High Points: A Halloween to remember

Ghosts and goblins, witches and ghouls, hand-carved candlelit pumpkins on coffee tables, and tiny yellow, orange, and white pumpkins atop fences, signposts, and mailboxes set the scene.

Halloween, which of course is today, is a time for letting go, pretending you are a child again (or maybe you never really grew up?). It’s a time for dressing up in handmade or store-bought costumes, trick-or-treating in your neighborhood with kids of your own, or handing out a treat or two to an endless stream of little ones who ring your doorbell, their smiling, hopeful faces anticipating the sweet treats to come.

As it may be to many of you, Halloween is a very special time for my husband, Paul E. Anna, and me. It’s the day on which we met many, many (49 to be exact) years ago on the stairs of the brownstone we both lived in at 68 Bay State Road on the Boston University campus. He was a junior, and I was a sophomore. He lived upstairs from me.

We’d bumped into each other a few times, of course. But on that Halloween night, my roommate had invited us and a few other friends out to dinner at a popular local restaurant, the Boston Half Shell. 

Casually, my future husband and I, seated next to one another, chatted as we ordered dinner and a couple of bottles of wine. Taking the lead, I poured each of us a glass. As I turned the bottle (as I had been taught by my dad) to ensure the wine would not drip down the side, he asked, “How did you know to do that?”

Well, that was it. All through that dinner we chatted, laughed, and maybe flirted a little, too. To say we clicked was an understatement. After dinner, we hopped into my little, red Fiat and set out for a drive around town.

Eventually, we made it back to 68 Bay State Road and said a reluctant goodnight. (Yes, after a lingering kiss or three.) But what else could we do? I had a roommate, and he had a cousin living with him.  

Well, long story short, the cousin got the boot, and I moved upstairs. (Okay, I hear you, but don’t be a curmudgeon. It was love at first sight, and the cousin had buddies he could crash with by then.)

And that, as they say, was that.

The next year, Paul E. Anna and I moved downtown to a 27^th-floor studio apartment in a brand-new, high-rise building called Longfellow Place with views straight up the Charles River and over Boston and Cambridge. His parents helped us purchase furniture: a slatted wood bed, a teak coffee table and bookcase, and a small dining table. We made it our home, along with a striped tabby named Grenadine (The spirited syrup is a nod to our first boozy dinner). That cat would ride up and down the elevator on Paul E. Anna’s shoulder, hop in our car, and drive with us around the city. Sometimes, we’d stop to sit on the lawn by the river and watch the sailboats and Boston University and Harvard crew teams race by in their sculls. 

Well, Grenadine was the first of many pets we’ve had over the years, as we moved from Boston to Los Angeles, where Paul E. Anna was from, and eventually to Aspen and Old Snowmass, where we live today. These days, we have a 6-year-old Chocolate Labrador named Crouton, and she lies by my feet as I write.

Happy Halloween, everyone. Make it one to remember.