Oh Wow

Yesterday, Halloween, was a day to think about death. And beyond all the pumpkins and candy and costumes is the more gruesome imagery of worms and skeletons and tombstones.

The reality is known--we all have to go. We may go early by accident, like racecar driver Dan Wheldon, in active old age, like my 90-year-old friend Don, or by tragic lifestyle, like Amy Winehouse. But, as we have some choice in the way we live, we also can choose how we face the inevitability of our death.

Steve Jobs, the genius responsible for so much we know and love in our lives, according to his sister said "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow" as his final words. I find that easy to believe. He looked forward and saw something exciting. He had an attitude of curiosity and discovery even at the very end of his too-short life. The attitude that made those words possible is what made his 56 years worth living.

We can't know what Steve saw or experienced at that moment, but I find it comforting and encouraging that what what he saw couldn't have been a bad thing if he was so excited about it. Perhaps if we lose our fear of death we can lose our fear of life and live it to the fullest. Because a wasted life is more tragic than death, it seems to me.

Halloween Means Pumpkins!

The first sign of Halloween is always the arrival of bags of small candy bars in huge piles near the entrance of Safeway (they get an entire aisle at my local Walgreens too). Sadly for my waistline, this year I have been a regular customer of said product for weeks already.

Another sign of Halloween, besides witches and goblins and creepy spiders, is the arrival of pumpkins! I've seen them stacked in front of the aforementioned Safeway, and imagery of them is abundant. There's was even a pumpkin-carving contest announced a couple of days ago at work.

The best way to celebrate pumpkins, though, is to go to drive to Half Moon Bay (California), where many of the large orange vegetables are grown. It's best to go on a weekend that does not contain the annual Pumpkin Festival itself. Traffic is bad in and out of the small coastal town during all of October, but we simply avoid that big weekend.

We went there today, a week after the festival. Years ago, we took our younger son and some friends of ours with similar aged kids, but since my "baby" is 19, that's out. Luckily, the next generation has arrived, so this time my three-year-old granddaughter (with my older son and daughter-in-law) got her first taste of the pony ride, train ride, giant slide, face painting and other activities. We managed to avoid the congested roads and escaped afterwards up Highway 1 for a tasty lunch at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company in Princeton-By-The-Sea. The beer was a perfect accompaniment to the day.

Nothing scary about that at all, but it could be frightening what happens to my girth if they don't get that tempting candy out of the supermarket soon. And I'd better be careful with the pumpkin pie, too.