MORE ON HALLOWEEN

Anita Hart Fuller

I'm willing to make a sizable wager that, aside from Don Thompson and maybe Harold Gene (Sullivan), NOT ONE SOUL will respond to our Halloween posting.

That's the pessimist in me.

Tom Pry

Anita, you were wrong.

Ann Shannon Snodgrass

I remember one Halloween, around twilight, when Mary Kay (Van Patten James) was responsible for me. Don’t know how she got stuck with me on Halloween, since I’m only two years younger. I never felt like the nuisance I must have been because she and her friends were always kind to me.

Anyway, I remember standing in the street in front of Jim Bost’s house with Mary Kay, Draxie Jean, and Patsy Sutherlin. Jim remains a good friend; maybe I’d been at his house? Did Patsy live across the street from Jim?

Jim came out to see what we were doing, and I remember his laughing -- he thought it was so funny that Draxie had a bar of soap. I didn’t know why she had it, but Jim seemed “in the know.”

When we left, a car parked across from Jim’s house had nicely-decorated windows. Don’t know who gets the credit for creativity, but the soap bar was in several pieces by then. Maybe all of us were inspired? We went to Donna Hunt’s house and got some more soap.

Tom Pry

Ann added a note that she would e-mail Jim and find out what he remembered of it.

I was glad to hear, albeit indirectly, that Jim was still alive and kicking, and that the nice kid I remember from high school grew up to be a nice guy. I’ve long wondered.

After the quite untimely and unexpected death of Jim’s father when Jim was in about the 8th grade (???), several of us in the band kind of became like big brothers, because Jim (understandably) took his dad’s death very, very hard. We took as our self-appointed task getting him out of the doldrums.

The first thing we had to attack was his thumb. When he’d start getting morose, that thumb would slide into his mouth. When that happened, we’d sneak up behind him and bop him in the chin hard enough to make him bite that appendage. He finally stopped that before he lost the thumb totally.

This may’ve been a unique application of the principle now called “tough love.”

That’s how I remember it, anyway. I make no guarantees on the worth of my memory.

Since, though, I’m running a bit short this morning, I’ll bore you with another of my choo-choo train pictures, this one called “Incoming from Memphis.” Why? (a) Because I like trains and (b) Because I can.