‘Little Suzi’ and the Halloween Candy Bones

Once upon a time long, long ago—in the 1960’s—a little girl named Suzi loved Halloween night almost as much as she loved Christmas morning. Little Suzi and her invisible friend Albert every year started thinking about their Halloween costumes long before the leaves on the oak and maple trees turned bright red and orange in the fall, long before farmers brought their yellow pumpkins in from the fields, and long before her granny would ask “What do you want to be this year?”

Every Halloween since she had been old enough to go trick-or-treating on her own, Suzi’s grandmother, whom she called ‘Granny Dear’, made her a new hand-measured, hand-sewn Halloween costume. But to Suzi’s dismay, Granny Dear didn’t believe in scary costumes.

“It’s not polite to scare folks,” she said every year. So until now, Suzi had to dress up in only cute, sweet costumes: a Dalmatian puppy one year, a floppy-eared rabbit the next, a Raggedy Ann doll after that, then a Cherokee Indian princess, and, last year, an angel with a halo and wings made of wire coat hangers and wrapping paper.

And, of course, Albert teased her every year by saying, When are you going to stop wearing those ‘baby’ Halloween costumes and dress up like a real ghost or goblin so we can scare somebody for once?

Albert was lucky. He could dress up in any scary costume he wanted. All he and Suzi had to do was imagine his outfit and, poof, there it was! And Granny Dear didn’t complain about how scary Albert’s costume might be, because only he and Suzi could see it.

I think I’ll be a pirate with an eye patch and black beard this year! Albert excitedly told his friend one Friday in September right after school. The teacher had shown the class a picture of a harvest moon, and it reminded Albert of Halloween right away—he was smart like that.

After school, as they walked home from the red and white brick schoolhouse on Laurel Street to Suzi’s small white frame house on Magnolia Avenue, Suzi and Albert imagined scary Halloween costumes: ghouls, goblins, werewolves, vampires, devils and witches!

“But Granny Dear won’t sew me one of those costumes,” Little Suzi told her friend disappointedly. “She says it’s not ‘propriate for little girls to try to scare the neighbors and their little children. She says it might give them nightmares.”

I wanna have a nightmare! Albert offered enthusiastically. Can we have one for Halloween night? You could get a scary book from the library. Maybe the one we read last year about Sleepy Hollow and the headless horseman?! We had some really good nightmares after that one!Continue reading “‘Little Suzi’ and the Halloween Candy Bones”

‘Little Suzi’ and the New Town

Solway Bridge (old) photo

Once upon a time long, long ago—in the 1960’s—a little girl named Suzi and her mother lived with her Granny and Granddaddy in a comfortable, but small, house on the west end of town. Little Suzi had lived with her grandparents for as long as she could remember and had no reason to think she might one day live anyplace else. But one day, while Suzi was out of school for the summer, her mommy came into the kitchen where Suzi was reading at the table and announced they would be moving.

“Suzi,” the mother told her little girl, “I have something important to tell you.”

Charlottes-Web[1]

“That’s good,” Little Suzi said absentmindedly as she went on reading her new library book, Charlotte’s Web. (She was a very good reader for her age, but Suzi had to concentrate and use Granny’s dictionary to look up the words she didn’t know—hard words like “rummaging” and “spinnerets” and “salutations”!)

“We’ll be moving soon,” Suzi’s mother continued as she sat down at the table next to the girl. “We’ll be moving to a new town not too far from here.”

That got her daughter’s attention, you can bet, and Suzi put down her chapter book and sat straight up in her chair. “But why?!” she asked.Continue reading “‘Little Suzi’ and the New Town”

‘Little Suzi’ and the Bear’s Picnic

Photo by Phil Nickell

Once upon a time long, long ago—in the 1960’s—a little girl named Suzi, her mother Wilma, and her grandparents decided to go for a Sunday afternoon picnic in the mountains of East Tennessee. It was late summer in the city near the mountains where Suzi’s grandparents lived in a small, square house with only a noisy electric fan in the window to help them through the hot and humid days.

Suzi’s granny, Eileen, made special-recipe fried chicken and her grandaddy, Manly, packed the car with the picnic basket, picnic blanket, and heavy fold-up wooden chairs. He put all these things in the trunk of the car so that Suzi, her mommy, and her granny had lots of room to sit inside. They needed lots of room because Suzi always brought her ‘friends’ with her on picnics: a tall baby doll with yellow hair, a monkey sewn from old socks, and a boy named Albert, whom no one else could see but who took up the whole middle seat in the rear of the car.

Continue reading “‘Little Suzi’ and the Bear’s Picnic”

‘Little Suzi’ and the ‘Noculation

Once upon a time long, long ago—in the 1960’s—a little girl named Suzi traveled downtown to see her doctor with her mommy, Wilma.  For this visit, they did not travel the several city blocks there on a bus or in a cab, as they usually did. Instead, they rode in a car that Suzi’s mommy borrowed from her friend Nancy (her best friend from high school days who now lived only one block away).

“We’re running a little late for Suzi’s pediatrician appointment,” Wilma had told her friend over the phone at noon on this beautiful but hot summer day. “Suzi isn’t back from helping her granddaddy tie stakes to his tomato plants next to his backyard shed. I need to borrow your car if we are going to make it to the doctor’s office on time.”

“Well, my little Denny is still taking his nap,” Nancy told her friend, “so why don’t you walk over here to my house and get the keys and drive yourself?”

“That’s wonderful of you,” Wilma replied gratefully. “I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

And so Suzi’s mommy put on her red lipstick, picked up her black clutch purse, put on her sunglasses, tied her new sky blue silk scarf around her hair—to block the wind from the rolled down car windows—and walked briskly up the block to Nancy’s house.

“Thanks so much, Nancy,” Wilma said on the front porch as her friend handed over the keys to the four-door Buick parked on the street outside. “You’re a life saver.”

It was just a week before school would start for Little Suzi in the first grade at the red and white brick schoolhouse only two blocks away from their small white frame house on Magnolia Avenue. And so Suzi’s mommy needed to get her child’s inoculation record up to date to show the school nurse on the first day of class.

“What’s a ‘noculation?” Suzi had asked her invisible friend Albert after hearing her mother talk about it to Miss Nancy on the phone earlier in the week.

I don’t know, Albert told his friend, but I think the nurse sticks medicine in your arm and then gives you a lollypop if you’re good. Can I have one too?

“A ‘noculation?”

No, a lollypop!

“Sure,” Suzi told Albert. “You can have mine if the nurse won’t give you one of your own.”

***Continue reading “‘Little Suzi’ and the ‘Noculation”