a more healthy way. Hot dogs and hamburgers and pizza are easy choices but not healthy ones. Would I change either of my sons, despite the sometimes harrowing things being a parent has brought? No and I doubt most parents would. It's like that ancient Greek story about being offered the chance to change your own set of problems for somebody else's. Most of us wouldn't change our lives, if given the choice.

Here you see my son, Glenn, pretending he's an astronaut. He took his three and a half year old son, Theo, (who now insists he's four) to the Discovery Museum in Sauselito. My husband, Jerry, joined them and took this wonderful picture. He is a wonderful, imp like creature, my son. This picture picks up that imp like quality wonderfully. He has a way with children. Before he had his own, he and his wife, Wendy, were with some friends and their children on a day of driving to one spot or another. Glenn was in the front seat of the car (not driving, which turned out to be providential). A little girl in the back asked him what the little dark spot on the back of the neck was. (I'm sure he must have a mole back there although that's not a insight gained through observation). He said it was his "On and Off Button." That of course precipitated a whole series of pushing the On and Off Button which in turn precipitated a whole number of whole body collapses by Glenn and a whole series of howls from the children seated in the back.

I would hate to have had anyone give Glenn a double espresso and a free puppy at any age, but at age four? That was the age he went tearing through our house, grinning that imp like grin, totally naked, in plain view of a host of our friends. One of my friends still remembers that exhibition with a bit of shock. I thought it was hilarious. He hasn't lost that wonderful, imp like quality and I hope he never does.

Strange and Inexplicable Event Posts--Whenever!

My husband, Jerry, and I have been taking a trip down the Sierras starting in Tahoe, finally ending up in LA. As we were leaving Tahoe we couldn't get over the fall colors. I had left my camera at home but since I had my iPhone with me I started snapping pictures madly with it's amazing built in camera. Given we were driving at 60 miles an hour or so, all I could do was point out the passenger side window or through the windshield and snap the picture. Later, when perusing them at leisure on the iPhone, I came across this strange picture. I'm adding it to my Strange and Inexplicable Event Posts because of the strangeness and beauty of it and because it was totally a mystery. Once I put it on the computer and blew it up I solved the mystery.

It will become clear very soon that I took a picture out the passenger window of the side view mirror. What do you see?

How Much Detail?

I have been told that I don't put in enough detail into my stories. I have come to think that this is mostly true. I have been working on writing the last chapters for my middle grade/ Young Adult novel RUN!! and have run through them quickly, as is my typical approach. When I've gone back through them I've been dissatisfied with what I've read. I've finally come to understand that there isn't enough detail in the story to engage my attention.

Recently I had a critique on RUN!! that mentioned I had too much detail in the manuscript and that the detail slowed down a very important part of my manuscript--the first page. I went back and unhappily cut out the offending paragraph, only leaving what was absolutely necessary which I often found was in the story further on anyway. I'm now writing with more detail and enjoying it and it is difficult cutting it out. I am pulled more into the story as the writer and that, in turn, makes any further writing I do more true to the story. What my wonderful 4Corners writing friend pointed out was all too true, however, so I cut!

I used to write short stories and in those I found myself easily weaving in the necessary detail. Then I turned to writing for children. Writing for children is--contrary to a lot of people's beliefs--a lot more difficult than anyone could imagine. You can put in too much detail, as I just pointed out. You can leave out necessary detail to give the breath of life to a character. You have to think of your audience.

If you write for children, which child do you write for: the four year old, the eight year old, the twelve year old or the teen and how does that determine how much detail you bring into your story?

Strange and Inexplicable Event Posts--Whenever!

Monday Sep 21, 3:25 pm ET

Forest, Miss. Officers had to use a stun gun and handcuffs to capture an emu running loose on Interstate 20 in central Mississippi on Sunday. Police Officer Keley Culpepper told WLBT-TV in Jackson that motorists had been calling 911 since Friday to report sightings of two Emus on I-20 and nearby U.S. Highway 80.

Authorities had been unable to find the animals until Sunday, when one was spotted near the I-20 ramp. The big bird was dodging traffic. Culpepper and deputies were able to surround the animal but had to sue the Taser and handcuffs to finally get it off the road.

After being captured, the animal was taken to the ScottCounty Forest Coliseum.


This post is to introduce what I hope will be a regular event on this blog--Strange and Inexplicable Events!

When will they post--whenever! How else could they be strange and inexplicable?

The Emu is native to Australia, and stands six feet six inches tall. They run at the economical speed of 31 miles per hour. There are a lot of them in Australia--but how was one found on a freeway in Mississippi?

Strange and inexplicable!

Jeff's Desperate Odyssey

I was hunting through my photographs and came across this strange one I took up at Tahoe, sometime last year. It was obviously sometime during the winter and I have to think it was as recent as this last winter, because of the pitcher you see in the lower left of the picture which I bought at a thrift store quite recently.

Somehow, my son Jeff was caught peering out of that snowbank. He probably was behind me in the kitchen as I took the picture and his image somehow ended up as you see it. The picture of the penguin above it is one of a set of drawings he did a few years ago which I loved so much I put it on a recent Christmas Card. The penguin is Jeff, it has his sad eyes.

We just celebrated his birthday last weekend and finding this photograph seems appropriate. Coincidentally I also have been reading an excerpt from a book called "The Water Giver" by Joan Ryan. The author talks about having difficulties with her son from an early age and making up all kinds of excuses as to what she felt were her failings in her dealings with him. Then, today, during the last excerpt we learn he suffered a serious head injury falling of his skateboard. I know I'm going to have to buy this book after reading this excerpt. It is that powerful.

At one point, when she's trying to talk to him through a drug-induced coma, she realizes--perhaps for the first time--how much she loves him. That statement had personal resonance with me, for we had a moment, Jeff and I, when life changed and would never go back to how it had been before when I, too, discovered how much I loved him.

My husband and I knew Jeff had some mental health issues but they were manageable. He was a very gifted tennis coach and had a very loyal clientele. Then, one December, perhaps at the end of 1998, he began to gain weight and act strangely--not wanting to answer his phone being the most disturbing. This went on until March of 1999. One day in March I went over and cornered him in his apartment. What I saw and heard disturbed me terribly. He was talking about a young woman he fancied himself loving who was beyond his reach, totally. He told me she had told him to wait patiently and she would come to him. I asked him how long he had been waiting. He said "Forever."

All of this said very coherently but with no ability to look me in the eye, his eyes, instead, ranging far and wide. He also seemed unusually excited. I remember getting home somehow, sitting at our kitchen table and screaming desperately "I need help!"

I called a therapist he had been seeing and told him what I had seen. He said "Don't worry. He's probably fine. I'll see him on Thursday."

The next morning he was gone, driving away in his car. Thus began Jeff's odyssey, the horrors of which I only learned later. I only knew he was gone when I got a call from a mental health facility in Southern California. Jerry and I flew down and brought him back. I remember we went out to dinner that night with his brother, Glenn, and Glenn's girl friend, Wendy. Again, he acted very strangely, frightening us all.

A friend of mine who worked in a mental health facility told me to not leave him alone, whatever we did. The only problem was, someone in Jeff's condition will lie very convincingly. The next morning as I was going upstairs he told me he was heading to the kitchen for some cereal and again he was gone.

It's amazing how someone with a serious mental illness can fool everybody, when they feel they need to. Jeff is extremely bright and personable. He walked to a car rental agency in downtown Berkeley and convinced them to rent him a car. How were we to keep track of him, know where he was going? It seemed impossible to do so, so I called on my niece, who is a medium. Never for a moment did I think she could really help but we were desperate, so we called Sandy, who gets privileged information from an Indian Deity named Babaji, who has been dead thousands of years. Sandy has been known to find dead bodies. She has an amazing talent but a talent I find so strange only desperation would have forced me to call on her.

We thought Jeff was headed for Palm Springs as the particular fantasy he was immersed in--a young South American woman tennis player--was playing there at that particular moment. Sandy said he wasn't headed for Palm Springs, he was headed for Southern California. She also told us that we could keep within a day's reach of him by following his movements via credit card. No details would be there, but the city or town and the nature of the merchant would be, the next day the details would be there. We had given Jeff an American Express Card and given that his card was off our account we were able to track his movements with the help of the son of the friend who had worked in that mental health facility. He worked for American Express in an upper level capacity. We soon found out he had been staying in a motel in Santa Barbara the night before.

Jerry and I got on a plane to Santa Barbara, praying desperately that we would get to Jeff in time, asking through the Stewardess to let us deplane first. We missed him by just hours. Again, he had fooled the authorities. Someone at the motel had thought he was acting strangely and had called the police, to no avail.

I have always thought Jerry was the strong one, but I soon found we needed each other and sometimes I had to be the strong one. Jerry wanted to wait at the motel, thinking Jeff might come back. He had left wet clothes in the shower so it made sense. I insisted we head south, toward Los Angeles, where Sandy had told us to look for him.

The woman who fielded calls in Jerry's office for everyone--a true jack of all trades--became Jeff's savior. As Jerry drove, I took calls from Verna as she talked to a American Express agent over the phone. We found out Jeff had just checked into the Disneyland Hotel. Now, that choice seems terribly poignant to me. Jeff was living a nightmare and he desperately needed to escape so Disneyland became the obvious choice.

We were now right on his trail. He had been acting very strangely from the moment he had checked into the hotel. When someone is obviously in as much trouble as Jeff, hotel managers put an agent on them; the agent then follows them around. We got to the hotel and met with the individuals in charge of him. When they asked if Jeff's trouble had been diagnosed, we told them what the doctors at the first mental health facility had told us: Schizophrenia.

We followed them to Jeff's hotel room. They knocked on the door and Jeff soon answered, seeming at that point quite normal. They asked Jeff if he would like to go home with us. He said yes.

We were exhausted and wanted to stay the night with him but the hotel refused. We got Jeff in a cab and drove to the airport. Jerry ran ahead trying to hold the last plane for San Francisco for us. I followed with Jeff. The progress was slow as every few feet he wanted to be hugged.

Jerry, frantic, had managed to convince them to hold the plane. A few hours later we were in San Francisco. We managed, with an amazing amount of difficulty, to get Jeff into a hospital in Berkeley. Again he was convincing everyone he was perfectly OK. Jerry managed to get a doctor to hold him for the 72 hours allowed by law.

Jeff's odyssey was truly horrendous. The first trip south he had driven nearly all the way to Santa Barbara in his car but at some point the car lost its clutch. He was stopped along the major north south freeway to Los Angeles. Two policemen pulled over to help him and he ran from them across the freeway. They finally managed to catch him in the center divide, where they pepper sprayed him and then got him to the mental health facility.

The second trip south he somehow managed to get all the way to Santa Barbara in the rental car but by now he was so disoriented and frightened he sat in an all night cafe and cried. Again, police were called. He ran from them, through a creek; then fell down an embankment and sprained his ankle. He convinced the policeman to let him go, again convincing him that he was OK.

From Santa Barbara he bought an airline ticket to Los Angeles and then it was a simple cab ride to the Disneyland Hotel where we eventually caught up with him.

It is now ten years later. Jeff lives in a half-way house after a suicide attempt, in one of their apartments. He is doing very much better but I am tired--tired of it all, tired of feeling so sad for my son. I thought perhaps writing all this would help and it has. I want so desperately to care for him without pain.

He is fortunate in that he is a very talented man. He is a gifted artist and photographer and an amazing writer. During the first year after his initial diagnosis he wrote a complete novel and began another and nearly finished it. This novel is my favorite: he calls it "Soul In An Empty Landscape." I wish he could finish it. It is his story.

It is very unusual for a Schizophrenic to complete a novel in a year. During that year he exhibited traits much closer to Bi-Polar Disorder. I thought at one point that would be a better diagnosis. I've since changed my mind as friends of ours with two Bi-Polar sons have had agonies with one of their sons far surpassing ours with Jeff.

How does Jeff feel about his illness? He now accepts it, which is paramount to eventually being able to live a productive life. His therapist at his halfway house asked him once how he felt about being Schizophrenic. He said "I'm angry about what my life has become."

In a few weeks he will begin a course in Philosophy at Stanford University--in a Continuing Education Program. My sister, Carol, who is an artist, has been very supportive and loving toward him, encouraging him with his art and for the last two years he attended an art class in Palo Alto and he is going to take a photography course next semester. Before that, in the halfway house, he drew the marvelous animal you see at the top of this post.

You have to have hope for and love someone who so desperately needs it, but it is hard. It was during those long moments in that airplane terminal in Los Angeles when he reached out for those multitudes of hugs that I realized how much I loved him.

I'll Have to Ask You To Not Go Near The Baby's Head, Theo

Here you have our daughter-in-law, Wendy, and our grandson, Theo, at a Mexican restaurant we all found ourselves enjoying together recently. My husband, Jerry, took the picture with his iPhone. I'm going to assign him all future photographic jobs when the family gathers. I think it is an absolutely wonderful photograph.

Theo had just eaten a full paper container of jam; the remains of the jam are still on his face. The comment, which is repeated as the title of this blog piece, I heard over the phone a day or so later during a conversation I was having with Wendy. I envisioned truly horrible things happening to the baby's head and Wendy was so calm about it!

Well, things are often very different from what you imagine. It turns out when Theo goes near the baby's head he does it like this: first he hugs him and then he gives him a kiss. Maybe Wendy was afraid Theo would give the baby a cold or worse yet, the flu? A flu bug is again running rampant at Wild Horse and Glenn is the sufferer.

Wendy doesn't know what caused her comment but I think Theo was trying to kiss the baby. I'm just glad it wasn't close to what happened to me when our oldest was eighteen months old and Glenn a newborn. I was holding Glenn in the front seat and our oldest, Jeff, got miffed and hit me over the head with a whiffle bat. I may have the name of the bat slightly wrong; it's what a child uses to hit a light weight ball called a whiffle. It didn't hurt; I was just startled. Oh, the travails of being a parent!