The sights, smells and sounds of October

As a kid I was only aware of a few specific months during the course of the year.  Most months were indistinct and ran together before the senses of the oblivious child that would one day become 'trep'.  But October's assault ensured that I would take note... and I did.

One of the few regrets I have about moving to Israel is that my kids will not grow up with these same fall associations. They won't associate October with the changing leaves.  Oh sure, we have deciduous trees here... but there isn't the same dazzling riot of color each fall the way I remember from autumn days spent in New York and New England.

They will also miss out on the smells. 

Back when it was still legal to burn leaves in most places, October meant countless piles of leaves in every neighborhood  We would jump in them, making extra work for our parents with our leaf fights and making our jackets musty with the smell of mouldering leaves.  But each pile would eventually be re-raked and set afire, filling the neighborhood with an indescribable smell of comfort and homeyness.

The other smells of October could be found only in the neighborhood drug store. 

Grown-ups tend to think of the supermarket as the source for Halloween candy.  But they've forgotten that once upon a time, candy didn't come in jumbo bags of mini-Snickers and mini-Kit Kats.  It was found in fragrant displays at the neighborhood drug store, amid paper witches, and overflowing from plastic pumpkins. 

At the start of October the wax fangs and lips would appear just inside the entrance to the drug store... along with the bags of candy corn.  Unlike orange mellowcremes, many of the treats were probably available all year 'round, but for some reason I only remember buying wax bottles filled with colored sugar-water in October. 

The radio also sounded different in October. 

Just as summer radio has its own peculiar 'sound', a person waking from a coma in October would immediately know what month is was.  He'd know from the local football games being announced or recounted... a few days in a row of warm weather inevitably being dubbed 'Indian Summer'... and all the unctuous top-40 DJs welcoming their listeners to 'Rocktober' (do they still do that?). 

The culmination of this memorable month (and the official kick-off of Thanksgiving season) was, of course, Halloween. 

While my kids have always done their costume and candy binging in the spring (Purim), there has always been a bit of excitement in our house about being able to answer the door on Halloween and hand out candy to the neighborhood ghosts and goblins.

[sigh]

Maybe it's best that we're no longer there or I'd probably become one of those father's who tortures his children with stories of "...when I was a kid".

Instead I torture my readers.