Spookiest Halloween Memory

[mmecurie68]

Since the "big day" comes upon us tomorrow, I thought I would share my "spookiest" Halloween memory...

I was in third grade and went to my girlfriend Julie's to Trick-or-Treat. She lived in a nice, residential neighborhood that was basically a HUGE block, like a big rectangle. By the time you completed the circuit on the rectangle, the candy bag would be full and you were done.

Well, we went out (alone - never, ever in this day and age - I was 9, so this would be 1977) and we hit almost all the houses and come up on the third "side" of the rectangle.

On the corner is "The Haunted House". Textbook creepy. White, vintage Victorian Gothic with the sad-looking eye windows and the slate roof, curtains you can't see into, a nice long path to the door and 10 ft. hedges at the end of the yard with only the path's width cleared to get through so you could get on the walk to the door.

We decide, "Hey, power in numbers" and summon up the courage to go up to the door and ring the bell. An ANCIENT couple opens the door (or at least we thought so at the time - God only knows, but they looked like they were a hundred apiece) and invite us in.

Now, we know we are breaking Halloween rule #1, "Don't go into anybody's house that you don't know"...right? But we're looking at each other like, what are we gonna do - we can't say "No" to Gramma and Grandpa - we were raised to be respectful to our elders and that would be rude.

So they are trying to chit-chat with us and we are standing there getting more uncomfortable by the minute (it's only later in life that I realize that we're probably the first kids with the stones to ring their doorbell in a long, long time on Halloween) while they try to find something to give us for a "treat".

Then the old woman comes and presents us with the next whallop - two shiny apples - NOT ONLY ARE THEY TRYING TO TRAP US LIKE HANSEL AND GRETEL IN THEIR HAUNTED HOUSE , BUT THEY ARE TRYING TO KILL US WITH POISONED AND/OR RAZOR-BLADED APPLES!!!

Julie and I are looking at each other and are trying to psychically telegraph an exit strategy - should we run for it?

Try to back out gracefully? What would Rico and Lola do at the Copacobana? [Heh-heh, inside joke there for the old-timers]...

Eventually, we mumbled thank-yous and something about having to get back home because we were late or something like that and took off like bats out of hell, and didn't stop until we got back to her front door.

Needless to say, when it came time for the obligatory "Candy Inspection" phase, the apples were the first thing to hit the trash can.

[lildebcc]

When I was a kid, there was a house in my neighborhood that no kids would go up to on Halloween. It was an old farm house that was set way back off the street, had a circular driveway, and a huge garden next to the house. Even in the daytime, it looked kind of spooky - at least to us kids.

Every Halloween, even thought I wanted to go up to the house, no one else in the group waned to, so we just walked by. Okay, I am talking back in the early/mid 1960s here. Back in the day when a group of 6-8 kids, aged 8-12, could go out trick-or-treating without adult supervision and feel safe, because we knew just about everyone in the neighborhood.

Well, in 1964, when I was 10, I decided that I was going up to the house. As we all walked down the street (there were 6 of us that year) and came to the long dirt driveway, I turned down it while everyone else passed by. Was I scared, yeah a little, but I wanted to see why no one else would go up there.

When my friends saw me turn up the driveway, they ran up behind me. On thing we always did was stick together. Well they were squeamish and scared of every little noise. The story going around in our circle of friends, was that two really old people lived in the house and they brought kids into their house on Halloween and ate them. Then there was the talk of being afraid of the ghosts of kids that died there. Well, I did not believe that these people killed any kids, and I was not afraid of ghosts, because I had been seeing them since I was about 5 (but my friends did not know that).

Anyway, we continued up the driveway to the front of the house. The driveway was kind of dark and shadowy, only lit by a street light and their porch light. We all walked up the steps and onto the farmer's porch, and stood there. No one wanted to push the doorbell, so I did.

We heard footsteps come to the door, and the door slowly opened. There before us stood a little old lady with the biggest smile on her face. She opened the screen door and asked us to come inside. (yeah we could do that back then)

Of course going into the house did make us a bit scared because of what we had heard. She led us all into the dining room and asked us to have a seat. She left for a moment, we heard voices in the other room, which turned out to be the kitchen, and she returned. Then she asked us our names, where we were from, and we chatted, she was nice.

Then this big guy came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with stuff on it - we got scared again. But when he set the tray on the table, there was a glass of milk and a huge piece of chocolate fudge for each of us. (yeah we got homemade candy back then).

Well, we ended up staying in the house for about 10 minutes talking and laughing and getting to know these two people, who were not mean or crazy, but just very nice and enjoying the holiday. Then, before we left, we were each given another piece of fudge.

Boy were we a happy bunch of kids that night. After that we, as well as many other kids, went up to this house without any fear of becoming someone's Halloween dinner.

Funny, back then it was suck a scary thing, but all I can do now is laugh at it. And other than this incident, I do not remember ever being scared on Halloween.

>^o.o^<