I want to talk today about unexpected tears. So this virus has brought my emotions, more to the surface, I guess you'd call it. And I wanna talk about two times that I’ve had unexpected tears. The first time was last week Saturday, Halloween. My husband and I in fear of the virus, had sheltered ourselves inside our darkened house, with the doors locked, window shades pulled. We were not gonna hand out candy. Now this is kind of a big deal. We are both teachers, well, retired teachers now. My husband especially has been known for handing out big candy bars to his students, former students. Halloween's a big time. But this year, we're going to hide in our darkened house, not celebrate. So we sat there in the darkened house and around 6:45 the doorbell rings. Don't answer it. It rings again. Don't answer it, don't answer it. Stops ringing, we peek out the window and walking away is one of his former students. I felt so badly. Then about a half an hour later. Same thing. Doorbell goes. Ignore it, ignore it, doorbell goes again. Finally I can't stand it, I put a mask on, I go to the door and there's about ten kids all unmasked with a chaperone, no mask, saying "it's Mr.****[my husband]**** here?" "Sure. I'll go get him." So I get my husband. He puts a mask on. Fortunately, I bought a bag of snack size M&Ms, for our granddaughter, and also thinking this kind of thing might happen, I'd better be prepared. So we did have something to give those ten kids sitting there. But as he’s interacting with them from a distance handing out the little packs with his mask on. I just kind of dissolved into tears thinking, what a loss. This has been such a big deal and the longing for connection with people, and the wanting to be a good neighbor and enjoy this party time, just couldn't do it. Felt so bad.

When is it too early for Christmas things to be out in stores? Do you celebrate Christmas? If so, do you buy presents throughout the year or during the Christmas season? When does Christmas start for you? I suppose Christmas things could be out in stores now, almost, all through November. I know people are like "ah, you're skipping Thanksgiving." But I mean, people can buy Christmas stuff whenever they want. I personally -- we celebrate Christmas in my household. We’re a Catholic Family, Christian family, and so we all celebrate Christmas. I do not buy presents throughout the year. I would buy them during the Christmas season, if I were to buy them, and I don't buy them very often. Christmas for me, season starts, I guess, probably after Thanksgiving. I like listening to Christmas music, pretty much the whole -- all winter long. Yeah, I don't mind them playing Christmas music, I think after Thanks -- Halloween.

Today I want to tell the story of me carving the pumpkin for the first time. I never celebrated Halloween before and this is the first year I actually celebrated Halloween. So my friends all made me carve pumpkins. I've never carved pumpkins before and it was a lot harder than I thought. It was fun if you want to do simple patterns or just faces, but if I want to do something complicated like carving tree branches or clouds, the pumpkin just falls apart. I had so much fun carving pumpkins and we roasted all the pumpkin seeds afterwards. So that was a wonderful Halloween experience. My friends also made me watch the classic Halloween movies. We watched Young Frankenstein, and what's that called -- The Nightmare Before Christmas and Hocus Pocus, so that was supposed to serve as my Halloween education.

Do I have any memories of recess as a kid. I have lots of memories of recess as a kid. Being out on the playground, on the monkey bars with my friends and watching all these kids that could do these flips. I was so jealous of them. It was, I remember one girl in third grade, Stacy, came off the bars to do a flip and hit another bar and busted her head wide open, blood went everywhere it was so gross. It was so weird. We're all like freaking out. But yeah, it was, I have, I don't think I ever got hurt, but like I said my friend got hurt, a lot of indoor recesses. You know, when I worked at the schools we tried to have what was called rainy day cart, so we had, every classroom had like $150 so the teachers could go buy rainy day stuff to have on a cart that’s specific to their room. California you don't get a lot of rainy days, but you do get some. So, but I have a lot of memories of you know, as a kid playing dodgeball in the gym, Red Rover, Red Rover that one but now you can't play either one of those games because they're too hazardous to kids, you know.

The first election I voted in, interesting story, let me tell you about my parents. When I was a young child. I lived out in the township, out in one of the townships and we voted actually went into a voting booth and would fill out a paper ballot and mark our ex on the ballot. And what my parents would do is bring me a sample ballot to -- to do my quote-unquote vote. So I was six years old in 1960 when President Kennedy was elected and my first ballot quote-unquote ballot was for President Kennedy. So as a child every year when my folks went to go vote they would bring me a sample ballot home. So I think, first of all that that was kind of cool and I just marvel at the – the -- the brilliance of my parents to get me involved in voting and to have me experience voting, and to get me really want to vote. I really wanted to vote, the Constitution allowed -- it was changed to allow eighteen-year-olds to vote. I was eighteen in 1972 and I cast my vote, my first ballot, my first vote for president. I cast for George McGovern, Senator McGovern. And that was, I don't know a fool's errand I guess but he -- he spoke to me I guess, you know through the media and stuff and I was interested in what he wanted to accomplish. After Bobby Kennedy died man, it was tough to get behind a candidate again and put all your hopes and dreams there. But, the first time I ever voted was just cool. I went out again out to the township hall and picked up my official ballot, finally after all these years, and walked into the actual voting booth. They have wooden voting booths that are still use out there. And put my paper down and put my ballot down rather, and marked my ex on the people I wanted to vote for and folded It up, however we were supposed to fold it and brought it out. And it was just the coolest thing that I ever could imagine to actually have an actual real ballot and so my -- my parents are pretty smart. They got me to want to vote twelve years before I was able to and they had me practice voting…