Halloween is not my holiday

Most people I know absolutely love Halloween. Their reasons vary widely, but, hey, whatever carves their pumpkin. For most of my life, the last day of October has never held much significance for me. As a child, yes, I did my share of trick-or-treating and enjoyed the fact that I had quite an arsenal of candy stockpiled in my bag by the time the evening was over. I well remember the last time I did any trick-or-treating. It was on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party in 2006. I was 47 years old. But very much a kid at heart.

Trick-or-treating aside, for some reason I never really got into the whole Halloween thing. I went to the occasional haunted house, Halloween party, dressed up, and even played a "stooge" one year when our church youth group was allowed to turn much of the church property (except the sanctuary) into a walk-through haunted house. My role as "stooge" meant that I joined every group and went with them as far as a room where they were warned that they'd better not stay in that room for long or "the monster" would come out of the closet and grab someone. Well, the monster did come out, grabbed "someone" and pulled him into the closet, never to be seen again—till he joined the next group. I was that "someone," you know, the expendable guest.

A few years later, I participated in something called "Parade of Monsters" out at Magic Mountain before Six Flags bought the park in 1979. For our participation, we were given two admission tickets to the park for future visits—a $15 value! (It would be closer to $200 these days, but that's for another post.)

During the '60s and '70s, most people in our area didn't decorate their homes as much for Halloween as they did for Christmas. There was one family a few blocks away that turned the outside of their home into something they called "McSpook's Graveyard." To us, that was the ultimate Halloween attraction and every year we couldn't wait to see it. Then one year, we walked over there and saw...a regular house with no decorations of any kind. What happened? We don't know and never found out if the people moved, died, or just got tired of setting it up and tearing it down every year.

As for haunted attractions at theme parks, I've been to Fright Fest at Six Flags Magic Mountain, Knott's Scary Farm (aka "Haunt"), Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida (strangely, I have never been to HHN at the much closer Hollywood park), the aforementioned event at Walt Disney World, and Scream Park at the long gone MGM Grand Adventures in Las Vegas.

McSpook's Graveyard may be history, but some people also built their own haunted attractions. One of the better ones was Higgins Manor in Mission Viejo. My friend Chris Higgins put that together for many years, and was well worth the 200-mile drive (round trip) to see it. Chris has set up something this year at his place in the San Gabriel Valley, but I haven't seen it as of the writing of this post.

We've always had candy for trick-or-treaters, but for whatever reason, only a few kids came by. If there's anything I don't need sitting around, it's candy. This year, of course, things are very different with the COVID-19 pandumbic going on.

Sounds like I was pretty busy with Halloween stuff for someone with little interest in it, huh? I'm definitely not obsessed with Halloween as so many folks are, but I've had some good times. Oftentimes I find myself feeling guilty for enjoying the holidays—perhaps for having what others don't have, or enjoying myself when so many aren't so happy. This goes back to childhood, actually. It's a mystery to which I haven't a key.

The bad thing about not working is that it gives your mind time to think about things in your life—things that you or others could have or should have done differently. I could write about these things, but I'm keeping posts like that on the back burner for now.

With no trick-or-treaters coming by, I might use the time to figure out how I want to approach writing what could be a serious post. In the spirit of Halloween, stay entombed...

Eric's pit stop—simple adjustments or complete overhaul?

For reasons I'm not sure I'll ever know, September was a "pedal to the metal" month here on the planet. New posts flowed off of me like melted butter flowing off of a hot stack of pancakes. And as fast as it began, so did it stop. It's definitely not for a lack of subject matter—I have enough to write about for many posts to come. At the time of this post, I've written a few that I'm not ready to spring on you just yet. Those posts require some more thought and a little fine tuning.

So why aren't I doing that? Why are my posts sitting in my mind like they're waiting for a train that isn't coming? Waiting for a traffic light that isn't changing? Stuck in the head of someone stalling by making up clichés? There is without a doubt a Sigalert in effect on someone's mental freeway. And you both know who that someone is.

One contributor to that could be a hiccup in my current state of health. To my surprise, when I visited the doctor last month, he said that I got an order to see [drum roll] an endocrinologist to figure out some issues that have come up. For whatever reason, however, trying to make an appointment to see her has proven difficult, which is odd to me. But I keep on keeping on, which is the best I can do. At age sixty-one, I'm no spring chicken, but I'm still a long way from being over the hill by any means even though I can see it in the distance. Yes, I'm diabetic, which everyone from here to the Amalfi Coast in Italy already knows. That disease is not kind to your body regardless of how well you manage it. I don't believe that you can control diabetes, but you can manage it. Some will disagree, and I'll care tomorrow because I'm busy right now. Before I end up lecturing about diabetes, let me get back to the topic at hand, whatever it was.

(Of note, one thing I'd better not approach here is Eric's Forever Futile Financial Fiasco. Going there will only cause me to break down into tears. Not worth it—not even for the Oscar winning performance. Maybe $ome other time.)

Provided I can actually get an appointment with this doctor, perhaps under her care I can figure out why my body is doing what it's doing and snap it back to a reasonable state of being. I have no doubt that this new doctor has the best tools for the job.

A bridge way too far

I think the title of this post is a movie title taken way too far. But it's me, so there's that. Given the fact that everyone knows about my interests in public transit, amusement parks, aircraft, railroads, automobiles, freeways and cars in general, it should surprise no one that I've also held a longtime interest in bridges. Any kind—steel, concrete, wood, freeway, boulevard, railroad, Lego, cantilever, suspension. Crossing rivers, highways, railroads, gulches, canyons. The list goes on. It's strange that I haven't written anything about this till now. I guess I simply never thought to do so. Some days my brain works; other days it just sits drinking pituitary juice cocktails—in the gland scheme of things, anyway. It must not taste very good, given that it's called pih-TOOIE-tary juice. But I don't think any of us wants to know any more about that, let alone discuss it...

During my life, I've been blessed with the pleasure of visiting all but 43 of the states of our great country. It's not much of a feat compared to the fact that Diana has visited more countries than I have states. And she's been to probably about half of the states. My point here is that I've never gotten out much in my 61 years. Throughout the country and the world, there are bridges that are absolute marvels of engineering. While I can sit under my skylight here at home looking at them online, it's not the same as visiting them in person. Though, I suppose that's true for anything, really.

Instead of whining about what I haven't seen, I can proudly say that I have had the opportunity to see some of the best that my home state has to offer. Two of the most famous bridges in the world are just up the state from me in the San Francisco Bay area—the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (aka the Bay Bridge). I'm happy to say that I've crossed both a few times. Both of them opened in the 1930s and have served Bay area drivers well for many years. The Bay Bridge underwent some major construction a few years ago to replace the eastern steel truss span with a newer cable-stayed span. Part of the upper deck of the old bridge fell onto the lower deck in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The entire structure was found to be prone to collapse in a future quake, so construction of the new span got underway. I've yet to cross the bay on the new bridge, but I'll get there. I'm always up for an adventure.

I won't be able to get back north anytime soon, but we happen to have some new bridge construction recently finished in my neck of the woods. The old, steel arch Gerald Desmond Bridge, which connects the city of Long Beach to Terminal Island was recently replaced by a new span, this time a cable-stayed span that is higher and wider than the '60s-era relic that it replaced. By the way, Gerald Desmond was a politician in the city of Long Beach. If you'd like to read more about him, click here.

Photos of the old version of the Gerald Desmond Bridge can be found here along with photos and artist's conception drawings of the new replacement span.

Just to the west of the new bridge is another favorite, the Vincent Thomas Bridge, a classic suspension bridge built in the early '60s. At one time, there was a toll to cross this bridge, but it was dropped sometime back. As for who Vincent Thomas was, click here.

I mentioned earlier that I'm always up for an adventure, so I took myself on one just today. My goal was to get my car washed, thus enabling me to see out the windshield, and then head to San Pedro and Long Beach to see the new bridge and cross it a couple of times. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos, but the sites linked above have better photos than I could ever take. A stop at Henry's Tacos for dinner and a visit with Omar was a nice way to top off this adventure.