halloweenHalloween is this week, and it begins the festive season when the weather starts to really cool down, coats and scarves are pulled out of closets and the trees turn beautiful colors.

This got us thinking about our own Halloween memories and traditions. Among our attorneys and staff, we found a cornucopia of interesting answers to a few seasonal questions:

  • What do you and your family enjoy most about Halloween and the harvest season?
  • What is your favorite Halloween memory?
  • Do you and your family have any special plans for celebrating Halloween this year?

Patti M. Young-Adamson, Controller

This Halloween, my husband and I are really excited about seeing the Black Jacket Symphony perform Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” at the Alabama Theatre.

Sharon D. Stuart, Partner

Our daughter Gracie often hosts a Halloween party for her friends during the season. Some of my favorite memories are helping a dozen little girls decorate Halloween cupcakes or cookies, helping them make Mardi Gras masks with paint, sequins and feathers, listening to their “spooky” ghost stories, and laughing at how scared they would get watching Hardy Boys Mysteries.

Dana M. Lindsey, Assistant to Bill D. Bensinger and Jonathan W. Macklem

We have a trunk-or-treat at our church every year. It is a really fun night, and we always look forward to seeing how everyone decorates their trunk. The decorations vary from Disney characters to spooky Halloween stuff.

 

Laura C. Small, Service Center

When I was about 5 years old, I was sick on Halloween, so my mom would not let me go trick or treating.  She didn’t want me to feel left out, so I still dressed up in my kitty cat costume, and she let me trick-or-treat inside our own house. She went and stood behind each door in the house, and I would knock and say “trick or treat” to get my candy.   My mom was good about not wanting us kids to feel excluded.  My birthday celebrations were also Halloween-related because it falls on Oct. 29.

 

Julie G. Guier, Assistant to Bradley R. Hightower and Daniel D. Sparks

I’ve always enjoyed costuming for Halloween and each year try to wear a costume I’ve never worn before. Sometimes I sew something of my own design. One year, right after having a baby, I wore a comfy toga with an enormous ivy wreath, and made a tiny toga for the baby too.  Some of my past costumes have included Queen Guinevere (my husband went as King Arthur); the Penguin at a Batman-themed party; and a member of the ghastly undead during college. A professor who attended that party remarked, “Gee, exam week must have been really hard on you this term!” Once I went as “the scariest thing my husband ever saw” . . .  pajamas, face cream and hair curlers.

Richard E. Smith, Partner

One year, a group of girls from my son’s high school came to “roll” our house on Halloween. (For the uninitiated, this prank involves covering a person’s house and yard in toilet paper.)  They did not realize that I was still awake in my study on the front of our home, and I heard them when they came up. (I am a late night person anyway and used to rarely go to bed before 2 a.m.)  I went out the back door, sneaked around to the front yard  and caught them in the act of rolling our yard.  They ran away screaming as if they had been caught robbing a bank!

 

Glenda Roan (filling in temporarily for Jackie J. Gillman), Assistant to James. B. Carlson, Jonathan M. Hooks and Richard F. Ogle

My daughter Melissa was born on Halloween in 1984. My son Charlie was 4 years old when she was born, and he waited patiently all day for the new baby and me. As I was being brought from Labor and Delivery to my hospital room, he ran and jumped up on the gurney and said, “Mommy, you’re just in time for trick-or-treat!”

Duncan Y. Manley, Partner

My youngest son’s birthday is on Halloween, so we will celebrate his birthday even though he lives in Houston.

 

Lois A. Medders, Accounting

Back in the day, it was very safe to roam the streets of downtown Covington, KY, so Halloween would bring everyone out just having a good and safe time. We’d dress up in our favorite costumes and join the hustle and bustle of the crowd. I remember bumping in to someone, adjusting my mask and pausing to say “excuse me,” only to find it was a parking meter. Funny how some things remain a permanent deposit in one’s memory bank! As I grew up and had children of my own, I have been known to put on a very scary haunted house party.

Jonathan M. Hooks, Associate

My favorite Halloween memory is of a time that my wife and kids and I spent an evening together in our kitchen carving our pumpkins and listening to Halloween music – Michael Jackson’s “Thriller, Sheb Wooley’s “The Purple People Eater,” Bobby Pickett’s “The Monster Mash” – on YouTube. I also recall leaving a bowl full of candy outside while we took our kids trick-or-treating, only to come back a few minutes later and find only a few random pieces of “Bit ‘O Honey” left.

Ashley U. McNaughton, Accounting

My favorite Halloween activity? Horror movies, horror movies, and more horror movies!

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