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Ghosts, Goblins, and Grandpas

© Henry L. Lefevre

Ghosts, Goblins, and Grandpas make Halloween the most ghoulish day of the year. Halloween provides us with orgies of bliss for kids who love candy and grandads who still think like kids. It can also cause trauma. On Halloween, 2010, I was initiated to the job of chaperoning two of my grandkids on that night of the ghosts and the goblins. My two ghoulish arms weren't enough. I kept my grandkids in line with my punkinhead costume and a drill sergeant's whistle. Still, they trick-or-treated faster than I could sort and eat their Halloween candy. The experience was very enlightening. I had forgotten about all of the logistical problems that an over-aged grandpa could face during the night of the ghouls.

The following words are my saga. They record a few of my horrific experiences in my quest for saving the minds, hearts, and souls of grandpas who think that they know all of the answers. Here's how it went.

First, I considered covering both kiddy-ghosts with a single white sheet. I figured that washing one sheet was twice as easy as washing two.

That didn't work. Before getting totally committed, I thought of the problems involved. Take visibility, for instance. The kids had to be able to see where they were going. I thought of solving that problem by cutting holes in the sheet. That option vanished when I considered how my wife and I would suffer when winter arrived. Too much ventilation. Minnesota's winters can get a bit nippy.

Next, I considered fitting the sheet with a couple of periscopes. However, periscopes cost money. They also have blind spots. We didn't want to take that much of a chance on the alertness of Minnesota's fine drivers. Therefore, we dismissed that option as being too risky.

Then, I considered trying to stuff both of my grandkids inside my WW I uniform. The idea seemed good until we tried to pull my GI pants over the heads of two claustrophobic, pre-school, bundles of hyperactivity. A single, waving arm eventually found its way out of the end each pant leg and I started to feel "mission accomplished." Then, the two extra arms inside the cloth started vying for a little more freedom. As my physics professor used to insist, "Only one solid object can occupy one finite position in space."

But where were the heads? My grandkids took care of that problem. They cut holes in the pants with a rusty old jackknife. Eventually, four frantic eyes peeked through individually designed, ragged, Jack-o-lantern-type holes. We gave up on the army uniform gig before one of the kids lost an arm and the other latched on to a spare.

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