Yeah, it has been a long and wet summer/fall season. I think since that tree fell on my roof and kilt my house back on Tuesday, June 29 it has only rained 365 days, bringing down about 167 inches of water. (Okay. That could be a wee bit of an exaggeration. Maybe it only seems like that many days of rain and that many inches of water, because as I write, early Monday morning, it’s been raining all night and my roof still leaks from that June 29 tree fall. Yup. Roof ain’t fixed yet. Which, I am sure may lead to another column at a later date.)
Now as I look at the calendar, I see it’s the last week of October. And, it’s raining. I looked at Weather.Gov’s 10 forecast for the area and it says rain today, rain on Friday and rain on Saturday. On the Donny Sunshine side of things, on Sunday — Halloween — it’s not ‘sposed to rain. Partly cloudy with a high temperature of 54 degrees and a low of 39.
Hurrah for all you ghost and goblins because you won’t need to wear your rubbers as you go door-to-door, trick or treating.
Seems to me, growing up, it was always a squishy Halloween with either a mist, rain or a rain-snow combination soaking we kids.
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I looked online and found the coldest and warmest Halloweens in Detroit, according to the National Weather Service. The coldest was in 1925 — 44.5 degrees. The warmest was in 1963 — 62.7 degrees.
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It must be colder up here than in Detroit, because as was already stated, there were Halloweens when there was snowy-rain. Call me kooky, but I don’t think you can have snowy-rain at 44.5 degrees.
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I specifically remember one particular snowy-rainy Halloween night, because I was in either 9th or 10th grade and I dressed up as the Incredible Hulk. Painted legs, arms, chest and face green; wore tattered shorts and stretched my little sister Barb’s tee-shirt over my incredible bulk. To say the fit was tight would be an understatement. My sister Barb, when she was fully grown may have grown a hair or two over five-feet tall — and that was only because she had big hair. I was much larger and the outfit left more green showing than it covered.
It was cold that night. It was snowy-rainy that night. The makeup rain that night. The clothes were green-stained and soaked. I still got candy.
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What does it cost to whip up a Halloween costume these days? I think I shelled out about $2.50 for the green makeup.
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Wondering out loud: how long will it be before all area school districts get rid of holidays like Halloween and Valentines Day? I believe it was the East Lansing School District that canceled these holidays because they’re exclusionary and make some kids feel bad.
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Readers may remember Natalie H., from Clarkston reviewing one of my columns, “I think my evil plan worked.” Natalie’s comments caused a number of other readers to write. This by the way, makes be very happy because reading and writing are super important in a free and open society. Anyways . . .
In the original column I went out an ledge and postulated, “Dare I say, they cringe (albeit inside) when Junior comes home wearing black clothes, black lipstick, and black eye-shadow with loud piercings and tattoos. Not that there’s anything wrong with that look, I just bet dads cringe when first they see ‘the look.’”
Natalie H. sent me another missive on my original column — about 800 words. I do not have space for her letter. Needless to say, she again took me, your hero, to task. I will post it online for folks to read if they care to. However, after reading Natalie’s words and the words of others, I got to thinking.
And, I thought.
And, I pondered.
And, then it hit me. It was a eureka moment! I think some of you all missed what I was saying. I think you think I said parents should be mean and crush their children’s hopes and dreams. I think, if you look closer, without reading between the lines, you can see I wrote on the “inside” parents, especially dads, cringe when or if their kids were to come home looking a certain way. I didn’t say they belittle, bully or anything else beguiling. Parents just want their kids lives to be less stressful on their road to fufillment.
I’ll stand by my statement of cringieness.
Send comments to DontRushDon@gmail.com

Here is what Natalie H. wrote. Thanks N!

Hi Don,

  don rush, don’t rush me