i remember

a very warm & smoky october.  the warm days were not unusual.  neither was the smoke for the smoke was from the fires of nearby rice fields that farmers torched every fall.  the sky would turn rust orange & brown & the air acrid & pungent.  that smell will always be the scent of halloween.  every kid who grew up here in the 1970s knows that thick acrid smoke.  there are still the odd days when you can smell that smoke.  much rarer but when it happens you are immediately whisked back to your childhood such as this warm & smoky october day in 1975 we drove past a theater on del paso blvd with a line that snaked around the block.  the movie, the rocky horror picture show, & i thought that has got to be one very scary movie indeed.