Monster Mashers
Whatever the season or holiday, living in the country provides the perfect backdrop. Growing up, this proved especially true on Halloween when spooks could be hiding in cornfields or in gardens almost bare or in haylofts where bats swooped and creepy creatures lurked behind the bales piled high. With poplar trees nearly stripped of leaves, the remaining ones on the gnarly branches would rustle in the wind-their edginess scripted for the night of ghosts and goblins. And if nature's backdrop wasn't enough for little imaginations to grab hold of and enhance all the more, stir in ghoulish adults with a foot still firmly placed in childhood wonder and pranking and you had the perfect scenario for the most scariest-most horrifying, monster mashing Halloweens ever-the kind you look back on as an adult and feel blessed with the memories. Memories of a grandmother whose nose was fit for a witch as was her heckle and whose long grey hair when left to fall seemed to fall forever; an u