Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good by Kathleen Flinn

Author:Kathleen Flinn
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-07-22T07:00:00+00:00

Back in Davison a week later, I gave in to the one thing that could take my mind off Grandpa Charles: Halloween. For the first time, we were going to be allowed to go door-to-door trick-or-treating.

Aunt Mel had returned from California in 1965. She married a young German American named Richard Fridline. Mel and Rich settled into a ranch-style house less than a quarter mile down the road. The proximity in age to my cousins proved even more important, at least to me. Aunt Mel and Uncle Rich had four kids in five years, just like my parents. I was born in the “gap” year. So my two male cousins, Rich Jr. and Greg, were just a little older, while their two daughters, Julie and Pam, were just a little younger.

That first Halloween, only the boys and I went trick-or-treating. Mom fashioned a sort of princess outfit with a plastic tiara. Disappointingly, she made me wear my heavy winter coat over the ensemble and insisted that I also wear snow boots, which rather killed the effect. In a situation unfathomable today, our parents stayed at the Fridlines’ house and unleashed six-year-old Richie, five-year-old Greg, and my four-year-old self onto the neighborhood. Trick-or-treating in a semirural community is radically different from doing it in a subdivision. The houses lie far apart. We trekked across the hardened ground in the dark. After an hour, we hit only a dozen homes. Wiped out, we called it a night.

Fortunately, the neighbors understood and were generous in their candy allotments, so we still took in a haul. We spent the rest of the night sitting in the living room, piling it into stacks. I put mine into A, B, and C groups. The A group represented the most desirable candy, which had to be carefully meted out over time: a small bag of pretzels, a few Tootsie Rolls, BB Bats taffy suckers, a Blow Pop, and a tiny pack of licorice. The B group included the lesser treats, such as butterscotch candies, gum, and cheap suckers, the kind they gave out at the dentist’s. The C group was what we all agreed we’d be willing to give away. My C group included chocolate-heavy candy including snack-sized Hershey bars, M&M’s, homemade popcorn balls, and anything sour. Early on, I decided that I wasn’t crazy about most chocolate. This made it easy to barter. Everyone wanted chocolate; I wanted their pretzels, suckers, and licorice.

Halloween marked the beginning of tedious “indoor play.” In the summer, it was easy to find things to do in the country. We’d build forts, explore the woods, pick blueberries or wildflowers, feed the chickens, play tag, and spy on neighbors. As night descended, we played kick the can for hours. This simple game involved a sentry in charge of minding a beer can; if the sentry spotted another player, he or she could run to the can, put their foot on it, and cry out, “I see so-and-so on the corner of the house.

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