Chincoteague Elementary School Pumpkin Tour

CHINCOTEAGUE -- The Chincoteague Elementary School Parent Teacher Association's Pumpkin Tour will be held at the Island Nature Trail on Saturday, Oct. 23, from 6:30-8 p.m.

Carve a pumpkin and donate $5 to the PTA to have a pumpkin displayed on the tour. Prizes will be awarded.

Businesses, organizations and families are invited to participate. Bring flashlights. Admission is $1 with refreshments available for purchase.

Contact Joanne Moore 443-569-9003 for more information.

I love pumpkins. I love the pumpkin pies made from them. The birds enjoy the seeds. But the one use of the pumpkin that seems to be scarce anymore on Halloween is the carved jack-o-lantern. Every year there are jack-o-lanterns in my yard.

I've had them stolen and smashed in the street. Many people have. But I read a heart-warming story today that makes me still believe that there are nice people in this world.

Someone played a Halloween trick on two neighbors in Manassas, Virginia Saturday night by stealing their pumpkins from the front porches of both homes.

It seems the one basketball sized pumpkin taken from one porch was returned with two triangle eyes, a triangle nose and a mouth with two teeth missing carved into it. The neighbors stolen pumpkin was returned to her porch too, with one eye carved like a star.

One of the neighbors commented: "It's Halloween. I guess people do strange and weird things."

And yes, people do. I've just never heard of this happening before. And I wish the "pumpkin carver" lived near me to help with mine!

A Pennsylvania Ghost Story

Axe Murder Hollow






Susan and Ned were driving through a wooded empty section of highway. Lightning flashed, thunder roared, the sky went dark in the torrential downpour.
“We’d better stop,” said Susan.
Ned nodded his head in agreement. He stepped on the brake, and suddenly the car started to slide on the slick pavement. They plunged off the road and slid to a halt at the bottom of an incline.
Pale and shaking, Ned quickly turned to check if Susan was all right. When she nodded, Ned relaxed and looked through the rain soaked windows.
“I’m going to see how bad it is,” he told Susan, and when out into the storm. She saw his blurry figure in the headlight, walking around the front of the car. A moment later, he jumped in beside her, soaking wet.
“The car’s not badly damaged, but we’re wheel-deep in mud,” he said. “I’m going to have to go for help.”
Susan swallowed nervously. There would be no quick rescue here. He told her to turn off the headlights and lock the doors until he returned.
Ax Murder Hollow. Although Ned hadn’t said the name aloud, they both knew what he had been thinking when he told her to lock the car. This was the place where a man had once taken an axe and hacked his wife to death in a jealous rage over an alleged affair. Supposedly, the axe-wielding spirit of the husband continued to haunt this section of the road.
Outside the car, Susan heard a shriek, a loud thump, and a strange gurgling noise. But she couldn’t see anything in the darkness.
Frightened, she shrank down into her seat. She sat in silence for a while, and then she noticed another sound. Bump. Bump. Bump. It was a soft sound, like something being blown by the wind.
Suddenly, the car was illuminated by a bright light. An official sounding voice told her to get out of the car. Ned must have found a police officer. Susan unlocked the door and stepped out of the car. As her eyes adjusted to the bright light, she saw it.
Hanging by his feet from the tree next to the car was the dead body of Ned. His bloody throat had been cut so deeply that he was nearly decapitated. The wind swung his corpse back and forth so that it thumped against the tree. Bump. Bump. Bump.
Susan screamed and ran toward the voice and the light. As she drew close, she realized the light was not coming from a flashlight. Standing there was the glowing figure of a man with a smile on his face and a large, solid, and definitely real axe in his hands. She backed away from the glowing figure until she bumped into the car.
“Playing around when my back was turned,” the ghost whispered, stroking the sharp blade of the axe with his fingers. “You’ve been very naughty.”
The last thing she saw was the glint of the axe blade in the eerie, incandescent light.


For more stories told by S. E. Schlosser go to: www.americanfolklore.net


HAPPY HALLOWEEN !!!!!!!!

A Little About Halloween Tradition

All Hallow Eve, or Halloween, originated as a pagan celebration dating back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, over 2000 years ago. Samhain means "summers end" and is celebrated on November 1st as a joyous occasion. Many of the festivities included eating, drinking and dancing and the lighting of bonfires. The ashes from the burned bonfires were spread to protect the land for next years crops.

On the night before the new year the Celts believed the boundaries between the living and the dead became blurred. Ghosts of the dead returned to earth on October 31. The wearing of the masks, as a way to "hide" from the dead, became a tradition.

In the 1800's, with the Irish immigrants coming to America they brought their traditions of Halloween and the Jack-o-Lantern. The immigrants carved potatoes, turnips and beets and place a light inside using pieces of coal or a candle. These ornaments were placed in windows or on porches to welcomed the deceased and to serve as protection against horrible spirits or goblins freed from the dead.

Through the years, as the Irish Immigrants spread out across America, the lack of turnips, beets, and potatoes were replaced by the pumpkin to stand the watch for the "freed dead".

The origin of Trick-or-Treat, it is believed, orginated from the Druids. The Druids were preists and preistesses that served also as

historians, astronomers, teachers, etc. in their communities. Because the country folk believed that the dead had to be kept happy they would give the Druids food as they visited their homes. Today it is simply known as trick-or-treat.

Halloween has many names. Other names are : All Hallows Eve, The Feast of the Dead, Samhain, All Hallow Tide, All Saints Eve.

Halloween Careful who you scare

When we were little, our older brother used to put on that awful "Scream" mask and jump out from behind the kitchen door to scare the candy out of us. He found it hysterical; we found a bunch of things to complain to our therapist about later in life.

This classic video featuring a Halloween prank gone horribly awry is kind of like that. Only in our fantasy this version, the prankster gets what's coming to him. No, seriously. See why it's so not cool to creep on people, Halloween or not. Enjoy!

Mom Opens "Haunted House" in Home Where Kids Died in Fire

A woman ran a "haunted house" attraction for Halloween in the same burnt out home where her two children died in a house fire earlier this year, before police had to shut it down.

Nearly six months ago on May 29th, firefighters arrived to the house at 1460 North Lilac Avenue which was already well-involved in flames.

The firefighters quickly extinguished the flames, but discovered 2 little boys, 5 year old Mario Sisneros and 3-year-old David Sisneros lying unconscious, overcome by heat and smoke in a converted bedroom along with their puppy.

Read more HERE

It's that time of year again

Getting mine in early




Happy Halloween!!
You've been Mooned!!

Hat Tip - Ree