we quit going to a house (which was likely the idea there) when the woman who lived there was invariably watching tv and eating popcorn on halloween night, and she’d give trick-or-treaters a handful from her popcorn bowl! agh.
once 25 or 30 years ago when i was traveling through kentucky i saw a sign for transylvania university! hit the brakes, turned around, went back, found the campus and its bookstore, and bought a TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY Tshirt that i still have and still wear! one of my faves!
we have a 50-acre farm, used to know the folks from the neighboring farms, when someone’s livestock got out we all knew who to call to say we’ll give you a hand getting them back home. then several years ago a DREADFUL rich californian moved up here (oregon), bought ALL of the farms around us, and began a massive campaign of harrassment to try to get us out so she could consolidate her empire. the term “neighbor” has ceased to have any good connotation whatsoever… but we’re still hanging on!
and here i just cancelled my last lingering newspaper subscription. go ahead, try to make me feel guilty! but it had ceased to carry local news, instead just printing feeds from the services. no, i take that back, it still had a multi-page sports section, and with the advent of football season it did start obsessing on local teams. but when it cut Dear Abby and most of the comics, well… that was the final blow. sayonara local so-called newspaper.
ours is mailed to us now, which means it doesn’t get here until late afternoon and its “news” is even staler than usual. i keep my subscription partly out of stubbornness, partly out of loyalty to the very idea of newspapers, and partly because once in a huge while there is some local news in there that i wouldn’t get elsewhere. oh, and also when i bundle them up and tie it with string, it makes helpful lined walkways among the many garden beds!❣️
and now only Willie is left, the last of the Highwaymen ….