Season of Shadows Blog

Only some of the following “You Know You’re Obsessed With Halloween” warning signs apply to me—I swear!

You know you’re obsessed with Halloween…

…When your sole criterion for purchasing a home is based on its “yard haunt potential.”

When the idea of a rubber band digging into the back of your head, and plastic pressed against your sweaty face makes you nostalgic for trick-or-treating.

When your local Spirit Halloween Store is on speed dial.

When you can no longer listen to music that doesn’t contain chants, moans, groans or the sound of crunching leaves.

When you shed a tear on November 1st.

When co-workers ask where you’ll be going during your upcoming vacation, and your answer is, “HauntCon.”

When you can provide precise customer service for Walmart’s, Target’s, and Kmart’s Halloween sections, though you’re not employed by any of them.

When your vehicle sports a bumper sticker that says: “My Other Car is a Hearse”

When your phone’s ring-tone is set to either the “Halloween” theme, “Tubular Bells,” or the “The Addams Family” theme, year round.

When going to hardware stores, you don’t see their purpose being for home improvement, but instead for home haunt improvement.

When you’ve actually spent time searching for formaldehyde scented candles.

When there’s an ENORMOUS presidential election campaign during your October haunt prep; and you sincerely respond to the question, “Who are you voting for,” by saying, “Who am I voting for, for what?”

When you organize a grassroots movement against Rob Zombie to prevent him from making another installment in the “Halloween” series.

When UPS delivers fake body parts and styrofoam skulls to your house on a weekly basis.

When the UPS delivery person grows quite comfortable delivering fake body parts and styrofoam skulls to your house on a weekly basis.

When you landscape your yard, strictly for the purpose of achieving the ideal haunt layout.

When all labels, describing the scents of your toiletries, begin with the word “pumpkin.”

During sporting events, you only cheer for teams wearing orange or black–and, when neither teams’ uniforms contain those colors, you just don’t give a damn.

Whenever someone uses the phrase, “skeletons in the closet,” you take it literally.

When you’re willing to incorporate clothing from an old Halloween costume into your everyday attire.

When you own, and happily use a Spirit Halloween Store credit card, even though the interest rate is 75%.

When the smell of fog fluid gives you a rush.

When you wear a jack-o-lantern tie to the office Christmas party.

Whenever the doorbell rings, you quickly answer it with a fistful of candy—in July.

When you visit Season of Shadows on a regular basis.

I hope you enjoyed my list. I have to point out that I was completely joking about Spirit Halloween charging 75% interest—in fact, I don’t think they even have a credit card.

If you have a few things you’d like to add to “You Know You’re Obsessed with Halloween…” I’d love to hear them.

After using cornstalks in my haunt during 2007 and 2008, I decided not to include them last year. While I liked the haunt a little better without the massive wall of corn behind my graveyard’s overseer, it was a little strange not having the stalks as part of the display. So, for Halloween 2010, I’ve decided to compromise — no wall of corn, however, I am going to bring the stalks back to the haunt. But this time, I’m going to place them in those lean-to bundles around the edges and back of the graveyard. And, in the vein of Tuesday’s post about Witches and Broomsticks, I decided to do a little digging on the history of those lean-to cornstalk structures, called “shocks.”

I learned that over a century ago (prior to major technological advances in farming), after stalks were cut down, farmers made shocks in the field so the cornstalks could dry out. After drying in shocks, the stalks were either loaded on wagons and hauled to another location for shucking, or they were shucked right in the field.

Today, this same practice is continued by the Amish, as is evident by the great footage of shocks in this vid:

Source: YT user, knoeful

There’s certain imagery that immediately captures the feeling of fall; seeing shocks is one of those for me. While I’ve never lived near an Amish community and machinery has removed the need for shocks among farms that embrace technology, associating those lean-to structures with Halloween and fall must go back to my youth. I used to consume a steady diet of Halloween books that included old artwork. A lot of that artwork featured creepy fields full of shocks, guarded by a lone scarecrow — all illuminated by a full moon.

“Shocks” image source: Wikipedia

A great resource for learning about the use of shocks and other aspects of pioneer farming is: Camp Silos.