Artist's rendering of Jack, as illustrated in pencil by Noah Cordery, Age 5
Non-artist's interpretation.
Our one and only pumpkin was carved after school on Halloween. I believe it was a Hawaiian-grown pumpkin and it was one of those easier ones to carve. Have you ever cut open the top of a pumpkin and tried to scoop out the inside and it's been so gooey you thought you'd never get it all out? I hate those kinds of pumpkins. Luckily, our pumpkin was drier and easy to carve.
Noah wanted a scary pumpkin. I told him to draw a picture of what he wanted it to look like and I'd carve it. If you look closely at his picture you'll see a line through it's teeth. Apparently, Jack was supposed to be wearing braces. I couldn't figure out how to do that in my limited time devoted to the carving. It doesn't really matter because my target audience (that would be Noah) was thrilled with the results.
With Tom out of town in Vegas (lucky dog), Marty and Heather invited Noah and I to their house so Noah could trick-or-treat with their daughter, Jordan. They live on the leeward side of the island in Mililani Mauka.
I must have eaten too much candy before we left and my brain was in a sugar freeze because we left our house allowing only 40 minutes to get there. In normal circumstances you can get to their house in about 30 minutes. Driving to their house during rush hour on a very rainy Halloween night was definitely not "normal circumstances". It took us an hour. We were late and our chicken nuggets and fries were a little cold when we got there. But, not too cold to eat, of course!
Marty and Heather's house is referred to as an "upside down" house and one of roughly 20 on the island. The master bedroom is downstairs and the rest of the house is on the second floor. Yep, the kitchen is on the second floor. Marty thought he'd hang out and relax in the bedroom by the front door so he could be ready when the doorbell rang. Problem was the ring could only be heard upstairs. This led to lots of running up and down the stairs while trying to scarf down some McD's.
Their neighborhood was a perfect place to trick-or-treat. The streets are narrow and most of the arteries off their street are cul-de-sacs. Many of the homes had someone sitting out either by the front door or in the garage handing out the goods. Homes are so compact and space is so scarce here that the garage is sometimes used as another room in the house. It is not uncommon to find the garage used as a family or rec room. One house we went to was having a huge family gathering in their garage and the kids were handing out the candy. It was loud and crazy.
It poured on us on and off and Heather and I had umbrellas. Still, it was hard to keep everyone covered while holding onto everything. We all ended up wet to some degree. Noah's Black Spiderman costume was soaking wet as were the clothes he had on underneath. Jordan was a wet Belle of the ball, but she was still pretty in her yellow gown and her yellow shoes that lit up as she walked.
Once the rain really hit Noah kept saying, "I want to go home". Coming from drought-ridden Idaho, he's not used to moisture. Any bit of water and he's an unhappy camper. We pushed him on, reminding him that he was making great memories of his first time trick-or-treating in Hawaii. Ahhh....
The kids ended up with so much candy that we had to keep unloading their treat buckets into grocery bags. They both ended up with plastic grocery bags completely full of candy and various "treats". I guess some house we visited thought it was their duty to get the kids ready for college as they handed out Top Ramen. That was a riot. I guess now all they need is a hot plate and they'll be all set.
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