Where Have All the Ghouls Gone?

When I was a kid, Halloween was a big deal in my neighborhood. All of us youngsters lined up and paraded around the cul-de-sac before we hit every house we possibly could in the area and acquired enough candy to make any self-respecting dentist cry. My grandmother was an incredibly talented seamstress; we would tell her what we wanted to be (usually by July!), and she would create the most amazing costumes for us from scratch. She'd find a photo of whatever we came up with (ex, Cinderella, The Lone Ranger, etc.) and churn away! This was well before you could really buy anything more than a sheet to be a ghost for Halloween, so we always stood out in the crowd.

My parents and their friends in the neighborhood (aka my friends' parents) created a magnificent haunted house facade on cardboard that we pulled out of the attic every year and staple gunned to our garage. There was a maze created in the garage with "scary" items scattered throughout (think ax in fake head, hanging ghosts, and witches' cauldrons while the tape recorder rolled over and over with a woman loudly screaming and scary chuckles interspersed throughout), and it ended when you came out of the back of the garage and down the stairs where there were "grave stones" in the giant flower bed out back (a la Haunted Mansion at Disney World - "Here Lies Fred...Without His Head"). I remember my dad standing out front well after our bed time (I could see him from my bedroom window) for all of the teenagers in our neighborhood to go through over and over. Halloween was epic. We looked forward to it every year ALMOST as much as we did Christmas.

Today, not only is it not as exciting, but there is little to do in our neighborhood. When I first moved into this house in 1998, there was still some activity - I ran out of candy every year! But since my kiddo started trick-or-treating, there is not much to do that is considered "safe" these days. Most of my neighbors either turn off their lights or just don't answer the door. The first year we were here, Ellie went as Belle (or Bellie!) to the school party, which was randomly held at a place near downtown (rec center/park area) at 10 AM, but nothing was very well organized; none of her friends were there; didn't see her teachers anywhere... It was kind of odd; most of the decorations scared her; the games were too old for her; the candy was a choking hazard. And then it was over.
 
Last year, Ellie was Rapunz-Ellie! She was adorable "holding court" at the lake where they had a party in my parents' affluent neighborhood. But that was all we really did; it was a bit anti-climactic to say the least. The school event was held at her location this time, but the communication about how it was going to happen was not very clear, so she ended up attending but not in costume. And we didn't trick-or-treat around the neighborhood because most of the houses were dark (and the people in this area are not the most friendly for whatever reason).

This year, Ellie wanted to be like Uncle and be Bat Girl! She got to wear her costume to school, which was great because it was much better organized, and she got to parade around in it with her friends, but then I had class :( Before class started, I took her to Publix (they had put an insert in my grocery bag earlier in the week saying that they would be trick-or-treating from 4-8 PM on Halloween), but they were not ready early on, so it was kind of a bust. It was 4:30 and they were still decorating; no one was really paying attention. Fortunately, Uncle's class was canceled at the last minute so he was able to take her back to her school for the Halloween party, and I heard she had fun, so that was a little better I guess.

But clearly it all pales in comparison to the "good ol' days" when we were free to roam about the neighborhood and didn't have to worry as much about weirdos or tainted candy or pedophiles/sexual predators... The worst that happened was when you went to the little old lady's house on the corner, she gave you 5 pennies for your UNICEF collection. Speaking of, whatever happened to that tradition?

I swore I'd never be the old person who did the whole, "You kids missed out 'cause when I was a kid...," and for the most part, they have it better in a lot of ways. Halloween is just not one of them.

Learning to write, but ain't got a clue... Teaching people how is very hard to do!

I have a lot of grammatical pet peeves; my guess is that I inherited that from my mother. Her biggest one is when people use the word "less" when they should use the word "fewer." Yes, she's talking to you grocery stores, Targets, & Wal-Marts... It's not "10 items or less;" it's "10 items or FEWER!!" Same to you TNT and your "more movie, less commercials" promos. You want to see more drama? Let my mom get on the phone with your marketing department.

One of my pet peeves is when people use seldom used words over and over in a document. Or just too often in general. I will use one of my exes as an example of this because there is nothing he can do about it; it's my blog!! Ha ha! To be completely fair, he does have a mild form of dyslexia, so it took awhile for me to work with him and get his written communications up to par (think years). And this is a person who earned his master's degree by age 24-25 (at the time, I was a lowly bachelor's degree holder). He used to send me things via email (or read them aloud to me over the phone) before he sent out important emails or letters as the benefits manager for his former employer. I once used the term "aforementioned" in a very formal document when I edited it for him. From that point on, he whipped that 50 cent term out every chance he got. NOOOOOO!! WHY??!!! It was a habit I was not successful in breaking him of because he thought it made him sound smart. It didn't. So when you find a word you like that is not often used in writing or conversation, save it for those rare opportunities when it actually does make you look intelligent.

I have been working with master's and doc students in the class I am co-teaching, and I am TOUGH on them, but they have responded to the challenge. I am super proud of them, and most are appreciative of my criticisms because it has made their writing better. But the papers I recently graded (NOT from the class I co-teach!) were, on the whole, horrific. There are really no words. Okay, maybe there are a few, but I have standards for myself on my blog. Anyway, this tirade applies to documents I told my boss I am now "dumber having read."

By far the worst thing I saw was when someone referenced this historic US military event: "Viet Nam." Yes. Two words. I honestly have to wonder if she was using a typewriter because any computer software program would have picked that one out.

My favorite from many of the cover pages: "Such-and-Such Name, Doctoral Degree Anticipated 2014." First of all, let's not count chickens here, folks. Secondly, even if you DO expect to make it to a glorious end, don't be so arrogant as to put it on your FIRST YEAR paper. I wouldn't do it even if I were already in candidacy, much less make that kind of prediction on my very first project!

They're, their, there. Too, to, and two. Your and you're. Were, we're, and where. These are all different words that mean different things. Speaking of, it is never "different than;" it is always "different from." Do not end a sentence with a preposition. Do not start sentences with "however" or "therefore." When you put 2 complete sentences together with an "and," "but," "or," etc., you need to put a comma before the joining word. Sometimes even a semi-colon (or just a semi-colon), depending on how many things you're joining together. And if you join TOO many things together in one sentence to the point where it looks more like a paragraph, chances are that you have created a run-on sentence. Conversely, if you don't actually create a sentence that includes both a noun and a verb, it's called a fragment. If you are writing in past tense, do not change to present tense halfway through the sentence. Make sure your nouns and pronouns agree: it's not, "the student learned their lesson;" it's "the student learned his or her lesson." Dangling participles: Google this phrase please. Misplaced modifiers: ditto.  Speaking of colons, they are used to list things; that is not the semi-colon's job. When you place parentheses in a sentence, the word following the end parenthesis needs to agree with the word preceding the beginning parenthesis. Punctuation goes inside quotations but outside parentheses in most cases. If your Word document is underlining something in red or green on your computer screen, please look those items over and be sure that you are either using a word that is not in the dictionary or you intend for the phrase to be worded the way that it is. The Thesaurus tool is your friend.

WHEW! I feel better. All that said, I probably made at least a few grammatical mistakes in this post. I dare you to point them out!! ;)