As far back as I can remember, I have loved Halloween.

Although my memory is spotty, I have no problem recollecting the far off year of my childhood when I built a ray gun for my space man costume. It was made of pieces of balsa wood, a square and blocky thing, painted silver. It had a red light on the business end and a buzzer built inside. Then there was the year my brother and I made huge papier-mache heads by blowing up large balloons and layering them with strips of pasted newspaper.

The finest triumph of my youth was a dragon costume that I made. The head was a large cardboard box, with an alligator snout made from a shoe box and lid. All around the mouth were teeth made from construction paper cut with pinking shears. From the hungry mouth lolled a forked tongue of red felt. The eyes were painted ping-pong balls, raised up on wire stalks. The eyes lit up, courtesy of some batteries inside the head. It also blew smoke from the nostrils. A small amplifier and speaker inside gave the dragon a fine roar. The rest of the body was a sheet dyed green. Underneath it, a long piece of stiff tubing arced from the back of my belt to form a tail.

That costume won me a prize in a local contest. Second place. First place went to a younger girl dressed as a teapot. Clearly her folks made her that costume. I had done my whole costume myself, including the sewing. My parents had only contributed an old sheet and towel. And perhaps to this day, my father wonders what happened to that can of green spray paint that he had with his supplies.

The dragon costume was immensely uncomfortable. That was partially because of the heavy tail hanging from my belt, but also because I had to hold up the heavy fake dragon head all the time. I even tried skiing in that costume, but that's another story. That costume set the pace for years to come.

Ever since the dragon, I have specialized in intricate costumes that are exquisitely uncomfortable.

One year, while I worked at Honeywell, I gave myself an extra pair of arms, added antennae, and put on a necktie. At the employee Halloween lunch, everybody smiled and nodded. The single exception was our system architect, Doug Heying. "I know that you're a bug, but what's with the necktie?" he asked. "I'm dressed up as a feature!" Dang, that's an old one, and Doug fell for it. That costume also gave me considerable mirth in the laundromat. A lot of people thought it odd when I took a four-armed shirt out of the drier and put it on a hanger. But the exquisitely uncomfortable part came from the extra arms. They were far more than just sleeves stuffed with cotton batting. They had an interior skeleton, properly jointed and pose able. The whole shebang strapped to my body with stout bands around my chest much tighter than any girdle ever made.

I also did an Obi-Wan Kenobi costume while at Honeywell. I watched Star Wars numerous times, taking notes as to what the old Jedi was wearing. The resulting numerous layers were rather hot. But the best part of it was a light saber that I made out of an old fluorescent light tube. The glass of the lamp was rolled in clear plastic, in case things went awry. My costumes might be uncomfortable, but I like them safe. I attached a cardboard tube to the lamp to serve as a handle. On the side of the tube was two metal studs that were wired to the lamp electrodes. Then I hooked a 6-volt lantern battery up to an automobile ignition coil, along with a cheap buzzer to act as interrupter, and ran the output to wires that I embroidered to the fingertips of my gloves. When I held the light saber and flicked the switch, the power pack hidden under my robes made an evil muted humming noise and thousands of volts coursed down my arm, leaped between the embroidered fingers and the metal studs, lighting the lamp. When curious people asked to try the light saber, I was glad to hand it to them, but it wouldn't light - the force wasn't with them. The uncomfortable features of that costume started with the bulky power pack, that kept digging into my back when I sat down. The discomfort flowed down the centers of two stiff coaxial cables, and to the glove. The outside shield of the coax was grounded for safety, and I wore rubber gloves underneath the costume gloves. There was also a series of safety interlock switches that were a pain, but only in a metaphorical sense.

At FileNet, I did one Halloween as the original Terminator. For that one, I had to tape one eye shut, shove in a pile of LEDs and a tiny lithium cell, and putty the whole thing over. Yes, that one was a little uncomfortable, too.

One Halloween I did an angel outfit, complete with circular fluorescent halo. That one was especially neat, since the halo was bright enough to read by, and could serve as a flashlight while walking through the parking lot. The power pack for that one went straight up and down my spine, in a long pocket that I sewed to the back of a white T-shirt. A long stiff wire poked out the top, to which the circular fluorescent lamp was attached. Early in the game, I found out that the halo would wobble dangerously if I turned my head either way. So I got some surgical tape and wound it around my neck a few times. Although stunningly uncomfortable, it held quite well. I even went square-dancing in it, to the delight of everyone at my club's Halloween ball.

This year, it was going to be different, though. This year, I was going to stage a haunt.

I actually have a little experience in haunting. It dates back to my Junior year at Camp Lab High School. Every fall, they would stage a "street dance" festival. It was an important moneymaking opportunity, and everybody vied for the rights to run the most lucrative attractions. The Seniors, needing money for their upcoming class trip, got first choice. They went with the proven money-maker of the dunking tank. As lowly Juniors, we got second choice. We chose to do a haunted house. The Seniors snickered at our dumb idea.

Our attraction was called the Five Rooms of Terror. We built it from two classrooms and the small office that connected them. Large partitions went up in the classrooms, cutting them in half. If memory serves me correctly, the first room was a forest of living trees; the second was a witch trial and burning; the third was a giant spider and web; the fourth was the mad scientist's lab; the fourth was an accident scene.

The accident scene was the most terrible, that's why we left it for last. It featured rotating red and blue emergency lights, part of a wrecked car, very gory victims, and lots of chunks of raw meat and exposed bone. I mixed up a batch of fake blood for that room, thickened with gelatin.

The mad scientist was Jody. He brought in a Jacob's Ladder, and various gadgets. I cobbled together a black spotlight to enhance his act a little. Halfway into the night, the wooden case of his Jacob's Ladder charred and caught fire. "Fire. Hey! We got a little fire here!", he called. He finally put it out with a glass of orange juice that he had brought to keep his whistle wet during his long insane rants.

I don't recall much about the first and third rooms.

I had a lot to do with the witch trial. I was the judge. The sketch was very simple: witch was hustled to stake; judge waved the Bible at her and told her that she must be punished; judge asked the assembled townspeople what they thought; townspeople said "burn her"; witch turned the judge into a frog. Well, at least she made me disappear in a great flash of light. My judge's bench was a couple of school desks, stacked one on top of another, with a dark sheet thrown over them. I stood on the lower desk, and leaned over the top one. On the bench in front of me was a Bible, and the control panel for my infernal FX machine. The machine was protected by an interlock key. One button set off the strobe. Others fired squibs for pyrotechnic effects. When the witch cast he spell, all attention was locked on her. At just the right moment, I could duck behind the judge's bench and hit the strobe switch. One of the pyro effects was a mortar that had a small firecracker in the bottom and rice as a projectile. It was aimed towards the ceiling. I used that puppy exactly once, but it was a beauty! Cheryl Long was the witch. Did a great job, too.

If I had it to do over again, there are certainly changes I would make. A fog machine or two would help. The spider room should have had some black light. And we could have used some sound effects in the witch trial room. But for a bunch of kids, we did just fine. In fact, we made a lot more money than the Senior class did with their dunk tank, which really pissed them off. Thus we started something of a tradition; for years after, there would be some kind of haunted attraction at the Camp Lab Street Dance.

So it was with joyful anticipation that I worked myself up to a frenzy of preparations for Halloween 1997. And I sweated it all the way.

The cornerstone of our little setup was a fake Christmas tree that I had read about on the Halloween-l mailing list. I got it for $20 at my local Target chain store. When I brought it home and showed it to Diana, she thought that my Halloween obsession had permanently demented my thought processes. I pulled "Douglas Fir" out of his box and hooked him up.

Dennis:	When you turn him on, he sings and talks a little. [I then flipped the switch.]
Douglas:	[A branch lifts up like a brow, exposing two lit eyes. Another branch drops down to reveal a mouth with red felt tongue.] Merry Christmas, everybody! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way! Happy New Year!
Dennis:	That's all the programming that's in his ROM.
Diana:	Yeah? So?
Dennis:	When you get tired of that - and it won't take long - they provide a cassette tape. You pop the tape in your player, hook it up the the tree, and his eyes and mouth move in time with the tape.
Diana:	Yeah? So?
Dennis:	You can use any tape! [Pulls out the portable cassette player and pops in a tape labeled "Language/30: Irish Gaeilge".]
Douglas:	[Eyes light up, mouth opens and moves in time with the words.] I would like some apple pie. Ba mhaith liom piog ull. Ba mhaith liom piog ull.
Diana:	Now that's promising!
Dennis:	Now what if he said "don't eat the Snickers bars?"
Diana:	Hmmm. Are you going to record your own tape?
Dennis:	No, I'm going to attach a microphone.
Diana:	I like it!

So I gathered bits of thing here and bytes of things there, preparing for the big night. I learned the locations of every Target store within 30 miles - and visited them. I hounded Home Depot in search of stunningly cheap black light tubes that I read about on the net. I lurked with intent to buy at my favorite Radio Shack stores.

Halloween is really big this year. For the last two years, it has sold more merchandise than any other holiday in America, except Christmas. That's impressive when you consider the dollars spent on Easter stuff, New Years parties, Fourth of July celebrations, and Thanksgiving Dinners. There are special Halloween stores that only exist for a month, and then vanish into the mist like Brigadoon. When my brother was out to California to visit, we went out on some field trips, and I couldn't help stopping at every Halloween store that we passed. Yes, it is a sickness, but I don't want a cure!

In order to keep from killing you from suspense, it worked rather well in the end. But there were some dicey moments. Several of them revolved around Diana's burden of living with a Halloweener. Coming home to find piles of plastic skulls in the living room didn't shock Diana much, but she often wondered what I was going to do with all that junk.

Some of the more innocent articles went to work with me to brighten up the environment there. The list includes a dozen little hanging pumpkin ornaments; numerous ghost window decals; a haunted book that moaned and trembled when you walked by; and a bungie-jumping spider of doom that I placed over the conference table. The best was a plaque with a plastic skull on it. The skull had big round eyes and as you walked by the plaque, the eyes would turn towards you and he would talk. "Hey! Where are you going?" The fact that it talked shocked some people who were anticipating just a silly static decoration. All those things were cheap and sleazy, but they went over well at work. The fun stuff stayed home.

Here's what our setup looked like...

A large black light tucked under the eaves illuminated the walkway to the porch. It illuminated green glowing footsteps that went from the porch, halfway down the walk, then staggering into the bushes next to the garage. At the place where the footsteps ended, there was an empty Halloween costume - a kid-size clown suit, with adorable little shoes and a yellow plastic duck bill mask. The clown hat was draped over Douglas Fir, who was nestled in the shrubbery. A bag of spilled candy lay nearby, some of it glowing under the black light. A microphone near the plant piped sounds into the house and on to the control center in a corner of the living room. A television camera covered Douglas Fir and anybody who might stand near him. It fed to the monitor in the control center. A microphone at the control center fed into a small amplifier and thence out to Douglas. The left side of the entrance was blacked out. That's where we put the fog machine, skeleton, and strobe light. The doorbell was hooked up to a box that screamed. A row of purple lights lined the walkway. Most of this stuff was remotely controlled via home automation (X-10) equipment. That allowed us to sit at the control center and trigger the fog machine and strobe outside, without any additional wiring.

The plan was to have everybody in costume, watching a horror movie, and then take turns answering the doorbell. Nobody really went along with it, so I manned the door in scrubs and handed out candy, while Erin ran the shrub-o-matic. Sometimes Jeff of Jerry would holler in the background while I greeted the kids: "master, the creature is ready!" Sometimes they would just make monster noises and I would have to whack them with the femur bone, offstage.

So here's how it looked to the kids...

The front of the house as dark, almost as if abandoned, but the line of purple lights ushered you up the walkway. Halfway up, you were accosted by a talking shrub, who would tell you a woeful story...

Hi, there! You! Yes, you, in the cheap vampire costume. I wouldn't eat the Snickers bars if I were you! You see, I was just like you a little while ago, except that I had a much nicer costume. See it over there? No, the other way, to your right. Well, the crazy old guy in the house up there gave me some candy. It looked so good, really it did! So I immediately ate one of the Snickers bars. Well, I don't know whether it was an evil enchantment, or creepy science, but it turned me into this!

The exact patter varied, depending on who was running the shrub. My daughter was more friendly. I was more sarcastic, especially to older kids. We soon learned not to shrub the youngest kids, even in a friendly way - they ran screaming.

Once you pass the bewitched shrub, you press the doorbell, which screams at you. The door is opened by a man in scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck. He is holding a large cauldron and stirring it with a human femur bone. He introduces himself as Dr. Drippy McBlood and welcomes the new volunteers for his experiments. Just then, growling noises come from the side and Dr. McBlood pulls the bone from the cauldron and uses it to beat at something off to the side. "No! Back! We'll feed you later!" He then gives candy to the kids, and as they turn around, there is a puff of smoke and light flashes on a skeleton in the corner. "Oh, don't mind him, he's just one of my earlier volunteers!"

Erin had dressed in costume for school, so after a shift on the shrub, we went out to get her some goodies. We didn't stay out long; Erin wanted to do some more haunting!

It wasn't super fancy, but it was nice. In fact, wandering trick-or-treaters told the folks at other houses about our talking shrub, and we had neighbors from all over come by to take a look.

My favorite was when a couple of parents who came with their kid, stopped half way up the walk (next to the dormant tree), and sent the kid on to the door. The kid was too young, but the parents were fair game. "Hey! Aren't you a little old to be out trick-or-treating?! Yes, you with the silly cape! Brave, aren't you, making the little kid go first!"

Perhaps I'll buy a crate of the animated trees and build an entire haunted forest with them some time!

Now, that made us feel good!

Thank you for visiting. Your comments are welcome.
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