Halloween Memorial: John Wolfe

 

I have been very blessed to know some amazing bloggers, but one who was very dear to my heart was my good friend, John Wolfe. He ran the blog Season of Shadows and embodied all things vintage and true Halloween. He would begin early in the year designing elaborate home haunts and sharing on video how he went about designing them. He did lots of volunteer work and was always available for anyone. He sought to understand the spiritual and the other side. In fact, as he was dying, he said he would contact me through EVPs. And, he asked me to write his memorial which I did and he read it and approved of it before his passing at much too early an age in his 30s. Each Halloween, I will post his memorial here. Halloween is his season, his paradise, and I miss him something awful every October. I'd like to share him with you now -

Blanket Fort Fun!

 

You are never too old for a blanket fort to curl up in and watch movies, make out with your significant other, or read a good book. Reignite your childlike enthusiasm for adventure and creativity. 

Build a blanket fort! Pop some popcorn. Have a movie marathon. 

Vintage Halloween Costumes

 

You know you love it - the old costumes, creepy handmade masks, store-bought princess and astronaut outfits. Here's a real cool catalogue of all the creep-factor of the past - 

The Ultimate Halloween Party Location?

 

Halloween parties are fun times for music, food, and costumes, but what if you could have the ultimate Halloween party? What kind of location would you pick? 

What If This Horror Movie Was a Romantic Comedy? What If This Romantic Comedy Was a Horror Movie?

 
(one of my Halloween makeup challenges - bird lady) 

I am having some fun with the Halloween season and made a bunch of memes asking the questions - "what if this horror movie was a romantic comedy?" and "what if this romantic comedy was a horror movie?" Enjoy some Halloween humor - 

Creepiest Vintage Photos

 

It seems that the Victorian Era was extremely macabre about death with open casket shots, seances, and photography tricks, like removing one's head. Let's take a look at photos from the old days that are genuinely more scary than animatronic monsters today.

Creepiest Trail Cam Finds

 

Things that make the trail cam owners go "hmm?" 

Beautiful and Haunting Cemetery Imagery

Cemeteries are memorial parks. These quiet shadowy locations often become a sanctuary for stray cats, birds, and other wildlife that finds sanctuary among trees and grass, regular watering, and rare human contact. 

But they are also the most graceful and sometimes the most neglected and tragic spots on earth. Let's look at how beautifully lonely they can be - 

Vintage Halloween Pinups

 

If you're nostalgic about Halloween, you recall the pinup poses of advertising. Enjoy these!

My 29 Books - Something For Everyone!

 

It's been a busy decade! 

The Mothman Legacy - Newly Released!

 

Another awesome documentary is newly released by Seth Breedlove (one of my favorite cryptid documentarians)  - The Mothman Legacy.

I have thoroughly enjoyed Seth Breedlove's documentaries.  I am in no way being compensated for this promotion. I simply like my readers to see works that I believe will broaden the knowledge. I am super supportive of the creative fields that allow for passing info in fun ways with good accuracy.

To order a copy on vimeo - LINK.

Enjoy!

Spookiest Locations

 

I thought I'd share some spooky places with y'all and see what kind of locations ignite your spine-tingle factor. Just imagine being here at dusk on Halloween - 

Testing Your Fear Factor at Halloweentime

 

The season brings out the troublemaker and avid horror lover in all of us. As kids, we performed many kinds of mayhem, but even as adults, we can't help playing chicken with the unknown. Here's just some of the scariest Halloween practices to explore again (varying levels of fearfulness) - 

Vintage Halloween Party

 

We are all a little fascinated and also creeped out by vintage Halloween pics.

Nature Spirits

 

At some point, you are likely to have taken a photo and looked back at it and thought you saw a face.

Best Autumn Recipes on YouTube

 

My own invention - buffalo fried chicken (marinated in buffalo sauce and milk) gravy with buffalo sauce in it, drizzled with ranch dressing 

mmmmm - autumn cooking. Let's look at some recipes on YouTube from some great cooks that really exemplify the season - 

Jeepers Creepers Truck

 

I knew I couldn't be the only one obsessed with dreaming of having the Creeper Truck. There is actually an awesome website devoted to it!  LINK 

100 Female Halloween Costume Ideas

 

mermaid

If there's a chance you plan to go out and dressup or simply have a romantic evening with your loved one, there are so many costumes to consider. If you aren't going out, consider at least getting decked out and doing a photo shoot to add to your library of fun life pics and crazy things you did. 

100 Male Halloween Costume Ideas

 

There are so many costumes available to men. Often times, they assume the holiday is all about the ladies, but oh what a man's costume can do for a girl's heart rate!

Here's 100 ideas - 

Gigantic Halloween Decor

 

12-foot skeleton from Home Depot

I noticed this year at Spirit Halloween store that they embraced the gigantic animatronics even more than the previous year. The previous year, local stores mentioned that the gigantic clown sold the first day they were open and they needed more. 

Does size matter when it comes to Halloween figures? 

I'm on the Radio Tonight -

 

Tonight I'm on the Willie Windwalker Show at 6 pm EST/5 pm CST/3 pm PST. We will be talking about all things unexplained. 

HERE IS THE ARCHIVED SHOW - LINK

Hope y'all get a chance to listen!

Gothic Horror Movies: Atmospheric Ones Without All the Gore

 

For those who aren't into slasher gore and shock factor, but enjoy the dark, atmospheric, storytelling of a good gothic horror movie, I have a list for you! 

Sit back and enjoy knowing you won't be grossed out and you'll have a plot and haunting score, darkness and stormy nights to satisfy your romantic tastes.

I'll even tell you what it is I adore about each one to see if it matches your own romantic movie-watching needs.

Halloween Wedding

 

Pondering a wedding date, it would seem that this Halloween might be ideal because it comes once in a blue moon - literally! 

Halloween this year is not only on a Saturday but a full moon, a blue moon (second full moon in one month).

Review: "Bigfoot: The Legend is Real"

 

Upon occasion, I get the privilege to review a film before its release. In the case of "Bigfoot: The Legend is Real" from the Crypto Files Series (Crypto Crew Productions, Double T Productions, Zombie Media) on Reelhouse, I had a most enjoyable Friday afternoon viewing this.

The Ultimate Backyard Bonfire

 

Bonfires and scary tales - what autumn should be made of. It may be the start of Fall, but the heat has us beat. An easy and cheap way to usher in the season is a backyard bonfire. Let's escape for a moment into bonfires and nighttime rituals - 

Nostalgic: 1970s Halloween

There were some wonderful Halloween specials in the 1970s. Halloween was just catching fire big time in popularity and nearly every single child trick or treated. I recall going out until midnight and carrying a pillowcase. We were greedy boogers and being part of the baby-boomer generation, there were a lot of us!

CANDY TAMPERING

There is a much darker side to Halloween in the 1970s - the tainted candy fears and sometimes urban legends.

I don’t know about ya’all, but my Halloweens as a kid were totally wild and free orgies in which the children ruled the streets. We carried pillowcases `cause we were cocky son-of-a-bitches and we figured it was going to carry our enormous amount of loot. In my area we knocked on doors until midnight and covered miles and miles of the suburbs. Whoever reached the townhouses knew they had done a huge haul because they were on the periphery of the subdivision.

Even though we were allowed to travel far and alone knocking at strangers’ doors and getting candy offerings from them and sometimes coins or apples (why even answer your door and waste both our time?) we still had to go home and have the candy examined. Then, the kids would begin with all the urban legends of razor blades in apples and ground glass in Bazooka bubble gum and poison injected into Tootsie Rolls. Ironically, it did not stop us from nibbling on the way home. Every candy the parents tossed out that had a loose wrapper caused a sigh of disappointment. Oh, why couldn’t it have been the candy corn, why the Snickers?

The most famous case of actual tampering came from the murder of an 8-year-old named Timothy in the mid 70s, who was actually killed by his father who laced his Pixie Stix with cyanide. And, just as people need to realize, we actually are at more threat by our own family more than strangers (which is why persons of interest are pretty much always a family member--comforting, huh?). This evil man also gave the candy to his daughter and some of her friends, but they hadn’t eaten the candy. This was apparently motivated by an insurance policy on the kid.

A woman named Helen Pfeil in 1964 was tired of older teenagers showing up for free candy so she handed out ant killer poison buttons to those kids. The packages contained steel wool, dog biscuits, and the ant buttons and were marked “poison” and with a skull and crossbones. She told the kids it was a joke and no one was hurt, still she was charged for potential harm.

A great deal of this legend comes from hysteria. Some years, fear of strychnine poisoning made companies and stores destroy packages, but once tested nothing unusual was found. Some children getting sick around Halloween sparked fear of poisoning. Children coming down with infections or dying on that particular day became linked to Halloween and more rumors began.

It’s not to say we shouldn’t continue to look for tampered candy and even better, do like I did and stand at the end of the sidewalk and wave to the person handing out the candy as a show of “I remember you giving my kid candy…”

Still, I have to admit that wicked scene in Halloween 2 where the kid and mom come into the hospital with the kid holding a cloth to her mouth with a razor blade sticking out of the tongue was pretty bad ass and gave me chills. I never did eat those apples on Halloween (but that’s probably because I had a pillowcase filled with candy)!


- Here's a priceless video about safety at Halloween -




Mass manufactured costumes were hitting the stores at Halloween time in the 1970s. Still, a great deal of kids enjoyed cutting eyes into a sheet to make a ghost or painting their faces and wearing a pointed hat to be a witch. What did 1970s kids want to be for Halloween?



















- See if any of these vintage photos resemble you in the 1970s -


























Pick up a collection of 1970s Halloween candy - 





- Some candies were delightfully inappropriate -

Schools in the 70s had no political correctness (thank goodness!) The kids all wore costumes to school and they celebrated Halloween fun.













- The games (can find many of these on ebay now) - 














- The songs of the 1970s Halloween -





We really were given the freedom to express ourselves in Halloween in the 1970s, whether it was costumes in school or knocking on doors late at night. We were surrounded by awesome TV specials and cute songs about Halloween, a huge array of candies, and enough spooky urban legends to keep us on guard and awaiting witches and full moons, monsters and egging.