Feeling a bit nostalgic about Carnivals, Halloween and Ditch Daisies!

  It always happens just about this time of year.  My brain starts telling me that I should be pulling out all of the Fall and Halloween decorations.  I long to drape the stair rails with garlands of orange and red leaves and place pumpkins in every nook and cranny.  My son always tells me that it is too early and squashes any hopes of the place being festive any time soon.  His view is that one week of the decorations is enough.  If I had my way, the Little Bayou House would be bedecked year round!  Secretly, as soon as I finish refurbishing the craft room, I plan on pulling the decorations from the upstairs closet.  At least I can get a "feel" for the upcoming holiday season!  I mean, my goodness, why wait?  There are too many pretties hiding in the closet!  They should be showcased not hidden away in the dark depths of some creepy closet!

  To further push my yearning for Fall decorations, Mother Nature splashed the edge of the woods with daisies!  The bright yellow blooms brought back a flood of memories!  When I was just a youngster, Pop always seemed to be in charge of the Halloween Carnival at the local elementary school.  Since everything back in the day was a lot simpler, decorations for the event were made not bought.  His budget for staging the huge, fun-filled carnival was about $50!  Hundreds of kids made their way through the carnival playing games and getting prizes.  The tickets were twenty for a $1 which made it highly affordable for most everyone. The PTA was the sponsor and always made a hefty profit off of the event. That money was immediately spent for the betterment of the school. 

   But back to those decorations!  Months before the carnival, Pop would start getting prizes, food and equipment donated.  Decorations were handmade.  I can remember creating a lot of the decorations even as young as I was.  Painting cardboard Jack-O-lanterns, folding orange and black crepe paper streamers and hand-stamping brown paper goody bags all needed the attention of the younger kids in the family.  The older siblings were put to work sorting prizes and filling goody bags.  The day before the actual carnival saw the whole family in action!  Pop's booth was always the Balloon Burst!  The object was to throw a dart at a board filled with balloons. (Yep, he used real darts with metal points.)  If you popped one, you got a prize...with Pop, if you didn't hit one you got a prize!  He thought every kid should be happy!  We blew up all of those balloons!  (Thank goodness for an air compressor!) Those several hundred, inflated balloons were awfully fun to tote to the school!  Also on the day of the carnival, we headed out in the old Studebaker station wagon to pick any and all daisies we could find on the sides of the road. (Hence the name "Ditch Daisies"!)  It never dawned on me back in the day but I am certain that more than a few folks thought we were crazy as the kids scrambled about in the ditches to pick armloads of the weeds!  Back home, Mom would place these in paper covered buckets and they, too, were hauled to the school.  Every classroom had daisies!  The hallways had daisies!  The cafeteria had daisies!  It was gorgeous!

  I am quite certain that none of this could ever be done today.  If a carnival at all was to be held nowadays, it most likely would have to be a "Fall Carnival" to be "politically correct".  The PTA (is there even any such organization today?) would have to set forth a huge budget to pay for the attractions, not to mention have to charge a huge admission to cover that budget.  Those attractions would not consist of things like "Beanbag Toss", "Cake Walk", "Balloon Burst", "White Elephant Booth", "Fish Pond", "Fortune Teller's Booth" or most likely not even the "Basketball Throw".  Nope, now they would be some strange inflatable or electronic games.  Prizes would not be donated (sometimes broken) costume jewelry, old toys, pencils with company logos and baggies filled with homemade candy. The food would not be homemade treats such as popcorn balls, brownies or pies.  Everything would have to be prepackaged, store-bought, sugary treats.  Something is very wrong with this picture....very wrong.

  I miss the old time Halloween Carnivals.  I miss the homemade decorations.  I miss the popcorn balls, brownies and pies.  I miss the simplicity of the times, the innocence of Halloween, the family oriented events and months-long preparations that involved whole families not just the adults.  Believe it or not, it was fun for the kids to be included and not just have everything handed to them.  Yep, I sure had a blast of nostalgia today.  These wonderful memories fed a yearning to take a step back in time...or maybe one into the future.