Halloween

Last night was Halloween. We spent the evening at our friends who decorate on a good scale. We go over for dinner and to watch the trick or treaters enjoy the props.
From 1976 to 1994, Brian and I had a Halloween Haunted House that really was incredible. We had a two story house and every room was decorated with a different theme each year. We couldn’t do it all ourselves. We have wonderful friends and family that helped us. We would start planing in April and start gathering supplies. Not having any budget, (or as we called it, "A beer budget"), we grabbed anything we could for free. We made most of our props because the wonderful Halloween props that are available now were not available then. We used tons of cardboard, latex, fiberglass and spray paint.
Work started usually in August with people over working every weekend. Kevin and Wendy were kicked out of their rooms and had to sleep in the family room downstairs for the next few months (they loved it!). At first we stapled and nailed cardboard right to the walls. Later years, we made frames to attach the cardboard to and reduce the damage to the house. I swear, if someone in a helicopter had flown over our house with a giant magnet, our house would be flying! And I am sure the local hardware store had his highest revenues during that time.
Wayne was in charge of building things for us. Charlie was in charge of making things move. Brian was in charge of the prop department, Mike was the Cardboard King and Colleen was in charge of keeping us supplied with chocolate chip cookies. The last Sat. of the month we had a grand party with as many as 250 people. Even though the party was so much fun, the most fun was in those weeks leading up to it. As the party got closer, then we all worked almost every night as well. We never laughed so hard or so much!
Brian and I tried to keep the use of our bed during this time so it was nothing to sleep with hundreds of spiders including a giant spider over our bed, as we did one year. Another year we slept with Lizzie Borden, and another year we slept with the plant from Little Shop of Horrors. At this time we were very involved with the local little league. The league needed to raise money so Brian and I offered to open our house for a few days to accept donations for the league providing the league helped us take tour groups through. We ended up making $700 for the little league that year so we continued to open our house for about 4 days each year to raise money for charity. We raised money for Earthquake Relief, Make-A-Wish and others. Being big Disney fans, we were able to send several ill children to Disneyland through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. We would ask for a $1.00 or $2.00 donation and no one was turned away for lack of money. Many of the neighbor kids came through several times a night. And then......I’ll tell you tomorrow!