Hey, so does it mean you’re old when just the air can cause waves of nostalgia to wash over you? Because I’m totally getting that right now. It’s been a beautiful fall day, and the first real one as far as I’m concerned, because it’s just got that feeling to it. I love this weather, and it brings back memories of everything I’ve ever associated it with. I have no way to properly convey these feelings in words, but I can feel them in my heart and I need to get them out somehow, so I kept a running list of every memory that came back to me today because of the cool autumn air. Here’s what I got:
- Trick-or-treating in general
- Beating Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes for Nintendo 64 one Halloween night
- Playing Silent Hill for the first time
- Daily visits to the Heath Sciences Center
- Watching Criminal Minds on Stephanie’s laptop in my car
- Guitar Hero 5
- Visiting a small corner store downtown that smelled like curry, and buying Pepsis at said store which also smelled of curry
- Treehouse of Horror
- YTV’s Dark Night specials
- McDonald’s Halloween McNugget toys
- Driving around with the family to look at Halloween houses
- That old McDonald’s Halloween cassette tape. “Spooky Sounds” or something of the like?
- Pokémon Silver Version
- The beginning of Christmas madness at Toys ‘R’ Us
- Donkey Konga
- Traipsing through yards covered in crunchy, fallen leaves
- Finally earning my driver’s license
- Purchasing my first car (I still love you, Spirit)
- The beginning of hockey season, and all those dreadful practise sessions
- Carving jack-o-lanterns
- The last family trip to Fargo
- Chasing a bunch of egg-chucking hooligans down the street while dressed as the red Angry Bird
- Playing Rock Band 2 at a Halloween party, and my sister-in-law commenting at how intense I looked while I was playing
- Creating the alias “Tito Sanchez” for reasons I cannot recall
- Going to a corn maze and haunted house with a group of friends, and being thought of as a goofball (not in a good way) by the females of the bunch.
- Playing Magical Starsign in the upstairs storeroom of Toys ‘R’ Us instead of working
- My brother’s friend Brent dressing as a woman for Halloween, and being called “Brenta” for many years afterwards
- Not giving out free cookies to trick-or-treaters at Tim Hortons
- Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, for some reason. I don’t know why, because I never played that at Halloween time
- Pillsbury cookie rolls, with pumpkins coloured into them!
- Enjoying those cold, foggy mornings where nobody’s around and silence abounds
- The many times I said I’d participate in (or at least check out) a zombie walk, but never did
- Pumpkin pie
- The Nightmare Before Christmas
- Specifically, “This is Halloween”