By Annette Dashofy
Why is it that we all love to be scared? And don’t try to tell me that you don’t. Just look at the popularity of horror movies. Vampires are multiplying on TV like rabbits. And need I mention Stephen King?
Halloween, of course, is the prime holiday for being terrified. Witches and mummies and ghosts and pirates roam the streets and adorn our yards. The fun part is that it’s all safe and make-believe. I’m not going to get into those dreadful times that the fear becomes real such as when sick adults spoil kids’ fun by tampering with the candy. I’ll save that for another blog on another Halloween.
I grew up in a rural setting surrounded by corn fields and cows. We NEVER got any trick-or-treaters here until my cousin built a house next door and her kids came over before heading out to prowl the more populated streets where their aunt and cousins lived. I remember one year, my mom put me in a Bugs Bunny mask and we went to visit an aunt on Halloween. I watched as costumed monsters (very SHORT monsters) appeared at her door and were gifted with small candy bars.
I think I was maybe four at the time.
Not only did we never receive trick-or-treaters, I never WENT trick-or-treating either. I feel so deprived.
However, I developed a passion for haunted houses. My first one was at a friend’s house. I helped set it up in her basement before her Halloween party. Looking back, it was pretty mild. Jell-O and spaghetti in a bowl sort of thing. Yuck.
Fast forward to my teen years when I was in 4H. I helped put together some fairly good haunted houses for the club’s annual parties. I even won a prize for scariest costume (Miss Transylvania 19-something or other) once.
During my senior high school days, Campus Life put on Scream in the Dark every year and Washington Park had their Dark in the Park. Both were wonderfully spooky with chainsaw wielding ghoulies jumping out from behind caskets and mummies grabbing at you when you were busy eyeballing that vampire behind the tree.
I thought my haunted house days were over until last week. My mom has been rehabbing from hip surgery at a nursing home for the past few months. This place is great. Their recreational department goes above and beyond to provide entertainment for the patients and full-time residents alike. When I saw that they were having a haunted house in the rec hall, I asked my mom if she wanted to go. She thought about it and to my surprise, agreed. In all of her 87 years, Mom had never been through a haunted house before.
How scary could it be? I reasoned. They couldn’t make it too bad. After all, the patients and residents there are mostly OLD. They wouldn’t want to be responsible for anyone having a heart attack. Would they? Then again, they were just saying that all the beds were full. Maybe they needed to open up some space for those needing to come in.
With Mom in her wheelchair, we waited in line with teenagers and parents with small children as well as a few other invalid patients. But mostly it was kids. I was getting worried. Apparently, the staff’s and residents’ families were mostly the ones taking part. What if this really was too frightening for my elderly mother?
Well, we had a blast. I assume the actors dressed in the gory costumes played it up or down depending on who was coming through at the moment. But there was the usual haunted house line-up. Vampires, ax-toting bloody specters, large hairy spiders, mummies and some ghost pirates to name a few. We screamed and laughed and had a grand time being scared.
Okay, time to share your favorite tales of being scared and loving it. And Happy Halloween! Boo!
Showing posts with label haunted houses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label haunted houses. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Fear Factor
by Kristine Coblitz
Fear has been a hot topic here at the Working Stiffs lately. As crime fiction writers, it's almost inevitable that fear will work its way into most of our conversations about writing and life, as it seems a big part of our job includes digging into the dark places that most normal people don't like to go.
Not that we have to look too far for material, of course. The world today is filled with scary stuff such as terrorist attacks, deadly hurricanes and storms, bridge catastrophes, and increasing violence in our cities and suburbs. Just turn on the news for an hour and you'll see what I mean. There are numerous occurrences where crimes that we once believed could only be written by the most talented crime writers are actually happening in our own neighborhoods, sometimes on our own streets or in our very homes.
Now that I'm preparing to bring a child into this world, I've begun to really think about fear and the role it plays in our society. I'm a fearful person by nature. I tend to worry about things, mostly about things that are out of my control. Perhaps that's why I have the stamina to write about the topics I write about. I don't run from my fear. I let it fester and manipulate it to my own benefit to enrich my fiction.
But when you become a parent, things change. I don't want my child to grow up chronically afraid, yet I want her to grow up with a realistic view of the world. But how much is too much? With the media bombarding us with bad news and scare tactics on a 24-hour basis, how do I shelter my child enough so she can enjoy the innocence of her childhood for as long as possible before seeing how dangerous this world can be?
It's one of the many struggles I'll face as a new parent, I suppose.
When I was growing up, scary movies and books by Stephen King used to give me nightmares. Now it's the news. Go figure. Is it because I've grown up or because there are more things to be afraid of in the real world than on the movie screen or in the pages of a book? Sometimes I feel it's because I know too much. One of the drawbacks of our profession is that we can't live in denial about the bad stuff and bad people around us, which in turn has the ability to transform us into paranoid, overprotective parents.
I'm still struggling with whether or not this is a bad or good thing. Knowledge is power, after all.
When I was young, my bedroom was on the third floor of our home. I was convinced a ghost resided in my bedroom, although no hard evidence ever proved me right or wrong. Just walking up the steps at bedtime had me shaking in my Barbie nightgown and slippers. My nightmares were usually about haunted houses. Even as an adult, as much as I love Halloween, you'll never catch me in a haunted house--even a fake one.
I invite you all to take a step back in time to your childhood. What scared you as a child? What gave you nightmares? How did your parents alleviate (or contribute to, in some cases) your worst fears?
Fear has been a hot topic here at the Working Stiffs lately. As crime fiction writers, it's almost inevitable that fear will work its way into most of our conversations about writing and life, as it seems a big part of our job includes digging into the dark places that most normal people don't like to go.
Not that we have to look too far for material, of course. The world today is filled with scary stuff such as terrorist attacks, deadly hurricanes and storms, bridge catastrophes, and increasing violence in our cities and suburbs. Just turn on the news for an hour and you'll see what I mean. There are numerous occurrences where crimes that we once believed could only be written by the most talented crime writers are actually happening in our own neighborhoods, sometimes on our own streets or in our very homes.
Now that I'm preparing to bring a child into this world, I've begun to really think about fear and the role it plays in our society. I'm a fearful person by nature. I tend to worry about things, mostly about things that are out of my control. Perhaps that's why I have the stamina to write about the topics I write about. I don't run from my fear. I let it fester and manipulate it to my own benefit to enrich my fiction.
But when you become a parent, things change. I don't want my child to grow up chronically afraid, yet I want her to grow up with a realistic view of the world. But how much is too much? With the media bombarding us with bad news and scare tactics on a 24-hour basis, how do I shelter my child enough so she can enjoy the innocence of her childhood for as long as possible before seeing how dangerous this world can be?
It's one of the many struggles I'll face as a new parent, I suppose.
When I was growing up, scary movies and books by Stephen King used to give me nightmares. Now it's the news. Go figure. Is it because I've grown up or because there are more things to be afraid of in the real world than on the movie screen or in the pages of a book? Sometimes I feel it's because I know too much. One of the drawbacks of our profession is that we can't live in denial about the bad stuff and bad people around us, which in turn has the ability to transform us into paranoid, overprotective parents.
I'm still struggling with whether or not this is a bad or good thing. Knowledge is power, after all.
When I was young, my bedroom was on the third floor of our home. I was convinced a ghost resided in my bedroom, although no hard evidence ever proved me right or wrong. Just walking up the steps at bedtime had me shaking in my Barbie nightgown and slippers. My nightmares were usually about haunted houses. Even as an adult, as much as I love Halloween, you'll never catch me in a haunted house--even a fake one.
I invite you all to take a step back in time to your childhood. What scared you as a child? What gave you nightmares? How did your parents alleviate (or contribute to, in some cases) your worst fears?
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