I finally found, in the wild no less, the vinyl I've once and future owned, the Halloween sounds album from my childhood. I listened to Sounds to Make You Shiver (1974) quite a bit in Octobers of yore. Yore being the equivalent of approximately 36, 37 Octobers. Yeah, 10-year-old me would sit beside the stereo late at night when my parents were asleep and I would spin this up, fantasizing I was a vampire. I also had to grab this all-Halloween episodes Roseanne DVD. I have the complete show on DVD from Mill Creek, but to have all of the Halloween eps on one disc was just too good to pass up! This was something I've wanted to add to my collection for years... No more first-world disc-changing problems for me, sir! And with this we wind down Halloweentober. Gale winds are ushering the harvest season out and it's beginning to feel more like winter than autumn. With that the spooky season fades away, like the morning fog in the bright sun. My final surviv...

Once again, I would like to point out that the jack-o'-lantern is a wonderful symbol of the harvest season, and as such, Thanksgiving. Before the smiling jack became the icon of Halloween, we were using it as a ward during autumn. The pumpkin has long been associated with Thanksgiving, of course. Pumpkin pie is as ubiquitous to the holiday and autumn as it is Halloween. It makes for one of the most beautiful displays sitting atop a bale of hay, with corn stalks and colorful mums. But to spice this up a bit transform some of your pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns deep into November. Keep the Smiling Jack alive this and every autumn! Not personally much of a poem guy, one of my favorites however is from John Greenleaf Whittier. The Pumpkin (1850) touched on the jack-o'-lantern during Thanksgiving. Check it out:  Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,  The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run, And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold, With broad leaves all gr...