Happy Halloween

 Celebrating Halloween at Starbucks. Their hot coffee machine is broken so I'm having an ice latte, which was free because their hot coffee machine is broken. There is no Halloween in Bali, although most people do have a vague idea of what it's about. You can say "Trick or Treat" and they will understand the reference. I suppose there might be Halloween type parties in the tourist hubs, Kuta, Seminyak, and so on, but not this year, as there are still no tourists, the airport still being closed to foreign entry due to COVID. 

The only good memories I have of Halloween are from when I was very young. Trick or Treating with my brother and our friends. Back in those days you could get an enormous bag full of candy, and the candy bars were big--Butter Fingers, Baby Ruths. There were also popcorn balls and caramel apples. It seems like the candy lasted for weeks afterward. 

Other than that, remember very little about Halloweens. I do remember that my son got sick one Halloween after Trick or Treating with his cousins and ended up in the hospital with uncontrollable vomiting. He was diabetic but had not eaten any candy. He had just gone out for the "fun". The illness, a flu, was a coincidence. If I remember rightly, he was about three days in the hospital. 

My first ever dance with a girl was at a Halloween party at Julie Meier's house. I was in the eighth grade. 

I have a very dim memory of going to a Halloween party somewhere during my second marriage, but I cannot remember what I was dressed as or what she was dressed as or who had hosted the party or where it took place. Must not have been the best party ever. 

My third wife tells me that we went to a Halloween party together, but I have no memory of this whatsoever. 

When I was young, I felt bad about not being invited to Halloween parties, about sitting home alone instead, watching TV or handing out treats to children, and yet I cannot remember the parties I later attended. Apparently, I needn't have felt bad. 

I think that during the lost years that I spent in a bottle I probably went out to this or that bar for Halloween, but I have no recollection at all of whatever events might have taken place. 

It seems like my life is largely made up of years that are lost for one reason or another.