Anyone have any memorable Halloween stories? Part of my childhood I grew up overseas and the guys in the military went out of their way to celebrate each and every holiday. Everyone tried to scare the kids at the door, had elaborate dress-ups and decorations. To get candy you didn't know if someone dressed as a zombie might grab you and scream. I remember I was about 6 and me and some friends wanted to go to a haunted house, so we drove out and pulled up. I was anxoius as I looked and saw what was going on, but my friends were horrified and started screaming. It was still daylight and it was basically a large local house with an elevated porch area that looked abandoned and decreped. A person flew out of a window screaming as a man stepped out dressed in ragged clothes, bloodied and with a mask had an actual chainsaw going and was hurling it around. I wasn't sure if the person running was part of the show or one of the visitors. I never found out, my friends were crying and we drove away. damn!
I think everyone is so afraid to scare kids anymore at halloween that the fun is gone, well maybe a few places. I'm one of the few if not only houses that decorates the porch scary..with dry ice, black light and all and sometimes stuffed dummies to simulate real people. I take pride in carving my deliciously evil pumpkin that people stand around taking pictures of. I don't run out and scare the kids as much as i'd like to - some parent would probably take me to court. But the kids each year always refer to it as "the cool house". Sadly most of the houses around here don't even give out candy since many locals malls offer the 'safe haven'. It just isn't what it once was.
And I'd like to know if this is a national trend but in the past 3 years i've noticed a large increase in teenagers collecting candy..teens who are taller than me and probably 17. Now I stopped trick or treating when I was 12 tho i still wandered the neighborhood and scared children or went to parties. These kids don't even dress up, they're a bunch of 17 year olds who walk up and hold out a bag. If they said "trick or treat" i'd say TRICK and slam the door. I just have this theory if your old enough to drive you can drive yourself to the store and buy some candy. Maybe it's me.
Last Halloween, me and my sister took my two nieces (10 and 5) trick-or-treating in my hometown. They were getting thirsty, so I offered to run down to a Garden State (think 7-11 with an English speaking cashier) to get a couple bottles of water and meet them further on in the route. I arrived a few minutes before them and could see them coming down the street (it was dark) because one had a princess costume covered in sequins. I, on the other hand, was wearing jeans and a black sweatshirt - I was invisible (INVISIBLE I tell you!!). I stepped behind a tree and as they passed I jumped out with the loudest "OOGA-BOOGA" I could muster. My sister fell screaming backwards into a pile of leaves, the 10-year old jumped out of her skin, and the 5-year old just stood there looking at me like I was insane shaking her head. I didn't stop laughing until November.
Thats great, we should all get into the spirit of scaring the hell out of children at least once a year! ;-) Well that's what makes it fun, in fact the only halloween my 9 year old godson remembers was the one time when "the bad guy" (which was a local neighbor dressed as a zombie) sat with a bowl of candy. The kids were duped into thinking he was a fake dummy and after taking the candy he rose up and chased them screaming like a maniac! Ahh..memories. Reminds me of one year I stuffed a dummy and put a mask on it on the front porch with the candy so I could watch my horror movies all night and let the kids "have at it" with the candy. I kept hearing screaming and noises coming from outside. I then realized the kids were saying "trick or treat" to the dummy and getting really freaked out when it didn't move. I guess i did "too" good a job at how real it looked. heh. But parents are so sensitive to their kids and making it an experience of merely sugar greed. When my memories were of the atmosphere of the day, spookiness, ghost stories, horror movies, haunted houses.
I also try to give out not just candy but neat little things..like cracker jacks toy items but for halloween. You can find bags of them and I think kids like getting minature rubber bats and snakes and glow in the dark rings as something different. That just reminded me of my last Halloween I went out trick or treating. I was 12 and me and a friend decided to go to every house we could walk to, we had pillowcases loaded to the brim with candy. We were out so late that people who still had the porch light on and weren't expecting any more visitors just dumped the rest of their candy in our bowl and called it a night. We went to one house across a busy road nobody ever went to. (yeah, we wanted everyones goodies). They were a little old couple so shocked and pleasantly suprised to have visitors..even tho at the time we were too old for it and had already gotten plenty of raised eyebrows and comments. She ran off and apologized profusely for not having candy and gave us apples. I felt kind of sad that the next year she probably bought candy just in case and we never went back because it was our last year.
No good Halloween stories. My grandparents were always the ones who were really into it. They liked seeing all the *LITTLE* kids. One year my grandfather bought Disney's haunted house sound effects record and put it playing, but he turned it off when none of the 4-7 year or so kids would come near the house.
BTW, if you like really decorating, check out your local Spencer Gifts store. Mine has tons of stuff, including a pretty decent 5 foot tall plastic skeleton for $20. I don't mean a flat decoration but a full, 3D skeleton.
There's a site on the net (temporarily unavailable at the moment) that sells custom made, movie quality rotting corpses, plus heads, arms etc. They're pretty expensive, like $450, but they look absolutely real. He also sells a book telling you how to make your own.
When I was younger (early teens) we used to dress up as monsters or zombies and spend the whole night terrifying the little kids. One time I jumped out from behind a bush, wearing a really fake orange demon mask, and shrieked at a young boy. He wet his pants. Then I had to run from his dad.
I am planning on messing with the kids this year. I think that a crude gallows is called for, with a harness holding me. That way I can look like a hung corpse, but suddenly grab them. An A frame should be plenty sturdy. Time to pull out the miter saw and drill!
There's a guy in my town who sits a dummy with a pumpkin head up in a tree in his front yard (out of reach of teens) and hooks up both a speaker and microphone in it, as well as lights in the pumpkin head. He has it hooked up so he can watch from his house and both speak to and hear the kids out front. The pumpkin lights up when he talks. Very funny guy too. The little kids love it and he goodnaturedly spars with the teens. Neat idea.
>>One year my grandfather bought Disney's haunted house sound effects record and put it playing, but he turned it off when none of the 4-7 year or so kids would come near the house.
<<
I still have that record. LOVE it. The aliens, walking on the bridge, the chinese water torture. Great album. It used to be played with the widows open..great stuff. I don't really break it out anymore since by the time halloween comes here it's too cool to open windows and i'd rather be watching movies than listening to the album all nite. I'd love to get really elaborate with decorations but I usually keep it to a minimum. Kids really appreciate low-tech. Rubber spiders, snakes, scary pumpkins, dry ice, black light can do wonders. They illuminate the new cheap cobwebs you can buy at the dollar store. No need for all those noisemaking gimicky things that cost a fortune. I wouldn't go elaborate unless I was having a party. now that would be awsome to have a costume party outdoors where you could place arms, corpses, nooses around. have ghost story telling and some gag like red eyes in a tree go off at key moments. Vs the usual costume parties where it's loud music and alcohol. maybe it's me.
>>One time I jumped out from behind a bush, wearing a really fake orange demon mask, and shrieked at a young boy. He wet his pants. Then I had to run from his dad.<<
oh you were evil all the way my friend. ;-) Now that's would older kids should be doing vs. begging for candy. Older kids in my neighborhood would scare the kids before they went out by telling them stories about bloody mary or some "alleged" true story about kids who went out and were killed by some maniac giving out candy, then the friend would go "Yeah, it's true! I'd be careful if I were you." as serious as they could be. Then you walk off about to pee your pants..oblivious to the fact they were following you waiting for their chance to scare you.
I have a feeling your children are going to really going to have memorable halloween experiences with you. Congrats btw ;-)
Nice to see across america people aren't letting the true spirit of halloween die.
Oh and I just have to say one more thing. Damn candy manufacturers for their "bite size" minature candies. Was nothing better than going home and dumping out your candy to find giant 3 musketeer bars, regular size bags of m&m's and a pack of bubble gum? I hate miniature variety packs that suck the very life out of it all!
I have never forgotten the old dude who dressed up as the classic Karloff Frankenstien monster every year in our Virginia neighborhood & his wife would open the door dressed all in black etc, to hand out the candy.
Myself, I have the world's greatest Iguana mask: Full-head/all colors/ridges & spikes, you name it . . .
Every year the older ones love to send the younger ones up to our door first. I live in a mostly Mexican neighborhood & love the explanations of the older siblings: "Te nada! Eets just a beeg leezard!!".
Somehow this doesn't seem to comfort the poor younger ones -- and YES, if a little one is genuinely frightened, I DO indeed take the mask off & attempt some comfort.
I'm not a total %$$#^&&**((...
peter johnson
Good Points susan. I grew up in the 60's, and Halloween was much different back then. Here in the Northeast U.S., "Trick or Treating" has pretty much disappeared, another lost piece of Americana.
Parents in a given neighborhood pool their resources and hold private parties for the kids. This is done out of fear of tampered-with candy, and the endless stories of child abductions. I even heard a story of someone who, instead of giving out candy, was giving out tracts for some relgious cult.
(Sighs, rolls eyes,,)
Bruce B.
A neighborhood kid held a Haunted House and he and buddies scared me so bad that I started crying. My Dad and brother wouldn't let the sissy boy walk with them until I stopped...
Still love Halloween though...
Not just that Bruce but the degree of inspecting that goes on in candy handouts that is collected. I think there was *A* scare sometime back in the 70's or something having to do with someone putting glass or razors in candy. Even still I wonder if that was just an urban legend, it's been so long. The fear continues. The worst that usually happens on that nite is idiot drivers who dont' slow down and might end up hitting a trick or treater. I really hate where it's gone.
I remember the days..ah yes and it was only 15 years ago or so, when you could go out and neighbors wouldn't just give out candybars. We had those giving out stuff they MADE. Candy apples, cookies, stuff like that. Where is that piece of americana? In trying to protect the children we ruin the fun. Playground equipment even sucks now, it's all plastic and the really fun stuff doesn't exist on playgrounds anymore like merrygo rounds because 1 child in 5 years got hurt. But that's another topic.
Last year a woman had her child come up with an empty bucket and collect candy..and right in front of me as they walked off she snatched that candy and studied it like a scientist before putting it into a seperate bag. Of course last year there were more parents than ever coming up TO the porch and giving me the 'once over' to make sure i wasn't a terrorist handing out anthrax.
>I still have that record.
Me too. I also have some cardboard records that came off the back of Boneycomb cereal boxes with spooky stories and scary sound effects, but they don't play without skipping anymore and the copies I made on tape sound REALLY bad.
>Damn candy manufacturers for their "bite size" minature candies.
I agree. The last couple of years, we've given out full-sized Nestle's Crunch bars. The first year one of the first kids to come to the house saw the large candy bars and yelled to his friends "Hey, they're giving out the BIG candy bars!"
>I think there was *A* scare sometime back in the 70's or something having to do
>with someone putting glass or razors in candy. Even still I wonder if that was just
>an urban legend,
According to the Snopes Urban Legend site, this one is true;
Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/horrors/mayhem/needles.htm)
>Last year a woman had her child come up with an empty bucket and collect
>candy..and right in front of me as they walked off she snatched that candy and
>studied it like a scientist before putting it into a seperate bag. Of course last year
>there were more parents than ever coming up TO the porch and giving me
>the 'once over' to make sure i wasn't a terrorist handing out anthrax.
This year, if you get anyone like that, insist on them showing you ID to prove that they're really the kid's parent. :)
Good idea, I'll dress up this year as the secret service
Some of my favorite memories from when I was a little punk come from Halloween. The candy, the horror movies, the haunted houses that actually put effort into scarring the crap out of you(got chaced by a madman with a VERY real chainsaw). My Dad would take us trick-or-trearing. Of course we got to the age where we really didn't do that anymore, and my Dad was sooo dissapointed. He had as much fun as we did if not more. I still remember that story he liked to tell. "The Chicken Heart That Ate Ponca City", no I'm not making that up that was the real title. Thinking back now the story is ludicrous, but back then it freaked me out. Maybe I should make it into a movie!
> And I'd like to know if this is a national trend but in the
> past 3 years i've noticed a large increase in teenagers
> collecting candy..teens who are taller than me and probably
> 17. Now I stopped trick or treating when I was 12 tho i still
> wandered the neighborhood and scared children or went to
> parties. These kids don't even dress up, they're a bunch of
> 17 year olds who walk up and hold out a bag. If they said
> "trick or treat" i'd say TRICK and slam the door. I just have
> this theory if your old enough to drive you can drive
> yourself to the store and buy some candy. Maybe it's me.
Being from the Northeast (much like Bruce up there; in fact, I live a mere 45 minutes away from Boston in a town called Franklin), older kids tend to recognize what Halloween is truly about. It's about having fun with friends, getting scared, scaring others, and just dressing up. It's the one time of the year you can be somebody completely different (or your true ghoulish self) and not get made fun of at all for it. When I was little, I never really liked Trick-or-Treating. Maybe it's because it always used to rain on Halloween, or maybe it's because my mother would walk along with me instead of my older sister and she would never give me a sack, or a pillow case, but instead a plastic Stop & Shop bag to collect my candy in. f**king...
I'm 16. Last year, when I was still 15 (late birthday, Junior in high school, go figure), I went Trick-or-Treating for the first time in roughly 7 years. And let me tell you: it was FUN. The neighborhood I went to was my friend John's neighborhood, and I dressed up as a stereotypical slasher-film killer (one-piece jumpsuit, white mask, long hair, carried a fake knife with me). My friend Matt and his then-girlfriend Erica dressed as nerds, John dressed as **SOMETHING**, and my friend Luke dressed like Gandalf from Lord Of The Rings (yes, he's a f**king dork). Damn it was fun...
God Dammit, I need to go out again this year. Only now I need to take out my niece and my nephew, and show them just what the f**k being scared on the night of the ghouls is really about...
I remember Halloween as being the funnest time of the year at school, with the decorations and fun art projects. And the best part: gym class. I usually loathed gym, but our teacher would set up a huge obstacle course where you swing from the ropes and jump pommelhorses and stuff, running from a ghost or a wild animal in the jungle. Until that one year when he made a kid run out in Freddy Krueger mask and scare the second graders and parents got upset. I don't blame them, but it ruined my fun. This obstacle course thing was present at every elementary school I went to all over the country.
I couldn't trick-or-treat for a few years because my mom thought it was a satanic ritual (which it kinda is, but I don't care), but then she realized I just wanted candy, so I continued.
Let me see if I can remember every costume I wore-
A monkey (with one of those sweet-smelling masks that slip over your nose and mouth, remember those? And one of my mom's pantyhose stuffed with socks as a tail), Batman, a gray alien, a soldier, a cowboy, Zorro, and that's all I remember.
Halloween rules.
I can name all of my costumes EVER:
Ghostbuster (3 years in a row), Ninja Turtle, Batman, Soldier (for about 4 years in a row), Slasher-Film Killer.
Considering I started consciously dressing-up when I was 3 (Ghostbuster, as the cartoon was red-hot and the second movie was still ultra-popular), and stopped when I was about 9, nice record...
JR, I'm jealous. We didn't get s**t on Halloween in Franklin. It must definitely be because of us being in the Northeast, which is spooky enough at night (go into Boston and walk around the old parts of town at midnight; trust me).
I live in a REALLY backwoods Massachusetts town called Templeton; when I was a kid, we had to ride around in my neighbor's mini-van just to get from house to house. My favorite trick-or-treating costume was probably the one I wore when I was seven; I was the Grim Reaper, complete with a rusty sickle I found in my barn.
These days, I usually get together with my band on Halloween; we'll always watch a horror movie, then go out and jam in the garage for the benefit of whoever's around (which usually isn't many people).
Bruce Black wrote: Here in the Northeast U.S., "Trick or Treating" has pretty much disappeared, another lost piece of Americana.
***** Where do you live, Bruce?? My folks live in the northeast, and I'm in the Mid-Atlantic, and I haven't seen any drop-off in trick or treating... Thank goodness.
Author: Bruce Black (---.214.82.31.Dial1.Boston1.Level3.net)
Date: 10-04-02 16:29
That answer your question, Dano?
I think my "band" (and I use the term loosely, as it's just me, my friend Wes, and his brother Colin, and we've only jammed twice) should go out as The Misfits on Halloween, complete with singing Misfits tunes.
Now THAT would be a killer show...
When I was little, I used to wear those cheesy store-bought costumes with the plastic mask and the name of the character printed on the chest. When I got a little older, I started making bizarre costumes. I used foil and other assorted things to make an alien mask, one year I got a cheap makeup package with skin-safe glue and I had cotton balls and stuff stuck to my face. My least well thought out costume was a large box with holes for my arms and legs which was supposed to be a robot. I had trouble fitting on some steps and leaving enough room for the porch door to open! The last costume, I used a coat with a hood and painted my entire face with water paints to resemble a skull. I went out with a friend and one house we went to, the guy asked how old we were (I think 14 at the time) he said we were too old and closed the door in our faces.
When I was little we never had storebought! I think mainly because in my parents day halloween wasn't a big holiday and nobody dressed up. The town might have a party with mischevious kids but nobody really went trick or treating. So i have my stuff homemade.
And nothing is more traumatic to a 6 year old than a homemade wonder woman outfit.