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Home My WebLink AboutClinton News-Record, 1985-10-23, Page 34.1 Icwe •• taste, .smo. tingle of Continued from page school built around 1906, where huge pipes leading film the furnace creaked and hissed on their way to the rooms,, and that scared me. The troop talked about taking trips to the woods - for nature hikes, and that scared me. But when the girls. in the troop started talking about "flying up" — a graduation ceremony when we would become Girl Scouts and wear green baggy uniforms instead of brown — I bailed out of the group, terrified. When I asked the other girls what "flying up" meant, the explained it as, "you get your wings and youfly up, silly." 1 had it in my mind that we would be placed on some kind of scaffolding, ropes placed under our armpits, and actually pulled up by the pits to approximate flying. I thought we might even be asked to flap our arms as if we were flying, and I was having none of it. My mother was terribly disappointed that I didn't want to be a Brownie, and thought if she could just get me to the Brownie Halloween party, I'd change my mind. I reluctantly • agreed if I could go as a nurse, which was•then my life's ambition. She dressed me up in one of her old white shirts with a red felt cross on one pocket, her navy blue sweater around my shoulders as a cape, and a nurse cap she folded out of white paper. She drove me to the party, with plans to pick me up at the party's end. Instead of warming up to the party as my mothzr hoped. I was made immediately ill -at -ease by the voices of girls I knew coming from behind unrecognizable masks. But while familiar voices coming from strange faces scared me, It was Miven to frenzy when the troop leader am:mimed we'd be going on a scavenger hunt. She said we'd form in'groups of four, each with an adult leader, to prowl the neighborhoods for items on our lists. Fural, the way a 7-year-old's mind works. 1 coficluded that if I accompanied my group on the scavenger hunt, I'd never return. Brom Bones would surely get me from behind some neighborhood maple tree, and my mom would return to find only my nurse cap, mashed flat. Funnier still, I decided that if I could just strike out on my own, I'd get home safely and avoid all this terror. But I announced to my leader that'l was sick and needed to be getting home. She called my mother and told me to wait at the front door, and [took off down the street when she wasn't looking. As I walked purposefully down the street, I had no more notion than a fence post of where I was going. Older trick -or -treaters passed me, laughing and comparing loot. The wind whipped my costume around my knees, and the by then familiar leaves swirled, whished and crackled at my feet. I could see little but the strong lights on porches, and looked from house to house for familiar signs: Yes, that was Kenny's house, and that was Linda's house and soon I'd come to the ,street that turned off onto the street that turned off onto the street that... Suddenly and irrevocably, in the same manner you come to know you've locked yourself out of your car, I realized I didn't know where I was. I looked to the end of the street where the • bright street light served as the fast pi ci• anothfrblogis,.. mew tbern."00414 TIUMOOr •of MPIIS4 beyond the lig1$ and I' feel cuneasy; But bVQre make that WOO the stmt fight -a, - darkness of anOt4ert4.04,,^013 brilliant headlieft NiOefirriM, On her way to pick me up athe party, my mother had EpogniZW my white nurse cap. $ne strapped our 1949 Pontiac and rolledl, down her window. "Sarah! What on earth are you 4Qing out here? Why aren't yoy at Mrs. Haines'?" I got into the car, very . relieved. While never had -. time to be genuinely scared, I'd teetered on the precipice between safety and uncertainty' just long enough to appreciate certain security. My mother read me the riot act about whait could have possessed me to strike out on my own without an adult, in the dark, seven blocks from my house. I listened vaguely, a feeling of tired satisfaction making me sleepy. I had looked out for my own safety and proven myself right because I had ended up, ultimately, safe and sound with my mom in our car. And I had experienced a real, live Halloween. • IX December r Framed mqmorabitia or crafts Ei for family members Fer Framed graphics for spmeone's =3or office" Posters for employees RV Sculpture for a special friend iscof Spruce up your home for I In holiday entertaining For quality framing and unique, timeleSs design - get a head start on the Christmas rush with the "Professionals" at U • Frame • It. 473-0611 795 WONDERLAND LONDON (Corner of Wonderland & Viscount) PANDA SHOES MASONVILLE Place 1680 Richmond St. 11., London, Ont. 438-7498 SovcIge a,rovir+ Buster• ort gottole " Don ar° Pe tool SteP 1 P°1* r"ant Bre.ocIstr s sch,..ars cart. "'fat.. rS eens Footwear for young folks • Fit for growing feet Booties - Shoes - Slippers - Runners - Boots 4-1FACICIRY Ircym_i •TA 13LE Aig CIAIAIIV London Hwy. 135 West of White Oaks Side Road 1-800-265-1208 Hours 8:00-5:30