Hallowed Profession

Both of us got up way too early today. I woke up at 1:53, Jon at 3:30am. By 5:00 we were hungry and decided to go out for breakfast. As we pulled out of our driveway we saw six of our bags of leaves were blocking the street in front of our house. Couldn't have been much traffic during the night. Halloween pranksters had struck early.

I quit putting pumpkin Jack-O-lanterns in front of the house. The morning after Halloween we would have to clean up the smashed pumpkins in the street.

Years ago pranksters got into even more mischief. In the era of outhouses, pushing them over entertained the young. There is a funny story in Bulletin Board in the Pioneer Press this am. Sick of always dealing with his outhouse being tipped on Halloween, one relative of the storyteller moved it forward four feet. Later, when the vandals came to tip it over they landed in the s-----. He threw them a rope to get out of the pit, but refused to let them shower with his hose. Punishment was driving their car home in their stinky state.

Yesterday there was a story related about another relative who also was tired of smashed pumpkins. That night he painted his pumpkin with enamel paint which didn't dry. The teenager who picked it up ruined his letterman jacket. The next day the pumpkin owner got a call from the irate mother of the teen demanding the man replace the jacket.

There was a time when I worked at Abbott-Northwestern hospital that staff were allowed to wear Halloween costumes to work. It didn't look right to me and eventually was banned. One of the Drs. I worked with in ER said they used to wear costumes at the clinic she worked at. One year she went as Raggety Ann. Picture red yarn pigtails, big painted red freckles and a short gingham dress. She realized it wasn't working when she had to tell a patient he had cancer. Can you imagine getting that news from Raggety Ann?

I hope my work buddy Janie still dresses in costume for work on Halloween at the hospital. She gets by with it because she wears her old nurses uniform--white, long sleeved dress uniform, white pantyhose and shoes and the cap. I guess they can't find grounds to forbid her to wear that to work. I wonder if that scares patients. (Maybe just the ones who have seen nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".)