It's a bright and sunny morning.  Yesterday was darn near 70 out and Mom and I walked around the lake in t-shirts.  I may walk today, I may ride my bike, I may sit here playing spider all day long.  I haven't decided.

An era has ended; Josie and I have no plans to trick or treat our way to Meg's house.  Meg's throwing a party for all their friends and has requested Josie's presence by 5, so there's no time to walk the mile and a half.  I'll miss the 15lbs of candy she usually nabs, but it's not like I needed it.

Ty, we probably won't be sending you a shoe box full of candy next week, but we'll see.  There are plans to trick or treat, but I can't imagine a crowd of girls willing (or able) to keep up with Josie. That girl has always been trick or treat Mensa! 

Although she usually worked the streets alone (I followed at a discreet distance), no one ever tried to steal Josie's bag of goodies.  It would've been funny as hell if someone had tried.  First off, they would've collapsed under the unexpected weight of the bag, then Josie would've been able to use the swag itself to beat the would be thief into a coma.  All that karate training would've kicked in, too.  Josie doesn't think she could ever actually fight a person; she's much too kind and compassionate.  I've assured her that should the circumstance ever arise where she needed to defend herself, she would be surprised at what she could do.  I also assured her that the chances of that ever happening in real life are minuscule.

Anyway, no kid of mine would take the theft of that much hard earned candy lying down.

Zack is the only one of our kids who inherited my temper and unfortunately he also inherited Jay's.  We spent the first six years of his life training him to control it and we did such a good job that we sort of ruined him for football.  When he was a sophomore, his coach told us "if he would just let himself go, he'd be a monster on the field!"

Yeah, well, you have no idea.

When Zack was very little (very young; he was never very little), he would get so mad he'd break stuff and launch himself at people three times his size.  And he'd bring them down, too.  He used to get picked on by kids twice his age because they thought he was fair game.  Once, at a neighborhood block party, three eight year olds stole his hat and taunted him.  By the time I heard the screams and came to stop it, he had knocked two of them down with bloody noses and mouths and was chasing down the third.

He was four years old.

In the old days they called a warrior who lost his mind on the battle field a berserker.   That's where the word came from.  It didn't mean strictly crazy.

It took a long time and a lot of work, but Zack learned to control his temper and to walk away before things get out of hand.  It's hard to believe now that this teddy bear of a kid came into this world a grizzly.  He did try to get into his older brother's face once, when he realized he was six inches taller and fifty lbs heavier than his older brother.  That was a mistake.  When Zack tells the story he always says "...and Mom just stood there and laughed while Tyler killed me!"  That's true.  Hey, I was raised in a barn, what'd you expect of me?

How did I get onto this?  It's Halloween, I've got stuff to do and the sun is shining!