Well I guess you, Nova and I will have to entertain ourselves telling stories. Here is another Halloween happening. I'm sure most of you remember when serenading was all the rage with the young folks. By my generation it had pretty much died out but occassionally, after the older folks had been telling tales, we would decide to try it ourselves. That is what happened one Halloween. I was just barely old enough to be included in the church 'young people' and my brother was just barely too young to be included. He was not happy about it at all so my mother told him to invite a neighbor boy, also a too much younger brother, to come stay with him while the rest of us went serenading. She planed some special treats for them and was going to let them play and stay up past their bedtime, until we got home. That worked pretty well for a little while until they started feeling sorry for themselves since they couldn't scare anyone. They cooked up a plan to go across the dirt road and hide in the bushes, planning to jump out and scare any car that went by. Now why they thought that would work I'll never know, as any car going back after dark was very rare and usually meant someone had died or was sick. Anyway, they gathered what they thought they needed, then bravely struck out aross the road to lie in wait. During all this Daddy was sitting quietly in his chair by the fire just listening to the boys talk. After they had been outof the house about fifteen minutes he asked Mama, "Do we have an umbrella in the house?" She told him that we did, after pointing out to him that it was a moonlight night and he didn't need the umbrella to go to the outhouse. Well he got the umbrella, a big baggy coat and old had, warned her to keep quiet and slipped out the back door. In the moonlight he went behind the house and down the hill to the garden, then out to the Old Trace. Now growing up on the Old Trace...and I mean the OLD trace, not the paved road. Anyway, by the house was the dirt Old Trace and the deep cut, overgrown REAL old trace. We grew up knowing about Big Harp, Little Harp, the Mason Gang and other stories of blood, murder and mayhem that had taken place on that original Trace. We were always just a little spooked by the Old Trace, even if it wasn't Halloween. Now Daddy started walking up that gravel Trace, dragging his feel in the gravel, making just enough noise to eventually notice. He had raised the umbrella, put on the hat and hunched over, dragging one leg as he walked up the hill. He could hear the boys chattering away and making big brags about how they were going to scare the daylights out of anybody that drove by. He got closer and closer. They got quieter and quieter. After he made the turn on the road that went in front of the house (and between the boys and the house) there was absolute silence from the bushs. He kept coming, slowly, dragging that leg. There was no sound, not even the sound of breathing coming from the bushes. Then, just as he got even with the boys he turned and started directly to them, walking into the ditch and heading up the bank. He said those bushes exploded with boys! Arms, legs windmilling, them screaming for help every time their feet hit the ground. He said the thought they jumped over his head on their way to the house! When we got home we found that there had been more excitement at home than we had out roaming the community. And we had a wonderful memory and story to tell for years after. Jeannine Kirkpatrick Smith