Que sera, sera

For many, October conjures up many memories of Halloween, pumpkins, pumpkin spice, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin costumes and perhaps pumpkin pie.

It speaks of sweater weather, hot chocolate which is said to be like a hug in a mug, and the colorful forests that only we know living in the upper elevations of our mountains in North Carolina.

In a recent Facebook meme, I took pictures along a Bladen County lake on the last day of September when it’s said that summer officially hugs you, walks out the door and informs you that she’s going to Australia for the winter.

I made an observation and a reflection as we head into the last three months of the year.

“2025 is dying. She is in the final few months of her life, and nowhere is death and dying more illuminated than when summer begins to let go and strong cool winds come to harvest the memories of what was. She will lay down in December and breathe her final breaths on the 31st as she gives way to 2026.”

All at once now… “WHERE DID THE YEAR GO???”

We are now in that first month and for me, yes, the memories are all of the above. The Halloween costumes, the smell of mom baking pumpkin seeds, hot chocolate with miniature marshmallows and latter memories of Pumpkin Spiced Chai Latte down at “Barefoot Brew” … sometimes twice a day.

But when you speak to me about October, my memories drift back to my life as a child and the end of the season for baseball. The World Series. For a kid who always wanted to grow up and be a professional baseball player it was synonymous with October.

This year is special, but guarded as our Milwaukee Brewers had the best regular season record in all of baseball which means… absolutely nothing come the post season.

I thought about the game the other day on a different level as I was binge watching the film “Baseball” by Ken Burns. It was America’s summer game. It opened and came to life in line with the season of spring and ended when leaves were falling.

The parallels to life now mean more to me than anything.

It wasn’t just “The Series” but all the memories that brought us to that point. Playing Little League in the cool misty rain of a summer morning or the hot August sun. It was playing ball after supper with the length of innings dictated by the setting sun. Playing until it got too dark to see the ball.

The memories go deeper though. Having a catch with my dad before dinner and on Sunday afternoons and never forgetting to take the gloves and bats with us on vacation. Playing catch in rest stops and losing the ball in a strange wooded area that my mom assured me would be filled with ticks if I went in to find the ball.

I realized that of all the sports equipment I’d ever had, I still have the same glove today that I had in high school. Just to see it in my study brings me back to the Badger state.

Smells of the old chocolate factory mixed with the yeast smells of the downtown Pabst Brewing Company come wafting through my mind. School had already been in session for a month and progress reports were going out and soon basketball tryouts would come.

I remember mom making our Halloween costumes in the days when only the very few rich kids could afford to buy one. I don’t remember much of what I dressed like. From pictures I know that one year I went as a pumpkin and another year I went as a pirate. One year the sleeting rain was so heavy and cold that we wore coats over our costumes and the rain got into my brother’s paper sack because he stopped often to investigate the goodies and eat the candy.

That long, sad story ended in tears, a bag that ripped open and soggy candy laying all over Cleveland Avenue.

And the magical part of Halloween in those days was that we had nothing rationed… we had awesome sugar-driven meltdowns, mom baked pasties and the pumpkin seeds in the oven and the hot chocolate tasted a lot better after all that hiking through the Wisconsin elements.

But as bad as it got… we never worried about the day after Halloween. Which would of course be – November and – yikes – elections were on the horizon. But we never worried about it as kids. We never got involved in that because we had “Bit-O-Honey” candies and “Dad’s root beer barrels” to eat for days.

This year I think I’ll revert to a childlike innocence sharing candy with someone I love and not getting too bent out of shape over the things that will just take care of themselves. I’ll grab a Kit-Kat bar, park myself near a TV-set and hope for the Brewers taking it all the way to game seven. Well… perhaps just a candy bar then. Oh well… Que Sera, Sera – Go Brew Crew and get ready for Turkey Day.