Readers Who Write

It is mid-July as I write this, with record-breaking high temperatures, a disastrous drought, and smoke is creeping into the Rogue Valley. The AC is going nonstop, and the air purifier is giving its impression of R2-D2.

When I go to the store tomorrow, I fully expect to see the first signs of holiday inflation. All the red, white and blue paraphernalia will be gone. There in the seasonal section will be plastic pumpkins, fake broomsticks, racks of cheap princess and monster costumes. Close your eyes when passing the rack of hideous masks, designed by a disturbed sadist. (Who pays these guys?)

Pass by the greeting card section, and you can’t miss the sea of orange and black (witches, pumpkins and monsters for each and every far-flung relative or pal of yours.)

Does your golf buddy really need a risqué card to cement your relationship? Don’t miss the pumpkin, ghost and black cat stickers on the end caps. If you live with a terribly busy 2-year-old, the stickers will give you five minutes of peace, until you must scrape them off the walls.

One can only marvel at the lengths to which distant foreign entrepreneurs will go to make profits. This is a great, old American holiday that has been preempted by greedy factory owners in faraway sweatshops.

Remember the old Halloween? I do, and the preparations began a day or maybe two before the big day. The trees were sporting their fall colors, the nights were darker and getting nippy. Mom would cut holes in an old bedsheet, give me a brown paper bag, and voila! I was a wee ghost acting scary on the outside, thrilled and a little scared on the inside. To be out! In the dark! Running free with the pack to ring doorbells. I never knew my daddy was there in the shadows but, of course, he was.

Dad is gone now, along with the never-to-be-forgotten childhood adventures. Of course, nowadays Halloween is just the opener for bigger and better-inflated holidays coming to your store soon.

So you say you want to write?

Go for it.

Send us 500 or so words of scintillating copy. Make it funny. Make it poignant. Make it count. Make it any way you want. 

Just don’t cuss. Don’t be boring. And have a point.

If we like it, we’ll run it. 

Email submissions to community@rv-times.com. Put “Readers Who Write” in the subject line, and tell us the city where you live.