...or The Day I Behaved Badly
This season, what some might call the Season of Rot and Decay but I prefer to call The Season of Harvesting and Sentimental Reminiscing, puts me in mind of an evening when I was twelve.
I had a friend in school named Susan. Susan lived in the country, about fifteen minutes outside of our little town in Indiana. In the fall, townspeople would go to the country to visit the pumpkin patches and apple orchards. It was an annual event to take a trip out to the apple orchard and select the best apples and the best cider, eat a cake donut, smell the leaves, and relish the changing of the seasons. I loved the fall.
Susan, being a country girl, belonged to some kind of club like 4-H, and every fall, the mothers of the club kids put on a big shindig in an old barn with hay rides, donuts, hot chocolate, and a haunted house. The year I turned twelve, I was Susan's guest to this big harvest party. My mother drove me out to Susan's house where I had been for overnights before--I had squirrel for dinner there once, a squirrel her father had hunted, and it was delicious. Susan's mother took us to the party where we met up with some of our other friends from school.
We went on the hayride, ate sloppy joes, dunked cake donuts in hot chocolate, and ran around outside in the dark like banshees. One of the things I remember most about that evening was the size of the moon--it was a Harvest Moon, huge and full and orange. I couldn't remember ever seeing the moon looking so large and so close before. I stood in the field and looked up at it in awe of its size. It's possible, or even likely, that it was just another full moon, but in that high-on-frenzy-at-night-in-the-fall mode, to me it was notable.
When it was time to get in line for the haunted house, Susan and her friends decided that someone should pull some kind of prank on the people doing the haunting. We would be blindfolded, and when it came time for them to stick our hands in wet noodles and grapes and call it brains, then someone should grab a handful of the gunk and throw it in their faces. What a terrible thing, I thought. Why would anyone do such a thing? But when they went around the crazed circle of banshee girl, I was chosen. Did I say no? Did I stand up for what I knew was right?
Absolutely not. I was weak and gave into the pressure of being mischievous. Once behind the curtain in the barn, once blindfolded, I became someone else's alter ego. I say someone else's because I couldn't believe I was really behaving as my own inner troublemaker. Someone grabbed my hand, and in a scary gravelly voice said, "feel the brains of the dead--ah, ha, ha, ha!" It could have been Bela Lugosi for all I knew. My hand was plunged into a big, deep bowl of boiled spaghetti and mushy green grapes. I filled my hand with the stuff, pulled it out, and smashed the whole glob into the face of the kid holding the bowl.
He screamed for help, threw the bowl down, and I ran, ripping off my blindfold and throwing it to the floor. Susan and her friends ran right behind me. They never thought I'd actually do it. The boy with the bowl of goo told his mother who quickly found me out in the field. She grabbed me by the face and said that if I were her child I would be spanked and I would never be allowed back to that party again.
I felt like a a disgraced fiend. I felt like a fallen angel. What could have come over me and cause me to do something so unlike myself. I could only blame it on the harvest moon. It cast a spell on me as I stood in the field looking up and feeling small.
After the party, we all went back to Susan's house and spread our sleeping bags out on the floor in her bedroom. Her mother came in to say good night, and she said that one of the mothers had called and told her about what happened. "Do any of you know who that child was?" she asked. And we all said, "No, Mrs. Conrue, we have no idea. What a stupid thing to do."
Oh, the power of that harvest moon.
This season, what some might call the Season of Rot and Decay but I prefer to call The Season of Harvesting and Sentimental Reminiscing, puts me in mind of an evening when I was twelve.
I had a friend in school named Susan. Susan lived in the country, about fifteen minutes outside of our little town in Indiana. In the fall, townspeople would go to the country to visit the pumpkin patches and apple orchards. It was an annual event to take a trip out to the apple orchard and select the best apples and the best cider, eat a cake donut, smell the leaves, and relish the changing of the seasons. I loved the fall.
Susan, being a country girl, belonged to some kind of club like 4-H, and every fall, the mothers of the club kids put on a big shindig in an old barn with hay rides, donuts, hot chocolate, and a haunted house. The year I turned twelve, I was Susan's guest to this big harvest party. My mother drove me out to Susan's house where I had been for overnights before--I had squirrel for dinner there once, a squirrel her father had hunted, and it was delicious. Susan's mother took us to the party where we met up with some of our other friends from school.
We went on the hayride, ate sloppy joes, dunked cake donuts in hot chocolate, and ran around outside in the dark like banshees. One of the things I remember most about that evening was the size of the moon--it was a Harvest Moon, huge and full and orange. I couldn't remember ever seeing the moon looking so large and so close before. I stood in the field and looked up at it in awe of its size. It's possible, or even likely, that it was just another full moon, but in that high-on-frenzy-at-night-in-the-fall mode, to me it was notable.
When it was time to get in line for the haunted house, Susan and her friends decided that someone should pull some kind of prank on the people doing the haunting. We would be blindfolded, and when it came time for them to stick our hands in wet noodles and grapes and call it brains, then someone should grab a handful of the gunk and throw it in their faces. What a terrible thing, I thought. Why would anyone do such a thing? But when they went around the crazed circle of banshee girl, I was chosen. Did I say no? Did I stand up for what I knew was right?
Absolutely not. I was weak and gave into the pressure of being mischievous. Once behind the curtain in the barn, once blindfolded, I became someone else's alter ego. I say someone else's because I couldn't believe I was really behaving as my own inner troublemaker. Someone grabbed my hand, and in a scary gravelly voice said, "feel the brains of the dead--ah, ha, ha, ha!" It could have been Bela Lugosi for all I knew. My hand was plunged into a big, deep bowl of boiled spaghetti and mushy green grapes. I filled my hand with the stuff, pulled it out, and smashed the whole glob into the face of the kid holding the bowl.
He screamed for help, threw the bowl down, and I ran, ripping off my blindfold and throwing it to the floor. Susan and her friends ran right behind me. They never thought I'd actually do it. The boy with the bowl of goo told his mother who quickly found me out in the field. She grabbed me by the face and said that if I were her child I would be spanked and I would never be allowed back to that party again.
I felt like a a disgraced fiend. I felt like a fallen angel. What could have come over me and cause me to do something so unlike myself. I could only blame it on the harvest moon. It cast a spell on me as I stood in the field looking up and feeling small.
After the party, we all went back to Susan's house and spread our sleeping bags out on the floor in her bedroom. Her mother came in to say good night, and she said that one of the mothers had called and told her about what happened. "Do any of you know who that child was?" she asked. And we all said, "No, Mrs. Conrue, we have no idea. What a stupid thing to do."
Oh, the power of that harvest moon.
Comments
… and of misbehaving little girls.
Robyn, I'm shocked and delighted. I wonder where that squealing little mummy's boy is now.
The Harvest moon does make me think of a time gone bye and of school days - cool nights and well, for me - slow dancing as close as I could get to any girl that would dance with me.
Dive, the mummy's boy is probably sitting at his computer writing about that nasty little girl who smeared pasta in his face and made him scream, and in retrospect, he's embarrassed and ashamed.
Blame the moon.
I love that Keats poem.