Memories of Childhood

One of the things that amazes me about life in general, or at least my life, is the way random things bring back memories like a crack in a damn brings the flood. I was channel surfing the other day and I happened upon a movie. It was Stephen King's Silver Bullet. Now I am not a big watched of horror movies, mostly because I think they are pretty stupid. But this one struck me. For whatever reason I decided to watch and their is a scene where two young boys are flying kites. One of those kites is a bright yellow with a smiley face on it and it was at that moment that I traveled back in time.
When I was a kid growing up, every Halloween friends of my family would have a party. This was one of those traditions that I actually liked as a kid and I looked forward to it every year. They stopped having the party when I got to be in junior high. Mostly because all the other kids were at least 5 years older than me and where growing out of it. Anyway, I really liked these parties because it was a chance for me to show off my costume. Every year I tried to out do my costume of the previous year. I thought this was great fun but it did cause my parents some headache because I was such a damned perfectionist that my costume had to be just right. I got the idea, and I think it was from watching those old black and white horror movies with Bella Lugosi, to be the "classic" horror characters. This one year I decided that I wanted to be a werewolf and that I was gonna look damned authentic. So I clued my Mom in and we set about putting together a costume. Ripped jeans and a tattered shirt worked well, but it was my face and fangs that were the real challenge. I have to say my Mother made one hell of a makeup artist and did a bang up job making me look like the Wolfman. I even had pointed ears!
So after trick or treating, it was time to go to the party. I couldn't wait to get there and show off. At this point in my life I was fascinated with monsters and mythology. Pretty heady stuff for a 10 year old. I was fascinated by werewolves especially and went out of my way to read as much on them as I could. Anyway I ecstatic to show off my costume. Arriving at the house it went as well as I had hoped. Everyone was in awe of my werewolf rendition. Now the owner of the house is a man by the name of Jack. He has a reputation of being quite the smartass and he provided me with endless entertainment growing up. I went into the basement of the house were most of the older kids hung out at the party and I discovered that I was the first person to arrive. Jack was down stairs watching a movie. He looked at me and I asked what he was watching. He told me that in the movie there was something that looked an awful lot like me running around in the woods. I thought that was funny and I just happened to glance at the TV. There was a cop reciting the "Hail Mary" and walking out of the woods carrying a bright yellow kite with a happy face on it, covered in blood. The image stuck in my head, not only because it scared the life out of me, but because it was such a powerful image to a 10 year old. After that night I always wondered what that movie was and what it was about. It bugged me for years that I never learned the name of the movie or what it was about.
Yet in that brief second of channel surfing, my childhood curiosity had been fulfilled. Not more than a second after seeing the two boys flying their kites did the next scene show a cop reciting the "Hail Mary" carrying a blood soaked, bright yellow kite with a happy face. A moment in my childhood had come full circle and was now complete. It only took close to 20 years to discover the movie's title or what it was all about. Just goes to show patience goes a long way and more so that life is a long and winding road of moments and memories that sometimes take years before you really understand them.