Awakenings from Then ’til Now allows you to Embrace Your Past, Empower the Present, Enrich Your Future.
Welcome to Awakenings
Life IS history in the making. Every word we say, everything we do becomes history the moment it is said or done. Life void of memories leaves nothing but emptiness. For those who might consider history boring, think again: It is who we are, what we do and why we are here. We are certainly individuals in our thoughts and deeds but we all germinated from seeds planted long, long ago.
Curtis Granderson of the New York Mets celebrates with Noah
Syndergaard and David Wright after hitting a two-run home run in the
third inning against Kansas City. The hit put pitcher Syndergaard across
home plate after he hit a single in his first World Series at-bat.
Mike Stobe/Getty Images
With so much happenin' today, the post about the status of the World Series almost slipped right on by. My, my, my! What a turn of events! That's why it is still anybody's ballgame! The Mets lived up to past experiences coming from behind to stop the Royals from their third win.
With the Mets’ first World Series game at home in 15 years, they entered the field in attack mode determined to win. This was a must-win situation for the METS and they left the field with exactly what they had intended —victory!
The first pitch came out of Noah Syndergaard’s right hand at 97 miles per hour and zipped past the head of Alcides Escobar, the Royals’ leadoff hitter, who had tormented the Mets
in the World Series. Escobar dived out of the way, fell to the ground
and sat in the batter’s box for several moments, trying to gather
himself while toying with his bat...
...Syndergaard wanted to attack the Royals, make them feel uncomfortable — a
feat that Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom had failed to accomplish in
Games 1 and 2, as the Mets lost the first two games of the series in
Kansas City. Read the article...HERE!
Check out the GAME'S WRAPUP...especially if you missed the game either in real time, TV or radio! Royals may still be in the lead but it is still anybody's series!
Throughout the month apples have been at the center of attention since October is National Apple Month and apples are APPle, AppLE, APPLE-licious! Of all the apple celebrations, one in particular stands out during local fall festivals and is actually a must for Halloween. In fact, this treat is fun for everyone and anyone. No age limit whatsoever.
October 31 is...
National Candy Apple Day
Candy apples are known by an assortment
of names: candy covered apples, candied apples, caramel apples, caramel candy
apples, lollipop apples, taffy apples, toffee apples and whatever you may wish
to call the 'apple on a stick' that is not on this list.
"Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and
crabbed and rusty to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming
traits even to the eye." -- Henry David Thoreau, Wild Apples
What is Halloween without a good horror story or movie!Stories of ghosts, goblins and ghouls monopolize the setting as the movie makers try to outdo one another with scenes of blood and gore. I often wonder how many bottles of ketchup (or similar fake blood) are wasted as Dracula feeds upon his victims, the Werewolf mauls his prey beyond recognition or Freddy Krueger uses a glove armed with razors to kill his victims in their dreams. We scream at the sight of bizarre transformations and close our eyes as flesh melts away like candle wax exposing the skeleton underneath. Then, as if that's not enough, the Zombies right out of the grave thrash about uncontrollably with gutteral breaths and rattling groans. All in the name of entertainment!
This may be carrying it a bit far with a selfie!
Of course, all horror movies do not necessarily feed upon blood and some actually bring about laughter, rather than shrills and chills. Among the best is the good old-fashioned black and white classic Young Frankenstein staring Gene Wilder and directed by comic genius Mel Brooks. Peter Boyle portrays The Monster whose heart is soft while his appearance is grotesque. Then, there is comedy legend Marty Feldman playing Igor, or is it Egor (?), who embraces movie lines that become as natural as speech itself.
Carvings of a monumental nature reached their final stages on this day in history 1941. These were no ordinary carvings, not of wood using Wayne Barton, Flexcut Tools or Swedish Frost Carving Knives as one might use for basic chipping and carving. These carvings occurred on the side of a mountain—Mount Rushmore, which is mainly composed of granite, that is, in simple terms, rock! The tools instead of knives consisted of dynamite and drills.
Before watching the videos or reading further, do you know whose faces are carved into the mountain and why these specific historical figures were chosen for the monument?
Mount Rushmore is a project of colossal proportion, colossal ambition
and colossal achievement. It involved the efforts of nearly 400 men and
women. The duties involved varied greatly from the call boy to drillers
to the blacksmith to the housekeepers. Some of the workers at Mount
Rushmore were interviewed, and were asked, "What is it you do here?" One
of the workers responded and said, "I run a jackhammer." Another worker
responded to the same question, " I earn $8.00 a day." However, a third
worker said, "I am helping to create a memorial." The third worker had
an idea of what they were trying to accomplish. Continue HERE...
Mount Rushmore before construction, circa 1905.
Image Source: en.wikipedia.org
Construction of Mount Rushmore Monument
Image Source: en.wikipedia.org
Mount Rushmore, showing the full size of the mountain
and the scree of rocks from the sculpting and construction.
Image Source: en.wikipedia.org
From 1927 to 1941 the 400 workers at Mount Rushmore were doing more than
operating a jackhammer, they were doing more than earning $8.00 a day,
they were building a Memorial that people from across the nation and
around the world would come to see for generations. Source: Mount Rushmore
How was your memory? Did you have the right names with the right faces from the beginning?
The Countdown to Halloween is almost over with getting ready for the witching hours soon to be a thing of the past. Each year on the eve of Halloween Awakenings features the writings of Micki Peluso, author of ...And the Whippoorwill Sang. Read more on Micki at the end of the article.
At your Halloween gatherings, enlighten your family and friends on how much you know about Halloween! Bet you will teach someone something new.
This is a story
of the origins of Halloween from olden times up to the present.
Photo Credit: photobucket.com
Strange shadows dart
stealthily across sparely lit streets, as dusk settles heavily on quiet
neighborhoods of tree-lined sidewalks and cheerful well-kept homes. The eerie
scream of a screech owl, more likely the brakes of a passing car, echoes deep into
the night. Looming ominously from nearly every window is the menacing glare of
smirking Jack-o-lanterns, while the often nervous refrain of "Trick or Treat"
rings out in repetitious peals. Halloween is here, and with it the shivery
remembrance of things that go bump in the night.
Halloween, a holiday once favored second to Christmas, is not as much fun as it
used to be. The last few Halloweens have brought tampering scares, such as
finding razors in apples and poisoned candy. A sick segment of society has
forced many parents to hold neighborhood parties, instead of allowing their
children to trick or treat. The tricks have been turned on the children, ruining
an a once magical evening.
Photo Credit: photobucket.com
Gone are the days when children, dressed up hideously, or gaudily beautiful,
could enter the home of a stranger, and be offered chilled apple cider with
cinnamon stick straws, and homemade gingerbread, or cupcakes with orange icing
and candy corn faces. No longer can mischievous children creep up on
neighborhood porches to toss corn kernels against the front door, or generously
soap window panes, without triggering house alarms and angering guard dogs kept
behind locked fences. The mystical lure of Halloween is becoming a commercial enterprise for the sale of candy, costumes and decorations.
Photo Credit: photobucket.com
Halloween is a Christian name meaning All Hallows, or All Saint's Day, but the
custom of Halloween dates back to the Celtic cult in Northern Europe. As the
Roman conquest pushed north, the Latin festival of the harvest god, Pomona,
mingled with the Druid god, Samhain. Eventually, the Christians adopted the
Celtic rites into their own observances. Halloween signified the return
of the herds from the pasture, renewal of laws and land tenures, and the
practice of divination with the dead, presumed to visit their homes on this
day. For both the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons, Halloween marked the eve of a new
year. The Britains were convinced that divination concerning health, death and
luck, was most auspicious on Halloween. The devil, himself, was evoked for such
purposes.
The Druid year began on November first, and on the eve of that
day, the lord of death gathered the souls of the dead who had been condemned to
enter the body of animals to decide what form they should take for the upcoming
year; the souls of the good entered the body of another human at death. The
Druids considered cats to be sacred, believing these animals had once been
human, changed into cats as punishment for evil deeds.
Photo Credit: photobucket.com
The Druid cults were outlawed by the Romans during their reign in Great Britain,
but the Celtic rites have survived, in part, to the present day. By the time
these ancient rites migrated to America, the mystic significance was lost, and
all that has remained is an evening when children can dress in outrageous
costumes, and collect candy from obliging neighbors; yet a tiny part of every
child still believes in witches, ghosts, and the nameless entities that creep
about on Halloween, relatives, to their young minds, of the monster that lives
under every child's bed.
In the ancient days, it was believed that
Halloween was the night chosen by witches and ghosts to freely roam, causing
mischief and harm. Witchcraft existed before biblical times, believed in by
ancient Egyptians, Romans and American Indians. The Christian Church held
varying opinions on witchcraft, at one time accrediting it to be an illusion,
later accepting it as a form of alliance with the devil. As late as 1768,
disbelief in witchcraft was regarded as proof of atheism.
Halloween
customs varied from country to country, but all were related to the Celtic
rites. Immigrants to this country, particularly the Scotch and Irish, introduced
some of the customs remaining today, but there were many more that are
unfamiliar. On Halloween in Scotland, women sowed hemp seed into plowed land at
midnight, repeating the formula: "Hemp seed I sow, who will my husband be, let
him come and mow." Looking over her left shoulder, a woman might see her future
mate.
Photo Credit: photobucket.com
Apples and a six-pence were put into a tub of water, and whoever succeeded in
extracting either of them with his mouth, but without using his teeth, was
guaranteed a lucky year. In the highlands of Scotland in the 18th century,
families would march about their fields on Halloween, walking from right to
left, with lighted torches, believing this would assure good crops. In other
parts of Scotland, witches were accused of stealing milk and harming cattle.
Boys took peat torches and carried them across the fields, from left to
right (widdershins), in an effort to scare the witches away. The Scots strongly believed in fairies. If a man took a three-legged stool to an
intersection of three roads, and sat on it at midnight, he might hear the names
of the people destined to die in the coming year. However, if he tossed a
garment to the fairies, they would happily revoke the death sentence. Scotland's witches held a party on Halloween. Seemingly ordinary women, who had
sold their souls to the devil, put sticks, supposedly smeared with the fat of
murdered babies, into their beds. These sticks were said to change into the
likenesses of the women, and fly up the chimney on broomsticks, attended by
black cats, the witchs' familiars.
Photo Credit: Wikipedia (Click thumbnail to enlarge.)
In Ireland, a meal of colcannon, consisting of mashed potatoes, onions and
parsnips, was solemnly served on Halloween. Stirred into this concoction, was a
ring, a thimble, a coin, and a doll. The finder of the ring would marry soon,
the finder of the doll would have many children, the thimble finder would never
marry, and the one fortunate enough to find the coin would be rich.
Jack-o-lanterns originated from Ireland, where according to newspaper editor and
writer, George William Douglas, "a stingy man named Jack was barred from Heaven
because of his penuriousness, and forbidden to enter Hell because of his
practical jokes on the devil, thus condemned to walk the earth with his lantern
until Judgement Day."
A more serious custom was the holding of the General Assembly (Freig) at Tara, in
Celtic Ireland, celebrated every three years and lasting two weeks. Human
sacrifices to the gods opened the ceremonies, the victims going up in
flames. England borrowed many of the Scotch and Irish customs, adding
them to their own. Young people bobbed for apples, tied a lighted candle to
one end of a stick and an apple to the other. The stick was suspended and set
spinning, the object of the game being to bite the apple without getting burned
by the candle. This custom was a relic of the fires lighted on the eve of
Samhain in the ancient days of the Celts.
The only customs bearing no
relation to the ancient rites is the masquerade costumes of today, and Halloween
parades. But the custom of masked children asking for treats comes from the
seventeenth century, when Irish peasants begged for money to buy luxuries for
the feast of St. Columba,a sixth century priest, who founded a monastery off the
coast of Scotland.
From the north of England comes the activity known as "mischief night", marked
by shenanigans with no particular purpose, or background. Boys and young men
overturned sheds, broke windows, and damaged property. Mischief night prevails
today, but is mostly limited to throwing eggs, smashing pumpkins, and lathering
cars with shaving cream. The custom of "trick or treat" is observed mainly by small
children, going from house to house. The treat is almost always given, and the
trick rarely played, except by teenagers, who view Halloween as an excuse to
deviate from acceptable behavior.
Children today, knowing little or
nothing of the history and myths behind Halloween, still get exited over the
prospect of acting out their fantasies of becoming a witch, ghost, devil, or
pirate. It is still pleasurable for an adult, remembering Halloweens past, to
see the glow on a child's face as he removes his mask and assures you that he's
not really a skeleton. Watching the wide-eyed stares of young children warily
observing flickering candle-lit pumpkins, is an assurance that even today,
thousands of years beyond the witch and ghost-ridden days of the Druids, a
little of the magic of Halloween remains. Children need a little magic to become
creative adults; adults need a little magic to keep the child in them alive.
So
if, on this Halloween, you notice a black cat slink past your door, trailing
behind a horde of make-believe goblins, it probably belongs to a neighbor. And
the dark shadow whisking across the face of a nearly full moon is only the wisp
of a cloud, not a witch riding a broom... probably.
By
the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Open,
locks, Whoever knocks!
-Shakespeare
Happy Halloween, my pretties!
Written by
Micki Peluso, author of "...And the Whippoorwill Sang" Happy times, a sunny day, a drunk driver, eight lives forever changed. A
mother’s account of actual events of her family filled with laughter,
love, loss, and survival. It is a day like any other, except the
intense heat wave has broken and signs of early fall are in the air.
Around the dining room table of her 100 year old farmhouse Micki
Peluso's six children along with three of their friends eagerly gulp
down a chicken dinner. As soon as the last morsel is ravished, the lot
of them is off in different directions. Except for the one whose turn it
is to do the dishes. After offering her mother a buck if she’ll do
them, with an impish grin, the child rushes out the front door, too
excited for a hug, calling out, "Bye Mom," as the door slams shut. For
the Peluso’s the nightmare begins.
Nothing says Halloween better than "candy". And, no candy says Halloween better than Candy Corn! For more than a century, its creamy taste is unmatched. Countless parties and Halloween trick-or-treaters will be loaded up, laden down with oodles and oodles of the deliciously sweet yellow, orange and white tiny candy morsels. It is tradition when gearing up for Halloween! Therefore, let's take a day to celebrate these mellow candies for a pre-Halloween sugar rush. Don't forget to hide a bag for Halloween night! While snacking on the tiny, fun morsels, check out the History of Candy Corn. There you will find The Story Behind Candy Corn, Fun Facts About Candy Corn, and Creative Ways to Display Candy Corn. Ever eaten a doughnut sprinkled with crushed candy corn? Keep reading for there is more to this day than just the fact that...
To continue the pre-Halloween sugar rush, October 30 is also Buy a Doughnut Day!
Buy a dozen and take it to the office for mid-morning break! Or, even
better bake or deep fry your own ring-styled or cream-filled.
Step back
in time, revisit National Jelly-Filled Doughnut Day (Not your plain donut!) and National Cream-Filled Doughnut Day (Sandwich & Dessert) for ideas and recipes. Any of these can be decorated with Halloween flair! Crush a bag of candy corn and sprinkle generously over the top of a fresh, warm doughnut! Check with your local Krispy Kreme and/or Dunkin' Donuts in your area. There is a good chance either or both of these franchises are celebrating the holiday. A trip to their websites doesn't cost a thing to see if they are offering any "specials".
When one speaks of the month of October, thoughts focus on pumpkins, autumn leaves and Halloween. First, hand-carved pumpkins lend themselves to family time as each member tries to pick the perfect pumpkin to carve and outwit the other with scary designs. Tension mounts as imagination soars with competitions arising to see who is the most creative from spooky to elegant to funny. Get your carving tools ready. Pumpkins, knives, action! Just be careful, those knives are sharp! Don't need any real blood on the scene.
Then, the falling leaves of autumn call forth the yard rake. This brings out the child in each of us with memories reflecting upon the back and forth rhythmic motion as leaves cling to the 'fingers' of the rake before being deposited in a pile. The pile, of course, offering an open invitation to jump right smack dab in the middle! Halloween should be a fun time big on family time. Halloween Happenings include The Witching Hours where the origins of this spooky holiday can be learned from olden times to present day. Stories of ghosts, goblins and ghouls begin to monopolize the setting as family members try to decide which of the movie makers outdid the other with scenes of blood and gore. Of course, all horror movies do not necessarily feed upon blood and some actually bring about laughter, rather than shrills and chills. Which do you enjoy - Monsters: Laughter or Shivers?
Last, but not by any means least, are the Halloween costumes. The decision must be made...who or what will I be this year? Do I glance back into the past for a repeat performance or go toward something entirely new and different, cool or bizarre? Zombies seem to be the craze this year but I just might meet myself along the street. Ideas can be gleaned from DIY to what's trending on the runway to ideas No One Else Will Have [hopefully no one at all] to Letting Celebrities Be Your Guide to Over-the-Top Halloween Costumes! The possibilities are limitless with a little creativity and a lot of imagination. Get to work and let your imagination soar!
With Halloween only two days away, are you ready? Do you buy or are you into homemade Halloween treats? Buying from the store may be the quickest but not necessarily the most fun. You can actually plan your own 'tricks' while enjoying time with family and friends in the kitchen! If you don't want to take the time to bake from scratch, the simplest store-bought cookies can be dressed to kill...or should I say scare!
Of course, stocking up on candy is a must for the surprise trick-or-treaters. There are the all-time favorites along with many taste-tested newbies. One of the most common Halloween candies is candy corn, which by the way will be in the spotlight for celebration tomorrow, October 30. While you wait in anticipation to learn more about this special day, check out the latest varieties provided by Brach's. Candy corn is still a classic but oh-h-h so many more flavors: Sea Salt Chocolate, Autumn Mix, Indian Corn, Caramel Macchiato, S'Mores and Apple Pie.
The first pitch came out of Noah Syndergaard’s right hand at 97 miles per hour and zipped past the head of Alcides Escobar, the Royals’ leadoff hitter, who had tormented the Mets in the World Series. Escobar dived out of the way, fell to the ground and sat in the batter’s box for several moments, trying to gather himself while toying with his bat...
.jpg)
