October 2016
Tell me a Halloween story.
Michael Divine
I remember dressing Joan Nichols, who was one of our elders. She just crossed less than a month ago. I was taking care of her. She was from England, and we dressed her up as the Queen of England. And she was so beautiful. And she did win the contest at the Desert Sage as the Queen of England. But what I realized is that she really was the Queen of England! I don’t know about scary, but definitely memorable.
I remember as a kid we’d always go out throwing corn - the feed corn that was always so hard. You’d take it off the ear, throw it and hit people’s metal rooves or awnings. That was sorta fun. They didn’t really like it – the older people – ya know, you’d always go to the older people’s homes and throw! And what was really bad was when people would throw it at cars as they were passing by – that was not very fun for the car owners!
Electrum DelAmor
I rent out my house via AirBnB – the Shamanic Healing house. These people staying there called me up: “We’re so freaked out! Someone’s locked up in the house!” And I said, “I know no one’s locked up in the house.” I was close by, so I run over there as we’re talking and the lady is WHITE as a GHOST! And I’m thinkin’, aww, sh*t, I know what she saw, ya know? Cuz we get it all the time. She goes, “We were hangin’ out downstairs and heard someone walking around upstairs. We go up there and knock on the door, and the lights go out.” I responded, “The lights can’t go out. There’s no electric in that room.” She continued, “We ran downstairs, looked upstairs and saw the curtains moving!” And I said, “There’s no curtains in that room. I’m happy to walk you in there. It’s my healing room. I keep it locked up.” They wouldn’t go back in the house. They actually had put a chair against the doorknob. I opened the door and said, “This is not cool, dudes! Don’t be doing this to my customers!” Right? (laughing) I told them I’d be happy to give them another place, and they were like, “No way!” They were in shock, literally. “There was somebody locked up in there!” I said, “Did you see anyone leave? You guys were standing here by the front door.” “No! There must be a secret exit out of that house!” I said, “There isn’t. I’m sorry, you saw the ghost, and I don’t know what to tell you.” They left town completely. A few days later, I couldn’t sleep in there because I felt this entity happening. So I went in and did the whole ceremony, smudged the whole house, got it all clear. I felt a weird entity, who left. This could be the first AirBnB ghost story! It was pretty heavy, though, and it all just happened last week!
Mark Jacobi
In 9th grade, after I had walked my girlfriend home, I ran into 2 other guys my age, and they wanted to go walking around that night. I remember I was walking my bike, and I think my dog, too. They started kickin’ pumpkins. We all lived in the suburbs, and they started kickin’ pumpkins! And I’m tellin’ ‘em, “Don’t do that – that’s stupid.” They did it anyway. When I’m about a block from my house, walking past the grade school we all attended, this gigantic guy jumps out from a doorway – he looked like Uncle Fester: big, tall guy, big black frock coat, bald. He grabbed the other kid and me and just held us – would not let us go. We were freakin’ out. He said, “I’m from that neighborhood where you guys were kickin’ pumpkins over. I’m gonna take you to the police.” It was nuts and this guy was horrible and it scared the sh*t outta me, and I started crying. They hauled us back to this guy’s house and put us all in the basement and called our parents to come and get us. My friend’s dad knew the guy. They made this horrible example out of us, and I was innocent – completely innocent. And this other kid kept buggin’ me for the next couple years because I’d cried. But, life got its revenge – he became a Born Again Christian, so there ya go!
Jessica Catinella
My oldest son and I spent weeks working on the Yellow Striped Gord-man costume. It was complete, with his helmet that fit on perfectly over his head. He had the striped suit, the boots, the gloves - to the ‘T’. 50-person costume contest, he got beat out by the Mashed Potatoes. That’s it! That’s my Halloween story! The Plate of Mashed Potatoes. It looked really cute – she had on this plate around her and then she was all done up like mashed potatoes with polyfill foam and all sorts of stuff, so she was really cute. And the Yellow Striped Gord-man got second place, made a little money – he was feeling pretty good about himself!
My other costume story is: you know how you see a lot of folks out with “Down on my luck” type of signs? Well, this fella, he was dressed in a Spiderman costume and his sign said, “Looking for Mary Jane.”
Kira Rose Riley
My Halloween story was when we, on accident, held up the bank. It was Bank One on 33rd & Arapahoe in Boulder. We were going to be Provocative Police Officers for Halloween. We needed to go get the rest of our costume and didn’t wanna carry our backpacks anymore. So we decided, being 14 years old, that the safest place to leave our backpacks would be in the bank. We used the handcuffs from our police costume to handcuff our bags to the chairs in the bank waiting area, then we went to Salvation Army to get the rest of our costumes. So it goes the bank, Salvation Army, police station. When we left the Salvation Army, there were so many police outside! They had the whole block barricaded off. And we just couldn’t figure out how we’re supposed to go get our backpacks, because there were police everywhere. The police overheard us talking and said, “Wait! Did you just say backpacks?!” And we’re like, “Yeah, we left our backpacks in the bank.” Apparently, someone had thought there was a bomb in them, scanned them with their portable x-ray things, saw wires from our Discmans and spiral notebooks, and were pretty sure there were bombs in there! So, they were less than thrilled when we told them they were just our school backpacks that we just didn’t wanna carry anymore, and thought the safest place to leave them would be in the bank. They were going to call our parents and then we begged them not to because we had a party to go to that night, so they reluctantly let us go and walk home. I mean, we were only like 14 years old…
Mary Ann Sheeran
When the kids (Elizabeth and Jenny and Eric, who lives here) were little, I was trying to figure out something scary for Halloween, so I made flour and water paste. I made it thick, and I put split peas, green peas, yellow peas, navy beans, all kinds of different beans, and goopy stuff and mixed it all together. And I put it all over their faces, tied their hair back and put it all over their necks. And then I put black around their eyes and red around their mouths, and then put funny scarves and wigs and goofy stuff all over them. And they looked like they had very bad complexions. And it dried. And it was lumpy and goofy looking. And they went out trick or treating that way. Yeah, I guess it was pretty scary. I have pictures at home. Oh yes, and blood dripping down their faces. I think they had plastic fangs. I think that was the best Halloween, and all 3 kids remember it!
