HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

O Great Pumpkin,

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot complete,

The focus to complete the things I can,

And the craftiness to camouflage the bare spots so nobody will know the difference.

The family that carves together...

I was going to post a quick update last night, but it looked like Blogger went a bit crazy. A perfect metaphor for Halloween, 2018...

Yesterday's weather was mostly sunny with a high of 62 degrees. Today's forecast is rain all day. Missed it by that much... But we are still pressing on with setup and our trick-or-treat tonight from 6 - 8 pm. And don't forget to bring canned food items for our Halloween Canned Food Drive. Each donation that is dropped into our collection coffin will get an extra goodie bag filled with Halloween fun!

If you're in the area, come visit us on Malvern Road in West Akron. We're off of Palisades and Merriman, close to King School. To find us, simply follow the screams!!


I wanted to extend the Happiest of Halloweens to everyone and good luck to all of my fellow home haunters who are gearing up to do their thing tonight. The offerings have been made to the Candy Corn Gods and some will have favorable weather and some will not. Such is life. Make the most of it, and don't forget to have fun!

The jack-o-lanterns are carved, the props are done, the foggers are full, the costumes are set, and the lights and extension cords are waiting. This is what it's all about. This is our big night. Go out and spread some fright and fun...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

  

Highbury Cemetery T-Shirt, 2018

Every year, I start October's Countdown to Halloween with the unveiling of the season's new haunt logo. I then silkscreen that logo on shirts here in the Cemetery basement to give out as a thank you to anyone who helps set up, run, and tear down the haunt. It's a tradition that now stretches back 15 years! It's not an easy job to run a haunt of this size in a single day, and I want to make sure that I show my appreciation for any and all help.

With 2 days to spare, the 2018 shirts are all done and ready to be passed out. And I'm really happy with the way they turned out!

It's a bit hard to tell in the photo, but I experimented with a white and metallic silver swirl in the print. Some turned out better than others, but I'm still really happy, and I hope everyone that comes over this Halloween will be, too.

A big thank you must go out to Mrs. Highbury, who helped me print the shirts up in the kitchen this past weekend. After 15 years of doing this, we have really streamlined the whole process and every year, the shirts turn out a bit better.

And every year, the number of shirts printed seems to increase...

Someday I might just go crazy and print up a bunch to sell online, but for now, it's another project off the list for this year's haunt. Two days to go until the big night and so much left to do. Time to make my final push toward Halloween!

  

Halloween Dark Music Mix 2018

The front porch crypt has been set up, the fog machines have all been filled and tested, and this year's haunt shirts have all been printed. Everything has been safely secured away while the cold rain continues to fall. Three days straight and counting. Time for a quick pause in the hectic pace leading up to Halloween night.

I had a very productive day today, and I feel like I'm in a good place for this year's haunt display. So I've decided to call it a night early, leaving me some much-needed free time for the rest of the evening.

The warm, comfy clothes are on, I've cracked one of my last pumpkin beers from the fridge, and I've grabbed my new Halloween book. I'm ready for a nice quiet night of relaxing, reading, and listening to the new Halloween Dark Music Mix from Cryo Chamber.

A full hour of wonderful dark ambient to cap off an incredibly busy weekend, with tracks from some of Cryo Chamber's biggest artists. It's just the thing I needed to recharge before two more nights of staging and planning for Halloween night...

Northfield Macedonia Cemetery - Northfield, Ohio

Time for one last trip through a local cemetery and our last installment of Cemetery Sundays for this season. This week I tour Northfield Macedonia Cemetery in Northfield, Ohio. It's a cemetery that has been on the list for a few years after driving past it on a random trip. I happened to be out that way again yesterday, so I brought the camera, braved the cold, endless rain, and finally got my photos. It wasn't easy, but it seems to be a fitting end for a season plagued by bad weather...

Northfield Macedonia Cemetery was founded in 1847, although the first recorded grave on the land dates all the way back to 1812. It's a large cemetery, with over 4,900 burials recorded, but I was only interested in documenting the earliest graves from the early to mid-1800s. These graves were all located at the back of the cemetery, so I only had to walk that section within the entire sprawling grounds. And there are some really wonderful old tombstones with amazingly-preserved epitaphs here!

As I quickly toured the older section photographing the ornate tombstones, I noticed that many of them had been damaged and were leaning against other stones or simply laying in pieces. And with the stones being streaked with rain, it gave an added sense of eeriness. Even during the middle of the day.

I took as many photos as I could before retreating from the cold and wet weather to the warmth of my dry car, quickly calling it a day. I would have loved to have stayed longer and gotten some more photos, but Mother Nature just wasn't having it this day.

I'm still quite happy with what I did shoot, so sit back, relax, and enjoy a quick tour of Northfield Macedonia Cemetery...

This last photo proved to be somewhat interesting. As I was finishing my tour, I went to get one last photo of this mausoleum. As I got closer, I noticed that the doors seemed to have been replaced and a small sign saying "Office" was attached to the one door. I peeked in the window, only to notice that it was indeed some sort of office. Desk. Chair. Papers. And a spinning ceiling fan. How strange. If this was a mausoleum, what did they do with the original bodies that were interred there?

And as I was driving home, I thought about how cool it would be to have an office inside of a former mausoleum. It would be right up my alley!

******

I hope everyone enjoyed the photos from this year's cemetery tours. I still really enjoy taking the time to go through each one and document the ornate stones and epitaphs from a bygone era. In a hectic month filled with Halloween planning, it's nice to hit the pause button and take a relaxing trip through a quiet old cemetery. And the great thing is that there are still quite a few local cemeteries on my list to visit, so I'll definitely be doing Cemetery Sundays next year!