Halloween

Halloween will soon be upon us, in just a week. All American children LOVE Halloween, and I certainly was no exception. First, there is the mother-load of candy that you get from all those lovely people who are so sweet to you as you sing out, “Trick-or-treat!” When I was growing up, nobody worried about some sick-o tampering with candy, with only accepting store-bought, wrapped candy. It never occurred to anybody that some nut-job would stick razor-blades or straight pins or poison into candy.

Secondly, I loved to dress up and pretend to be someone else. I really didn’t like who I was; I didn’t like my life. This was the one holiday when it was acceptable to pretend to be someone else. One year, I was a pilgrim lady. My mother would make our costumes, and I think I used this costume for a reenactment of Thanksgiving the next month. I never had a desire to be a fairy princess. An American Indian princess, yes. I was enamored of Princes Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring on the Howdy Dowdy Show. But my all-time favorite pretending was dressing up like a gypsy. I loved wearing the long, colorful skirt, loads of necklaces and bracelets, and a colorful scarf around my head. Also, in central New York State where it was often very cold on Halloween, as well as dark at an early hour, I could wear several shirts and a pullover sweater, and not have to wear a coat, thus covering up one’s costume. The whole point of dressing up was so that people could see what you were pretending to be, and they could then ask the obvious question, “And who are YOU supposed to be?” Duh! What do I look like? I’m wearing a gypsy costume, so OBVIOUSLY I am supposed to be a gypsy!

We lived in what most people would have considered “the country.” There were no sidewalks and it was pitch dark--no street lights. So generally, NO ONE came to our house to ring the doorbell. The house was situated far back from the road, with woods on either side of our property. When I was rather young, in the early primary grades, my father took me to my aunt and uncle’s house in the city, and I went trick-or-treating with my cousins. We also stopped at my grandparents’ house so that they could see our costumes. Grandma often made popcorn balls for us: popcorn rolled in caramel and formed into balls. When we were older, my father would drive us down our road to the more populated area, where we would ring doorbells for candy.

I was always thrilled when we went to the Roberts’ house on our road. Mrs. Roberts always made popcorn balls. Then she wrapped them in colored plastic. I adored popcorn balls. Some people went all-out, preparing little bags filled with candy. Some people made cookies. Others gave candied apples or caramel-covered apples, wrapped in colored plastic. They were soooo good. I also loved bubble-gum and red licorice. Not the black licorice. I HATED black licorice or those candies (Good N’ Plenty, I think) that were licorice covered in a hard sugar shell. So any black licorice or Good N’ Plenties went to my mother who LOVED licorice. And I also hated anything with coconut in it, but my mother loved coconut. So the two types of Mounds candies, which were coconut candy bars--one milk chocolate, the other dark chocolate--went to my mother. Most chocolate candy was milk chocolate, which is NOT my favorite. For me, chocolate has to be DARK, DARK, DARK and NOT sweet. And today research shows that dark chocolate has antioxidents and is actually not bad for you in moderation. (I knew I was right!)

My Poor Sabrina. For her Halloween was usually a disaster. It seemed that she was always sick on Halloween. We would get her dressed and go to one or two houses and then go home because she was sick. But one year, when she was around 8 or 9, she had a great idea for a costume: she took a cardboard box, decorated it with colored squares of construction paper, and voilá, she was a Rubic’s Cube! Unfortunately, she was sick that year, too, but did wear her costume as she helped hand out candy. My favorite costume of her’s was one she had when she was about 3 years-old. I bought it; it was a Snoopy costume. She was so cute, but sick with a strep throat. So after 2 houses, she was done, and went home to bed.

So much for Halloween.

Grandpa Samson: Part 1--Early Years

I decided that I needed to write about a very important person who was in my life for a mere short 20 years--my Grandpa Samson.

Grandpa was born on April 13, 1884, in Mohawk Hill, in New York State, on the Tug Hill Plateau region. John Walter Samson ("Grandpa" or "Pop," as he was known to his sons) was the fourth child born to Bernard Samson, who immigrated to the USA from Luxembourg as a child, and Maria Witzigmann, who was of Swiss descent. Grandpa had two older brothers, Louis (pronounced "Louie," in the French manner, and Joseph; an older sister Anna; and five younger brothers, only two of whom survived to adulthood (Martin and Nicholas). Louis, and Martin never married. My grandfather was very close to his sister Anna, who married George Kraeger and lived at, worked on, and eventually inherited Anna's Uncle Michel Samson's diary farm in Constableville, NY. Uncle Louis was a lumberjack; Joe married and farmed on Mohawk Hill (maybe on his father Bernard's farm?); Martin never married, but I don't know what his profession was (haven't investigated that far yet); and Nick married Josephine Bernadt, a second cousin related to his grandmother, Anne Bernadt, my great-grandfather Michel Samson's wife who had emigrated from Luxembourg with her husband and children (apparently at least one of her brothers had also emigrated; this was Josephine's grandfather, most likely). Both John and Nick were carpenters.

My grandfather met my grandmother Rosa Shibley (Rose) when she was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse after she had completed Normal School, which was teacher training school/college. She was four years younger than Grandpa, and they were married in November 1911, when she was 23 years old and Grandpa was 27. They moved to Utica, NY, the largest city in the area. My Uncle Nick and Aunt Josephine also moved to Utica; they never had children and were very close to John and Rose.

About 10 months after their marriage, John and Rose had their first child, my father. When I asked Grandma one time why they had named my father "Floyd," which we thought was an odd name, she replied, "That was your grandfather's idea; after that, I named the children." How funny!