ok my friends- here is a kinda sad/bittersweet/ kinda ghostly-halloween type story but it's true! My mom was a full blooded sicillian. So Columbus Day was always celebrated in our house, And how did we celebrate? Ever since we were little, every columbus day we went to the apple orchard and picked the apples. and took the hayride out to the fields and picked out our pumpkins, then we'd go watch apple cider and caramel apples being made, and enjoy fresh cider and cinnamon doughnuts at the orchard,then we'd hurry home and mom would make spaghetti and meatballs and we'd have fresh apple crisp with fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream or both! as my sisters and i got older and had kids of our own, we continued the tradition with mom. Then one night in the summer 8 years ago while we coming home from picking blueberrys, mom told us she had a dream of the lady in black and the lady in black told her that she was going to die when the apples came. what did that mean? The only thing that we could figure out was it must be on columbus day. we were real nervous when the fall came and when winter approached one of my sisters commented , "well i guess moms safe for this year" then she got sick ! we prayed real hard that we could have one more year with mom and we did but what a miserable, painful, confusing , year it was for mom and all of us, then when columbus day weekend rolled around we broke tradition and took the kids on saturday instead of monday as my sisters had plans, so on that saturday we took the kids to the orchard while mom was at home with one of my sisters and when we came back and i made spaghetti and meatballs and applecrisp, and fed her and everyone else, all 16 of us . then on that monday Columbus Day october 14, 2002 at 530 pm mom passed away, And tomorrow Columbus Day the tradition continues with another generation as i take my daughter and my grandson to the orchard, then come home and make an apple crisp.