A Witch Sister Halloween

On a wet and windy Halloween morning, I'm thinking of my father.  In fact, I'm sitting in his studio, on a dunes bluff, looking out among wet leaves and crooked branches of Indiana oak trees.

There's a note here on his drafting table, which we've left exactly as we found it.  "Gone to bass pro, back soon." The note is on watercolor paper, brushed with test washes of russet, golds, and greens.

On the top he has written "4:15".  That's probably the time that twilight came creeping across the cornfields near his lake home.  A good time to break from work on some fall painting - something with purple skies, lowering clouds, and fields of pumpkins and squashes.  These were the fallscapes he loved.

On the walls here in his studio/cottage, he's hung his favorite works.  Gloomy fall afternoons with crows and telephone poles. Tunnel-like pathways of orange oaks and crimson maples.  Roadside pumpkin stands. There's even a 9-foot oil painting of an Indiana farm. As you stand near it, you're pulled into it. You can smell burning piles of fall leaves and the hay in the haystacks.

As I said, I'm thinking of dad. When we were young - and on days like today - he'd tell us stories about the witch sisters.

The three sisters were born on scrap pieces of mat-board he picked up from under his framing table. From these, the witches flew into our childhoods like bluish wisps of Bond Street smoke that curled from his pipe.

The stories started at bedtime, in days when we all fit into the same bed. In the stories, my father would illustrate them as he told them.  They were storyboards.  I recall watching his large fingers pushing the felt-tip marker - magically - as he spoke. As the stories unfolded, we'd see pointy hats, warts, and flowing black dresses.  He spin their funny personalities and odd quirks. And he'd draw us castles and haunted houses, teetering and comic; a hybrid of Edward Gorey and Dr. Seuss.

The sisters worked in a six-story room for making broomsticks. The naughty children of the neighborhood would be cleverly tricked by the sisters into the broom making room. Until they were contrite or escaped, they'd help the sisters make their brooms.  Then they'd be eagerly and recklessly tested; with black capes and pointy hats fluttering through the cavernous space. He'd make evil cackles that scared us. He created witch-Quidditch before J.K. ever wrote of it.

The memories of the sisters are starting to get foggy, like the Halloween scenes they lived in.  But what we will forever remember clearly is their best story-line: that a father of seven would find the time and the energy to give the sisters life - and to empower each of us with creativity, excitement and moments to treasure.

When my father passed away, we found a dusty box of mat-board and brown paper that had several witch sisters drawings he had made for us over the years. Some he had been keeping from as far back as 1966. Evidently they meant much to him too; his art, his children, his life moments.

So, on days like today, looking out among the oak branches and wet fall leaves, I think of dad.  And I smile as I remember the Witch Sisters.  I picture my father, in 1966, picking up scraps of mat board from the floor of his gallery to bring home.  And I see him putting that felt-tip marker in his pocket.

But now, I read his note and I see he's gone to Bass Pro Shop.  At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

Thanks Dad. We miss you.