GaryOsberg.com

Good morning from Collegeville,

Wednesday night is Halloween, the night before All Hallows Day. According to Wikipedia, though the origin of the word Halloween is Christian, the holiday is commonly thought to have pagan roots. Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while “some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain”, which comes from the Old Irish for “summers end”. Samhain was the first and most important of the four quarter days in the medieval Gaelic calendar.

Samhain was seen as a time when the ‘door’ to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other beings such as fairies, to come into our world. Guising – children going from door to door for food or coins is a traditional Halloween custom and is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895. The practice of Guising at Halloween in North America is first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario reported children “guising” around the neighborhood. I am not sure that there are any outhouses left to tip in central Minnesota.

The APHC show this week is a live broadcast of a performance from the Elliot Hall of Music at Purdue University. Special guests include the tough-as-nails string band Old Crow Medicine Show and the University’s ambassadors of song, the Purdue Varsity Glee Club. The Royal Academy of Radio Actors will welcome sound effects man Fred Newman back to the show.

This is the last week end for walleye and ‘Be Bop A Ree Bop Rhubarb Pie’ at Fisher’s Club on Middle Spunk Lake in Avon. Reservations at 356-7372. www.fishersclub.com

“Do not wait: the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along.” Napoleon Hill, born on this day in 1883. author of “Think and Grow Rich”