Keith Istre

Gladys, oh we know how you loved Halloween. With your favorite popcorn balls and your other treats we also loved Halloween.
You popped a lot of popcorn and put in a large tray. You cooked a large patch of syrup and we waited with buttered hands. You poured the hot syrup into the popped corn and as fast as we could, we shaped the popcorn into balls.

Sometimes our hands were burning from the hot syrup and we had to put more butter on our hands. But we continued to make the popcorn balls until there were no more popcorn left. After we were finished we got to lick our fingers. It tasted of butter and syrup and that was good.

There were many stories about your popcorn balls. Not only did the children come to get your popcorn balls but also the grownups. You and your family moved away from the old neighborhood but that didn’t keep the old neighborhood from finding you on Halloween night. There was a man whose wife told him, not come back without a popcorn ball for her; he brought her a popcorn ball back home.

One year the mayor didn’t want the people to give out homemade treats. There were a lot of disappointed people. Today people still talk about your popcorn balls. Being her daughter, I try to do the same. I also make popcorn balls for my family. They may not be as good as hers but they are good. Halloween is not the same without our mother.

For Gladys’ family, she would make candied apples. She would melt a bag of caramel in a large pot and dip the apples. That was so good. She would have hot dogs and hamburgers. We ate that up fast. We all had a fun time at Halloween.

When the little children would come to the door to trick or treat, Gladys would make them take off their mask so she could see who they where. That delighted Gladys to no end, for Gladys love children. God could have given her more children; that would have been all right with her.

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Just a few pics I haven’t shared yet!

My house mate Bill with Sammy the diva cat.

Saber, who doesn’t have claws but can outrun anything.

Luke and Buddy. Luke likes to hide behind things and scare the other cats. Buddy just loves to play.

Noelle loves to bounce on walls were the other cats try to catch her.

My terrace is on the third floor. This is an older photo. We are adding lights and furniture. Will send an updated photo when finished.

Layout of my apartment. My room is the master. (NOTE: The real layout is reversed; with foyer and front door to right not left.)

One (old) view of Co-Op City. My building is the long one near the highway that goes across the bridge at bottom of photo. Across from the highway is the shopping center.

Another (but old) view of Co-Op City. My building is in the top cluster. Again its the long one left of the flat building which is an elementary school. The shorter sets of buildings on bottom right is the 6 or so story high school.

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_{This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.}