Halloween Spookhouse, Our Family's Fav Holy Day

By far, Halloween was my family’s favorite holiday. Like any big family (I’m one of nine kids, born in a span of 12 years--God bless my mother), we had the usual love for Christmas and the 4th of July excitement. But with a brilliant yet raging alcoholic father, those holidays had their downsides. Way too many “un-fun” drunken scenes marred the recall of those holidays.

Yet with Halloween, my French Canadian mother had discovered an outlet for her love of performing and her love for frightening people. She found that hilarious. So did we. Surprisingly, my father’s eccentricity allowed him to enjoy this as well. So my father chose to join her in this hobby-turned-passion, and they both got sooo into the spook house we made, that I have no recollection of them ever fighting on Halloween. (That itself is remarkable.) Thus, all the warmth and joy that a normal kid might have in his memories of Christmas, for me, come from that holiest of days, “All Saint’s Eve”, (whatever that meant).

What brings a family closer than scaring the hell out of our loved ones? (Especially our stoned friends!) For my younger siblings, scaring those pesky bullies who tormented them all year was sweet revenge. With Halloween’s laudable goal of scaring the hell out of those brats, we had a carte blanche on it! It was like getting a free “punch in the face” for all the bullies you’ve avoided all year! And of course, seeing your real friends leave your house with the same look they had after riding a terrifying but exhilarating roller coaster, was a great reward. And they were grateful!
Our spook house was well known in the neighborhood and the crowds and lines forming, grew over the years. One year we were in the newspaper with an article about our devotion to community and the spirit of the holiday. Today it would have made us sound like a great family for a reality TV show (actually we would have been a great family for a reality TV show, but I don’t mean that in a good way). In any case, that only sparked more kids coming the next year, and more money and time devoted to maintaining the quality of the event for my parents. But they were into it, 100%! (It never occurred to us to charge a fee, but that might have been a good idea because it did get pricey to do every year).

Unfortunatly there were some risks and downsides.

The biggest risk was probably to my brother Martin, who took it upon himself to start the show off outside in front of our house. Scary music was blaring from speakers outside, along with some pretty cool lighting effects, for the time...(Hey, it was the 70’s, so black lights and strobes were enough back then. And sometimes we had dry ice).

Anyway, Martin was probably the sibling who experimented the most with “things from the 70’s”. (Am I being too ambiguous, or do you see where I’m going with this? Since you read my blog, that makes you one of the “cognitive elites” so you get it!) Moving on....okay -- so Martin would do stunts like putting on several pairs of pants he didn’t like anymore (or that didn’t belong to him). Then Martin would place a bucket of water at the end of the yard, behind our big tree. He’d cross over to the driveway and light himself on fire in front of as many people as possible. Then he’d run across the lawn screaming, on fire, to the bucket of water and put himself out. EXCELLENT.

Another year, Martin made a harness that he could wear under a sweatshirt, and then he could hang himself from a tree as if he’d been lynched. (He was really clever!) This worked wonders and was a total success, until some kids thought he was more like a pinata, and they took turns hitting him with bats and other assorted weapons. Again, where were the parents?? (Oh as for our parents, I choose to believe they were not fully aware of what Martin was doing. That’s possibly true.) And hey, he survived. But the hang man thing only works well if you have an “assistant bouncer” for the morons who like to hit performers. (I’m just informing those of you who might want to do this too.) Though there was a year in which Martin had several head injuries requiring hospitalization, I don’t think any of them were from Halloween. Amazing. I guess God really does watch out for you on holy days...

Mom and dad were safe enough. Mom would dress as a witch and play a morbid tune on the piano, for her “dead brother, which was usually a dummy corpse in a coffin someone that actually made for us, as a gift! (Talk about community spirit!) The lyrics were something like “Pray for the dead, and the dead will pray for you”. She’d invite “guests” who came trick or treating, through our front door and into the living room to come and pay their respects to her late brother. She’d ask the guest if they thought her brother looked “good enough” as a corpse, implying that she had done the embalming herself (or something like it.) One of my older brothers was usually under the dummy and would periodically make him move, just a bit, as the guest leaned over to look closely. The body would move just a little, enough to get a reaction, so to speak. When I reached my junior year, I got to be under the dead guy and that was a real treat! I got to lay down instead of awkwardly posing and staying still, I didn’t get hit, and usually I got a great scream out of the person whom I was "entertaining"..It was very rewarding. And just for moving his arm! Occasionally, if I had imbibed a bit (after reaching legal age I’m sure...) I’d get freaked out imagining I was under an actual corpse in an Edgar Allan Poe story, but then whatever brain cells were still functioning in me, would remind me that it was a dummy, not a real dead body. (Phew!)

Anyhow, my dad was in the dining room, next to the “wake” we were having in the living room. He’d be in his chef’s clothes, except that they were very bloody for this night. He’d be sharpening his knives and ask if there were “any juicy children coming in”... In his politically incorrect way, if there were African American kids around, Dad would inform them he liked “dark meat the best”. He thought that was so witty.

One particularly innovative year, my parents removed a leaf from the dining room table and had my sister Gisele sit on a stool sticking her head through the leaf. They put a circle of material that looked like a “plate” around her neck and then a table cloth with a hole in it on, and put the leaf closer in, so that it looked like my sister’s head was on a platter. The effect was wonderful and realistic. It got even better when she’d say to guests “Please help me, PLEASE...?” Then my dad would tell her to “be quiet! You’ll scare the guests away from being here FOR DINNER...” (Get it? “For Dinner”?) It was great.

As the kids would continue on through the house there was really only one more room to get through; the kitchen with the candy bowl. But on the way they’d pass the glass door to the library - where we had a sibling getting beaten or stabbed, with a strobe light flashing in the back ground. That sibling was protected by the door, (which turned out to be a good thing). One year a kid hit a window pane on the door and broke it. Could have been my sister’s face instead...)

Then, onto the kitchen where the candy lay! Someone in a gorilla outfit, or a corpse’s, was holding the bowl in their lap. It’s amazing how little candy actually was removed from our house. Hardly needed one bag, though we had over 300 people come see us one year. So, after a good “Gotcha!” at the candy bowl, the kids ran down the few steps towards the back door and passed a monster crawling up the stairs seemingly trying to attack them on their way out (my sister Josette).

Here was another risk of injury to us, from some idiot over reacting. I still think it’s amazing how few parents controlled their kids, knowing they were entering a truly scary spook house. These days, we’d need some informed consent forms to assume the risk and act as a thin veneer of protection for us in the event of a lawsuit. Plus we’d need insurance because of the out of control visitors! Josette got hit in the face twice by a kid with a wooden sword. He chipped her front tooth! Not a word of apology from him or his idiot father who accompanied him, and this injury required the kid to go down a step and reach down the stair to hit her, and his dad did nothing! I can only hope that kid had some terrifying nightmares. He sure didn’t have guilt.

So off they’d go out of the house howling.

When my high school friends came, it was usually after a few drinks or a joint or two. After all, what high schooler goes trick or treating? I never knew back then if anyone did harder stuff, but I had inklings about a few of them. Looking back, I’m pretty sure several of them did. At least they did before coming to my house on Halloween.

I should have told them that going to my house on Halloween was not an activity for someone with a coke problem, because if you had anxiety issues, going to a real spook house would tend to aggravate them. I know this because two of my friends with such a condition could not make it through my house. My craziest friend at the time, Barbara, (who shall remain nameless) could not get through my dining room! She’d freak when she got to the living room and could not get any further. She’d turn around and go back against the waiting crowd in line outside, screaming. It did wonders for the younger ones to see that a teenager could not make it through. Those of us at the door tried to limit the number of entrants and did warn those with little kids to hold them in their arms or not to come in at all. We informed them that we were seriously scaring people, albeit with our own twisted humor. But the screaming and not making it through, made the kids who actually made it all the way out the back door, pretty proud. They’d yell out “I made it through!!” This became a real badge of honor in the 10-13 year age group.

For my high school friends who imbibed too much of...anything...it was also an accomplishment to actually find your way through the house, which may have seemed like a maze to them, but was really quite small and we guided them, or tried to. (Perceptions change in some states of mind, what can I say?) One friend that came in, just reeked of pot. At first she was laughing hysterically, which I loved. Then she began crying, which I did not love. But she kept trying to stumble her way through. That was the night I was the gorilla, and I kept telling her it was alright, she was “safe” and to “keep going, you’ll be okay”. Evidently, a gorilla telling her all was well, was not comforting at all. But no one in my family ever touched a guest, and none of them actually got stabbed; they just witnessed stabbings and murders and thought there was a decapitated head on our table. But this friend could not make it through the house and almost collapsed, literally hysterical with herself for not being able to handle it. She kept saying “I AM FREAKING OUT, OH MY GOD I AM JUST FREAKING OUT! I CAN’T DO THIS, I’M FREAKING TOO MUCH!” And she went back outside into the crowd, adding to the fervor of the waiting masses and never making it through my house. She later told me that was the most frightened she had ever been. I still cherish that memory.
(I think it’s important to remember our Saints).

My parents sold the house when I graduated from high school. The next year no one warned the new owners about our famous spook house. I can only imagine the expression on their faces, when the crowd formed a long line around the block, waiting to be frightened & entertained. A neighbor went over to explain that the crowd wanted a “real spook house” so then I think the new owners answered the door wearing a mask. I'm pretty sure they got egged a lot for the first five years. Guess some people forgot about the spirit of the holiday.