Halloween: Childhood Memories

Happy Halloween!!

Today I'm remembering way back...okay...way way back...to when I was young enough to go trick or treating. 

When I was young, I lived in a small and wonderful town in the hill country of South Carolina on the North Carolina line in Cherokee Country.  There are real seasons there, and Halloween was always cold. 

Back then Halloween meant ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night.  There was none of this fairy princess stuff.  No Disney costumes or happy little cartoon characters.  No.  Halloween was the Day of the Dead and "tricks" happened as well as "treats."

Children dressed as scary things, the scarier the better!

 
The worst of the tricks, I think, happened to all of us with those horrid Halloween masks.  The masks were hard plastic with very small eye holes and oftentimes no breathing holes at all, which meant there were hoards of children walking around the neighborhoods half-blind and slowly suffocating as they screamed "Trick or Treat" at the top of their lungs.  The cold outside and the warm breath inside the masks also caused condensation, so your face would get damp and cold and you'd have to sneeze or cough and your nose would run.

Seriously.  Those masks were breeding grounds for things more terrible than the undead. 

Parents didn't go trick-or-treating with their kids back then.  They stayed home and gave out the candy.

Mama would make my brother, Gene, hold my hand, and off we'd go to scare people.  I remember the thrill of thinking no one knew who I was beneath that mask, so I could scare them and totally get away with it.  It was quite the rush to a little girl.  I'd make roaring and growling noises and the adults would quake with fear causing me to laugh and laugh.  So much fun!

Gene and I spent a good bit of time plotting and hiding behind trees to jump out at other kids and scare them.  They'd scream LOUD and we'd squeal with laughter and run before they figured out who we were. 

It was very dark outside at night back then in a little country town, so we'd often get away unknown.  We laughed so much my stomach hurt.

We'd stagger around holding onto each other as we climbed the stairs to our neighbors' doors.  We only visited the homes in our neighborhood, and we knew everyone we visited.  We'd knock or ring the doorbells and yell, "Trick or Treat!"  Gene and I would fight over who got to ring the doorbell.  Truth be told, I still LOVE ringing doorbells.  I would beg him, "PLEASE let me ring the next one!" and sometimes he would.  Gene loved me.

We had plain paper bags to hold our candy.  We'd get what we thought was a LOT of candy, about a lunch-sized bagful, and then we'd head home to compare our loot and eat ourselves sick. 

Once we arrived home, the negotiations would begin.  "I'll trade you six Mary Janes for your Candy Cigarettes." 

Halloween was mostly about fun, back then.  No razor blades in apples.  No poisoned candy.  No worries about such things until I was older and people were meaner and had more time on their hands. 

Halloween was never as much fun after Gene got too big to trick-or-treat and my younger sister got big enough to go instead.  I prefer those Halloweens with just Gene and me.  I will always remember those.

Here's wishing everyone a wonderful Halloween like those today.  Treat the little monsters who come to your door, be afraid (!) and enjoy yourself.  There will never be another Halloween quite like today.

Haunted House - Sanford, North Carolina: A True Story

Many years ago we were looking at houses in and around Sanford, North Carolina.  Some of the houses felt like such happy places where you'd love to live.  Others were much less happy.

It is an odd thing, but when I go in houses, especially empty houses, they tend to make me feel one way or another.  Like the houses themselves soak up energy from their occupants and keep it in the walls and floors.

One such house made me so sad when I went inside that I could not stay in there.  The realtor admitted the couple who were selling that house were divorcing after many years of loud fights and neighborhood disruptions.  He asked me how I knew.  I said, "This is the saddest house I have ever entered."

I fear that realtor thought me crazy.

There was another house in Sanford, NC back then that I refused to enter.  It was a lovely house.  Big old white two-story house.  It would have been perfect for us had it not been haunted.

Even my sons felt it.  I told the realtor there was something evil in that house.  My eldest son said, "Yes.  It is behind the room on the left," and I agreed.

The realtor actually stepped back and looked at us with something akin to fear.  He said, "You know, that is strange that you say that because that area is exactly where we found an insect infestation.  The exterminators are having a time eliminating all of them.  They keep coming back, but we can't figure out where they are coming from."

I said, "The evil is attracting them.  We need to leave.  Now," and we did.


It was only two days or so later that the realtor called me at my home and told me that beautiful old two-story white house burned to the ground the night before.

I asked him what started the fire, and he said, "No one knows, but it started in the area behind that room where the insects were.  I thought you'd want to know."

I thanked him for calling and told him I was not surprised.  Evil and hatred attract all manner of bad things.

We never did move to Sanford, and that's okay with me. I figure that fire either purged or released that evil.  I'd rather not take the chance of being anywhere around in case it was the latter.  -shudder-

How many of you have had such experiences?  I'm betting more than a few....

The Haunted Woods - Near Boiling Springs, NC - A True Story (As Told to Me)

When I was a little girl my Mama told me this story about her Uncle Pink (Pinckney).  She swore it was true.  You decide.

Mama said:

Back in the 1920s when I was just a girl, Uncle Pink would sometimes walk to the neighbor's house to help the family or check on them.  To get there he'd have to walk about a mile through the woods near his house which was not far from Boiling Springs, North Carolina and not far from Mooresboro, North Carolina.  Way out in the country.  Uncle Pink always tried his best to go and come in daylight, but many times it would be after dark before he could leave to come back home.

There was a well-marked path that he followed.  He said every time he'd start back home around dusk dark, a little white dog would appear and walk with him.  The dog would never let him touch it, but it stayed by his side all the way through the wood.  Then, as suddenly as it appeared, it would just disappear!  Poof!  Gone!

There were stranger things happening in those woods the darker it would get.  Uncle Pink said there would be what looked like fireballs rolling across the path or hovering in the forest in front of him and to the sides of him, but nothing ever caught fire.  He figured they were just will-o'-the-wisps, so he learned to ignore them. 

Then one night he heard voices and he snuck off the path to see who it was.  The little white dog did not leave the path.  It just stood there and waited making not a sound.  

Uncle Pink said as he drew closer to the voices, he saw a group of men with hoods on their heads around a fire.  He said he couldn't see exactly what they were doing, but the hair stood up on the back of his neck and he gave in to the need to run that night.  He ran back to the path as quick and quiet as he could and got home lickety split. 

The men never followed.  They never stopped what they were doing.  They never acted like they heard him at all.

The next day he started asking around about that group of men in the wood.  The stories he heard turned his stomach.  Everybody said those men did meet in those woods, but not for 50 years or so.  They told him tales of murder and cremations in those woods.  Beheadings.  People seeing a headless man walking through those woods like a chicken with its head cut off.  Bad bad things.  Too bad to say out loud, and there was a killing of a gentle little white dog that belonged to one of the murder victims. 

This made Uncle Pink shudder and cold chills run up his spine.

Uncle Pink decided he'd only visit the neighbors first thing in the morning after that, so he'd always get home no later than mid-day. 

Now they say, even today, if you happen on those woods as the sun hangs low and dusk falls across the land, a sweet and faithful little white dog will appear and stay by your side 'til you're safe through the trees, and people round about still swear the fireballs can be seen now and then of a night, eerily passing through those woods making their unearthly light. 

I'll not be going there myself to find out if Uncle Pink's story is true, but if you ever go, you let me know.

---

That's the story as my Mama told it to me. Is it true? You decide. 

Dogs Like Halloween Too!

A few years ago I had a dog named Buster.  He passed away in December 2013 of liver and spleen cancer.  I will miss that dog until I die.  Maybe longer.

Buster was a registered therapy dog.  We visited a nursing home weekly and Buster just loved dressing up for the holidays.  He loved wearing clothes because Buster thought he was human (although he was much better than any human I've ever met, of course).

Since Buster got to wear Halloween costumes, Dolly wanted one too, so I sewed them both Halloween costumes.  This tells you how much I love my dogs.  Anyone who knows me well with tell you I do know how to sew, but I hate it with such a white hot passion that I will never do it unless I want to make something I can not buy.

Here are some of my fur-children Halloween picture memories for you.  Happy memories.  Enjoy!

My boy, Buster, dressed as a Count Dracula.  See his fangs?

Buster visiting the nursing home on Halloween.

Dolly modelling her Halloween costume. Look how happy!

Dolly in her Halloween finery.  She was so proud!

Buster modelling his Halloween costume.  The hat is a doll hat. Buster loved that hat.

Sweet Dolly.  She loves clothes!

In case you are wondering, yes, they did get lots of treats that Halloween!  Okay...I admit my dogs get treats everyday, but they really enjoyed their Halloween doggie treats that year. 

MacBeth by William Shakespeare - Act IV Scene I

This is my favorite part of the Shakespeare play, MacBeth.  I don't do the reading justice, of course, but hopefully my brief reading will give you inspiration to read the entire play by clicking HERE.

I always think of MacBeth this time of year. Enjoy!

Dancing With the Devil in the Pale Moonlight

Yes.  I do have a photograph of me dressed as a dead cheerleader dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight.

I know you are shocked.  😉

Many years ago when my sons were teenagers in the early 1990s, my ex-husband and I went to a Halloween party sponsored by his workplace.  Here are some of the photos that I have scanned.  I didn't know any of these people very well, so I don't really remember any of their names, but I do remember having a good time at the party.  It was held in Shelby, North Carolina, but I honestly don't remember exactly where.  This was a long time ago.

This party is one of the things I always think about at Halloween time.  Fun!!! 

Dancing with the Devil.

Black-Eyed Ps

The Flasher

A lovely spider couple

Me dressed as a dead cheerleader.
(My son, Marcus, did my make-up. I had a bullet-hole in my head. It really looked very real.)

By the way, for those of you who are wondering, my ex-husband went to this party dressed as a dead football player. No. He is not in these pictures.

Jack-O-Lantern Fundraiser - Halloween 1993

My life has been blessed in so very many ways, but I'd have to say my sons are my biggest blessing.  They have given me so very many happy days to remember in my old age.  They are my heart.

When I think of Halloween, one of the Halloweens that always pops to mind is Halloween 1993 when my son, Dave, was in college at North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem, NC, and my sons Marcus and Eric were still at home.

On that particular Halloween, my son, Marcus was a senior in high school and his class was doing fund raisers so they could go on a senior trip to New York City in Spring 1994.  Marcus didn't like the things they were selling, so he decided to do his own fundraiser.

Now, you should know that my son, Marcus is a charming creative sort.  Since it was Halloween he decided to sell Jack-O-Lanterns for his fundraiser, so we went to a local pumpkin farm in Kings Mountain, NC and Marcus charmed them into selling him pumpkins for a dollar each.  He then carved those pumpkins and sold them for $10.00 each, as they were all unique and remarkable.  Well worth the price.

Marcus ended up selling over 50 Jack-O-Lanterns that year.  I will never forget it.  He earned enough money for his senior trip as well as pocket money to spend in New York.  He brought us all back presents because that is the kind of person he is.  Generous to a fault.

Here are a few of the pumpkins he carved.  I have other photographs, but I'd have to find and scan them.  That is a project for after I retire.  I'm going to have to live to be 200 years old in order to complete all the projects I need to do after retirement, but I'm thinking I will enjoy each of them that I do get completed.

My favorite of Marcus's creations was a design of his own where the Jack-o-Lantern's smiling teeth spelled out Happy Halloween.  I really need to find that photograph.  It is on my to-do list.  But here are the ones I have already scanned.

Enjoy!

Limestone College Ghost, Gaffney, South Carolina: A True Story

Many years ago when I was attending Limestone College in Gaffney, South Carolina, I did work-study in the Admissions Office in the Curtis Administration Building for about a year. 

The Curtis Administration Building and Cooper Hall are really one building.  Cooper Hall is one of ten buildings on the Limestone College campus listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  It was originally constructed around 1835 as the Limestone Springs Hotel and is the oldest building on campus.

When Limestone College was established about ten years later in 1845, the old Limestone Springs Hotel became Cooper Hall, a residence hall.

Some say it is also the most haunted building on campus, but that statement is often argued, as the Winnie Davis Hall of History has its own ghost stories, but I never saw those ghosts as that building was closed during my time at Limestone.

Today's story takes place around 1870 after the War Between the States, during the time Cooper Hall was a residence hall.  Back then Limestone was an all girls Christian high school.  The young ladies would arrive on campus with their servants to care for them.  It wouldn't be proper for a lady of that age or station in life to be left unattended.  Her reputation could be ruined!

I learned all these things and more while I was working in that admissions office.  During that time I also oftentimes had to go into the old Cooper Hall building to get supplies.  

You see, back when I was in college, Cooper Hall was used for storage, and, let me tell you, that building was spooky!  You'd walk down those long door-lined halls with your footsteps echoing behind you each time you took a step on that old dusty wooden floor.  Random creeks and pops would jump out here and there to startle you. I nearly jumped out of my skin many-a-time as I'd make my way down to the admissions office storage room.

Oh yes.  That place scared the liver outta me.  I wish you could have seen it.  The paint on those old walls was peeling in places and there was never enough light to quite see well, so I'd either have to stop and squint to make sure I was at the right place, or I'd have to count the doors as I'd go along.  

That building was built with huge and beautiful windows in the rooms behind all those doors.  It was meant for those windows to be opened for ventilation, as the outside air was fresh and clean back in 1835, but those windows had long since been painted or nailed shut to keep students from finding mischief in the storage rooms, so the air was always a little too warm making it stale and hard to breathe in there.  Even so, you'd pass through cold spots as you walked past some of the doors.  Those cold spots often made the hair stand up on the back of my neck and my arms break out in goosebumps.  

It just didn't feel or look "right" in there.

There was no electricity in the original building, and it seemed like what was added later was just an afterthought.  Bare bulbs here and there on long wires hanging down and old turn switches whose safety was questionable. 

 One day as I was going to the storage room, I noticed someone had left one of the doors open to a room that only contained a rocking chair.  I thought that odd, as all the doors were usually locked, so I walked over to the room intending to close and lock the door with the skeleton key all the doors used, when that rocking chair suddenly started rocking.

I kid you not.

It just started rocking!  

I thought earthquake?  But the dangling light bulbs on their wires were not moving.  Then I thought maybe a loose board I had stepped on made the chair rock, so I retraced my steps as the rocking slowed and stopped.  Nope.  I couldn't make it rock again, so I just decided it was a prank, retrieved my things from storage and went back to work.  

The next day I started asking around about the rocking chair.  Turns out the reason the door was open was some students from Duke University were doing some paranormal  research and had placed the rocker in that room because of a ghost story!!!  They were going to set up more equipment to measure paranormal activity in there.  I was fascinated.

The ghost was supposedly a young girl who came to school there with her nanny around 1870.  One day the girl took sick with a very high fever.  She was fitful.  Tossing and turning and wearing herself out.  She just couldn't sleep.  She couldn't rest.  The only thing her nanny could think to do to comfort her was rock her, so that's what she did.

The girl's nanny held her on her lap in that old wooden rocking chair and rocked her all night that night to comfort her.  On towards morning, as the night faded, in that early morning twilight before dawn, the girl quieted, and still the nanny rocked and sang sweet childhood songs to comfort her, even as her body stiffened. You see, the young beloved girl had died in her nanny's arms. 

This is the legend. There are conflicting stories as to exactly where she did die on campus, but all the stories say she did indeed die on campus. It is a fact that the room I saw that day with the rocking chair was her dorm room where her nanny rocked her when she was so sick. That much is definitely true.
 
Now they say when the air turns cool and the leaves are not long off the trees, if you put a rocking chair anywhere in that particular room, it will rock of its own accord.

I believe it.

I've seen it with my own eyes.

The Wilkins Kids Haunted House

Today I'm remembering the Wilkins kids.  

When I was born we lived across the street from them.  The children were: George, Sally, Bruce, Philip, and Stephen.

Philip and I were the same age.  He's a dentist in Winnsboro, SC now.  He always wanted to be a dentist.  I used to be envious of him always knowing what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Me?  I wanted to run away with the circus most of my childhood, but that's another story.

Today I'm remembering one Fall of the year back in the late 1950s when the Wilkins' children made a "Haunted House" in their basement.  They charged a penny to go through it. 

It was pretty gross.  

They had it set up in the pitch black dark and one of them would walk (or push!) you through.  They would jump out and grab you to scare you a couple of times and make scary noises, but what I remember most were the disgusting things.

Those boys could be pretty disgusting at any given time, but they really put their minds together to come up with repulsive things for their Haunted House.  

I can just see them plotting and laughing as they gathered their vile offerings.

They put your hand in a bowl of spaghetti for guts, big olives for eyeballs, some kind of thick jello nastiness for brains, something disgusting for cut-off fingers and toes, something for spiders, puke, etc.  -shudder-  I may have been scarred for life.  -grin-

I went through it several times.  -laughing-  

Now I'm wondering if they remember doing that.  It was a very long time ago....

The Wilkins' Old House - 2016

The Wilkins' old house is still there today, but the parents built a new house and moved many years ago now.  I still think about this old house sometimes though.  It holds a lot of childhood memories for me.  I'll tell you more about it by and by.