The Crossroads Blog Tour Day 6

In a short paragraph or two:

What is your favorite Halloween memory?

When I was twelve, my neighborhood friends and I set up a “haunted house” in our basement. Lots of cheesy tricks and flashing lights, but the local kids seems to appreciate it. As one of the effects, I borrowed my little sister’s Barbie Make-up Head and turned her into “Bloody Mary” using red nail polish. Unfortunately, after the fact, I was unable to get the stuff off the life-sized doll head! Susan was … upset. It’s been forty years, and she still hasn’t let me forget that!

Tell us about your most haunting experience.

At a retreat with four other writers a few years ago, I found myself spending three nights in a haunted house in New York’s Catskill Mountains. One morning, I woke up to feel someone climb onto the bed beside me in my empty room and whisper “Daddy” into my ear. Scared the crap out of me! Later on, I found out I wasn’t the only one who’d experienced things that weekend. It remains the only time I’ve ever been come into direct contact with something I couldn’t explain.

In a short paragraph or two:

What is your favorite Halloween memory?

I can’t remember how old I was, but probably ten, since I remember my little brother trick-or-treating with me, and he had to be about six at the time. We were out in our masks ringing doorbells and whatnot, when we happened upon a house with fog rolling along the lawn. Now, I know nowadays plenty of people rent dry ice machines for Halloween, but back then, it was really rare. My brother approached the house and were coaxed inside by a skeleton. There was a sort of maze we had to wander through, where long black sheets or curtains were hung to create a spooky atmosphere. Creepy music played, with sound effects of howls and shrieks. It was awesome!

Tell us about your most haunting experience.

If we’re talking haunting as in memorable (seeing as I don’t think I have any spooky haunting experiences I can remember, really), then it would have to be this: Where I live, there’s a lot of public transportation. We have subways that run both above and under the street (the end stations are above, then it goes under the city). This experience took place when my daughter was in kindergarten and I had to catch the subway (above ground) to take her there. My son was a baby and in his stroller. I was across the street from the station and rushing to make the train on time. There was a car parked illegally in my path, the driver standing outside his door, making me late. But what I hadn’t seen, was the train going in the opposite direction headed for the station. If that car and that man hadn’t been there to slow me down, I could have, in my haste, ran across the tracks, and the train could have hit the stroller with my son in it. My heart raced like never before as the realization of what could have happened washed through me. I then believed that the man parked illegally must have been a guardian angel looking out for me. He saved my family. After that day, I always believed that things happened for a reason. Remember that next time you’re being delayed somehow or things don’t go the way you planned. There might be another reason for it. One that could save lives.

In a short paragraph or two:

What is your favorite Halloween memory?

I don’t know if it’s my favorite, but it’s the one that stands out the most. When I was very young, nearly all of my Halloweens were spent trick-or-treating with my best friend, Dorothy. She and I have been friends since third grade and are still close twenty-five years later. One year, she went as a jester. I actually can’t remember my costume…maybe a mime? It was raining and turning to sleet, and Dorothy and I had gone quite far in our trick-or-treating. It was late, and as we were coming back to my street, we could see the jack-o-lanterns being blown out. We could see the porch lights shutting off. Not very many kids were left on the sidewalks. All of a sudden, a dark car pulled up beside us and followed us. We got scared and ran into this park-like boulevard that stretched up my road. The car kept coming! It was so terrifying! Dorothy fell. I laughed (I laugh when I’m nervous or scared). Candy went everywhere. And the car stopped. It turned out to be these boys who knew my older sister playing a prank. Oh, it was just awful! And yet pretty much what Halloween is all about--the idea of dark things coming out at night and scaring the devil out of you.

Tell us about your most haunting experience.

Our last house was haunted. My husband won’t talk about it. It was mostly in my daughter’s bedroom, which was a guest room before she was born. We should have known something was up when we did our initial walkthrough on the house and that room was mostly empty but for a rickety, old wheelchair that looked like a prop from a horror film. The previous owner’s mother often stayed in the room. She didn’t pass away in the house, but she was there a lot and liked things a certain way. Once I asked the neighbors about it, and they told me the old woman who had stayed with her son loved long hair and often enjoyed braiding their daughters’ hair. When that room was a guest room, people would tell us it was cold all the time and felt uneasy in it. One of my friends was shushed when he was rummaging through his suitcases. It was also felt a lot in our kitchen. I could be working in the kitchen and would feel someone behind me, playing with my hair.

Find The Crossroads:

Facebook | Twitter

How the Tour Works:

Each day of The Crossroads Blog Tour, a new research question will be revealed on The Crossroad Blog Tour main page: HERE and each day the answer to that question will be found within one of the different blog posts by Crossroads Tour authors. Your job is to get the question, read the blog posts, and collect all answers by the end of the tour.

This year the grand prize winner will be selected via a Rafflecopter draw open to everyone. However, the hunt for clues is a fun part of the Crossroads experience and we wanted to keep it alive. Sooooo, search for the answer somewhere on the participating blogs on THAT particular day of the tour. Answer all the questions correctly to enter a bonus prize draw for – separate from the grand prize.

Bonus question answers are to be emailed to judithgraves @ ymail dot com by October 26th at MIDNIGHT to enter the Bonus prize draw. Winner of the Grand prize and the winner of the Bonus prize will be announced on OCTOBER 31st – HALLOWEEN.

a Rafflecopter giveaway