By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times
Halloween has come and gone for another year, much to the dismay of the kids who didn’t get to go Trick-or-Treating and even more so to all of the candy manufacturers and retail stores left with crates full of sweet treats wrapped for the holiday that barely happened.
The new surge of COVID-19 infections caused some communities to cancel Halloween festivities and that was a huge disappointment to the little ghosts and goblins who’d been practicing saying “twick or tweat”.
I decided this time around not to get caught up in the horror movie marathons on cable TV or the other rituals of Halloween. Yes, it’s not springtime and I’m not a young man, but my thoughts still turned to love instead of scary costumes and the cackle of witches.
So, I composed a Halloween love poem to my special lady and paid a radio station to put it on the air as part of a fundraiser for a local charity. I also posted it on Facebook and, to my great surprise, nearly 300 persons responded with positive comments.
I heard from folks I hadn’t seen or talked with for many years and it was one joyful message after another for about three days. When you read the poem, you’ll understand why many of them thought we were celebrating a wedding anniversary.
The title of my now-famous poem is “That Didn’t Scare Me…” and here’s what I wrote and broadcast:
“She said she’d been married before…but that didn’t scare me.
She said she wanted a big family…but that didn’t scare me.
She said she wanted a loving husband who would provide a good living…but that didn’t scare me.
She said she wanted a husband who would take her to church each Sunday…but that didn’t scare me.
She said she would be happy eternally if I would run away from home at almost 29 and marry her…and that part really scared me.
But that’s exactly what I did…49 years ago.
Janet Kappes, I’ll love you forever.”
Keith Kappes can be reached at keithkappes@gmail.com