Egads! Maureen Is Coming

Today is Halloween.  Happy?  Well, it all began with those ancient Irish and Brits.  They had two seasons: Darkness and Light.  Being in the Northern Hemisphere, Dark Season began around November 1, the birthday of my little sister, Jane.  Since she cooks leg of lamb and roast pork for me, I will say no more.  There was a veil between these two seasons, but on October 31,  the veil was at its thinnest, the Light fading,  and the Dark just beginning.  Everything was thin on October 31, so the dead, confined to the Darkness, could pass through the thin veil and visit their old homes at night.  They were nice dead people, not scary.  To help them find their way in the dark, the living would place candles along the roads and in windows, in hollowed-out turnips to protect from the wind.  Pumpkin idea came from Central America.  No pumpkins grow in Ireland.  My deceased sister, Maureen was not part of the above nice dead.  She was part of another group, witches and demons who roamed about celebrating darkness and winter.  To keep these witches and demons from doing harm, you bribed them by leaving food outside the house.  Egads! What to do.  I don't recall Maureen liking either darkness or winter.  She did not care to drive at night and moved to North Carolina to escape the cold of New York.  And she was not a big eater.  Will she come to haunt me tonight?  My only hope is that she will go to her home in North Carolina, or visit her kids and grandkids and haunt them.  But I fear she has it out for her baby brother, so I will be hiding out in Sea Ranch, California today, hoping she cannot find me.  Oh wait. I will be with my sister Jane, who was born the Day Darkness took over.  A future witch?  What do her old friends say?  Well, maybe a rack of lamb will balance things out.