thedrifter
10-31-06, 06:02 AM
Sweet treat is just being a kid
Joye Brown
October 31, 2006
Leia, the princess that she is, took her time making selections from the basket offered to her yesterday.
Runts. A Kit Kat bar. Nerds. A Hershey bar.
She pulled them, one by one, from the basket with a thumb and finger, which was wrapped in a tiny pink Band-Aid.
Princess Leia, regal in her white gown and trademark twin hair buns, stowed the booty in her bag.
She was, after all, traveling on a pirate ship.
Today is Halloween, a time to be someone else. A monster, a superhero, it doesn't matter. The idea is to sample another kind of life.
For Leia - along with a wolfman, a pirate and a lot of other characters on a Halloween cruise on the Great South Bay - yesterday marked a time to be something even better: Children, just plain children, having fun and pulling in as much trick or treat candy as possible.
Thanks to Surfside 3 Marine in Lindenhurst, a band of children who first met each other at a cancer-care center boarded a yacht and spent more than an hour going from marina to marina, collecting treats.
It looked so easy, but it wasn't.
Take Princess Leia.
Her name is Erin Getzler. She's 6 years old and lives in Bellmore. Last year, Erin, who has brain cancer, couldn't go trick-or-treating.
She was too sick.
Erin spent yesterday morning in the Cancer Center for Kids at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola. She was anemic as a result of chemotherapy, and her mother, Joan, wanted to be sure Erin didn't need a blood transfusion.
Princess Leia made it to the party a bit late. But the boat wasn't about to leave without her. So she collected candy. And sorted candy. And was a child. And with her mother looking on, Erin ate quite a bit of candy, too.
"We take it a day at a time," her mother said. "Today is a good day."
Erin stayed mostly in the yacht's main cabin. But Daniel Hart, a 4-year-old from Westbury, explored as much of the boat as he could.
It was Daniel's first time at sea. And he dressed for the part as a pirate - just like the one who says, "Are you ready, kids?" on "SpongeBob SquarePants," his favorite cartoon show.
One minute, Daniel was climbing steep stairs to the top of the boat; the next, he was below deck, checking out the sumptuous sleeping cabin.
"The joy is that he is here," said his father, Paul, who took a day off to celebrate Halloween with his family.
Last year, Daniel had trouble walking as result of surgery and treatment he had received for a tumor on his kidney.
But yesterday, he was one of the first to board the boat. And one of the first to line up for candy when the boat stopped at the marinas.
"Thank you," the children said, mostly as a chorus, as they accepted baskets and pumpkins full of treats. "Happy Halloween."
Each of the children had boarded with one bag for treats; they left with two.
And when the boat made its last stop and turned toward home, Erin sat quietly with her family, while Daniel climbed into the captain's seat. The young pirate steered the ship back to port in Lindenhurst, laughing all the way.
oye.brown@newsday.com
Ellie
Joye Brown
October 31, 2006
Leia, the princess that she is, took her time making selections from the basket offered to her yesterday.
Runts. A Kit Kat bar. Nerds. A Hershey bar.
She pulled them, one by one, from the basket with a thumb and finger, which was wrapped in a tiny pink Band-Aid.
Princess Leia, regal in her white gown and trademark twin hair buns, stowed the booty in her bag.
She was, after all, traveling on a pirate ship.
Today is Halloween, a time to be someone else. A monster, a superhero, it doesn't matter. The idea is to sample another kind of life.
For Leia - along with a wolfman, a pirate and a lot of other characters on a Halloween cruise on the Great South Bay - yesterday marked a time to be something even better: Children, just plain children, having fun and pulling in as much trick or treat candy as possible.
Thanks to Surfside 3 Marine in Lindenhurst, a band of children who first met each other at a cancer-care center boarded a yacht and spent more than an hour going from marina to marina, collecting treats.
It looked so easy, but it wasn't.
Take Princess Leia.
Her name is Erin Getzler. She's 6 years old and lives in Bellmore. Last year, Erin, who has brain cancer, couldn't go trick-or-treating.
She was too sick.
Erin spent yesterday morning in the Cancer Center for Kids at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola. She was anemic as a result of chemotherapy, and her mother, Joan, wanted to be sure Erin didn't need a blood transfusion.
Princess Leia made it to the party a bit late. But the boat wasn't about to leave without her. So she collected candy. And sorted candy. And was a child. And with her mother looking on, Erin ate quite a bit of candy, too.
"We take it a day at a time," her mother said. "Today is a good day."
Erin stayed mostly in the yacht's main cabin. But Daniel Hart, a 4-year-old from Westbury, explored as much of the boat as he could.
It was Daniel's first time at sea. And he dressed for the part as a pirate - just like the one who says, "Are you ready, kids?" on "SpongeBob SquarePants," his favorite cartoon show.
One minute, Daniel was climbing steep stairs to the top of the boat; the next, he was below deck, checking out the sumptuous sleeping cabin.
"The joy is that he is here," said his father, Paul, who took a day off to celebrate Halloween with his family.
Last year, Daniel had trouble walking as result of surgery and treatment he had received for a tumor on his kidney.
But yesterday, he was one of the first to board the boat. And one of the first to line up for candy when the boat stopped at the marinas.
"Thank you," the children said, mostly as a chorus, as they accepted baskets and pumpkins full of treats. "Happy Halloween."
Each of the children had boarded with one bag for treats; they left with two.
And when the boat made its last stop and turned toward home, Erin sat quietly with her family, while Daniel climbed into the captain's seat. The young pirate steered the ship back to port in Lindenhurst, laughing all the way.
oye.brown@newsday.com
Ellie