I remember my first costume and trick or treating outing was me in a white bedsheet with the eye holes cut out and me carrying a plastic pumpkin and tooling around town with my cousin, Ben, and my friend, Melissa. We gathered a plethora of candy that night, however, I couldn't eat any of it until it was inspected for razor blades...it was the scare back then.
At my school, we always had this kick @ss Halloween carnival. In second grade, I was up for Halloween festival queen. It was a fundraising thing. The girl who raised the most money won the crown. My brother, a senior, was working the admission gate for the Halloween carnival and he asked everyone entering if they'd give a donation for his sister to become the queen. With his help, I came in second place! I won a red velvet cake that year in the cake walk.
As I worked my way through school, my homerooms hosted different activities for the Halloween carnival. Second grade was the pick up ducks, fifth was the country store where we sold davinity, cookies, and other homemade items. Nineth was the go fish booth where you tossed a fishing pole over a sheet and pulled back a bag full of goodies. Junior year was the haunted house where we all slapped on fake blood and rubber masks and scared hell and four dollars out of all the younger kids. We also had the hay ride where we all piled into the back of a truck, steered through the woods behind the school where each load was attacked by water balloons by hidden seniors. Sadly, some little kid got upset by it and the school discontinued it. So, my senior year, we hosted a Monster Mash. Three tickets to dance with the senior of your choice in this semi-disco in our home room. Cheesy...yes, but a lot of fun.
My sophomore year, I was riding around town with some friends of mine when we came upon one of the city's cemeteries. Quicker than a flash, they attempted to leave me and my friend, Daphne, in the cemetery by ourselves. Being the smart girls that we were, we both tackled one of the football player guys who were trying to ditch us. We spent the next hour and a half huddling together for warmth around creepy gravestones. Daphne and I were the picture of bravery...the football players...not so much.
College brought less mischieviousness and more mayhem. Fraternity parties. My best costume in my college years was as a Navy Blue Crayola. Brilliant costume, if I must say so myself.
Nowadays, I find myself not at a party or dressed as something crazy-cool or hip...rather, I'm in my jeans, hoodie, and tennies and I'm walking around a haunted location with my K2 meter, my digital voice recorder, and my camera. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I have learned so much in my ghost hunting research. I have met so many wonderful people who aren't creepy or weird or anything like that...rather they are spiritually grounded, faithfully based, and eager to try and seek out what's on The Other Side.
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As a giveaway this Halloween, I am offering up a copy of my two (so far) GHOST HUNTRESS books - THE AWAKENING and THE GUIDANCE and my non-fiction how to book, THE OTHER SIDE: A TEEN'S GUIDE TO GHOST HUNTING AND THE PARANORMAL for the commenter who leaves their best Halloween story.
Happy hauntings to you all!
Marley = )
P.S. Today is my Dad's 83rd birthday! Fresh from a triple bypass, he's doing well and is at home celebrating his special day. Love ya Joe!
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7 comments:
Happy birthday to your dad!
Cara
Oh, happy birthday to your dad! Hope he continues to do well after his surgery.
One of my favorite Halloween stories happened when I was somewhere around ten, I think. I was going around withe my older sister, who was so into the whole trick or treating thing, she would go around a day or so before and map out the course of the houses she wanted to hit.
One of them was this huge old house that looked like the backdrop of a scary movie - set back from the road, questionable lighting, all around creepy feel. It had been converted to apartments, so there were a lot of places to hit inside. So we went in and had hit every floor but the top one. We get to the top floor and at the very end of this really creepy, semi-dark hall is this lady in a long dark dress, waving her arms in a wild manner and making spooky noises. Needless to say, we didn't linger on that floor.
Come to find out (my sister knew someone in the building), the lady didn't have candy for the kids, so she decided to scare them away instead. I still remember that, all these years later, especially since that house had a reputation as being haunted. We believed it for years afterwards and steered clear of that house!
Margay
Wow! Happy birthday, Dad! Glad he's home, Marley.
Love your dress-up pictures! You're like Kiss Vampires. ;)
What was really fun about Halloween when I was a kid was that my family didn't give away candy. We gave away 45's (which were record singles). My dad worked for a major record label and every week we got a box of them. Some kids were baffled by them, others ran home to change their costumes and come back for more!
My uncle was a big kid at heart. He loved the holidays - Christmas and Easter and most especially Halloween. Sadly, a few years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer and passed away, ironically a week before Halloween. In our culture there's a belief that the soul returns back to the places they love on the 7 th day after their deaths to say goodbye before they pass over to the great beyond. A relative suggested that to test if this theory was true that we sprinkle flour on my uncle's bedroom floor so that if my uncle did indeed come back, we would be able to see his footprints. We tried it out, not thinking that anything was going to happen. The next morning when we went to check the floor, there were footprints on the flour. My uncle's baby toe on his left foot was a little deformed and spread out like a talon. And we saw footprints with the exact markings! Yet strangely enough, none of us were freaked. We'd like to think of it as my uncle celebrating his last Halloween.
yes, Happy Birthday to your dad (yay for October birthdays!-mine was last week)
I think the best Halloween we had was probably one that overlapped with my birthday. We set up tables and painted pumpkins and carved some, too (and Lord did we make a mess!) and then we all had tons and tons of candy and ice cream. And we had a stobe light in my basement to make it extra spooky and played with my oija (sp?) board and then we stayed up forever watching scary movies in the dark! (it helped, too, that I had two cats then and one of them was a black cat who liked to sneak up on you). The sugar and creepy lighting and scary movies (and pumpkins) all added up perfectly :D I think it was when I was maybe 12 or 13.
I love having a birthday so close to Halloween!
-Lucile
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