How I Halloween | #7

It's Halloween !!!!

I was going to most more & earlier but,  things happen.


So, instead of  trying to do a quick (and probably not very good) version of what I had planned, I've put away those ideas for next year and have instead included a few autumn & Halloween video I've do in the past.

Hope the help give you that Halloween feeling.

I'm off to light the Jack-o-lanterns.

Happy Halloween!

How I Halloween | #6 Recipes

Halloween Recipes

Originally I had planned to find a bunch of recipes and test them out and report of the results.   That didn't Happen.  As usual I had more plans than time & then I ran out it, time that is. 

What I have done is included links to recipes that look good & I intended to make but, didn't. They are basically all "pumpkin...something", it's festive, so why not?

I have had the fudge before and enjoyed it, but I cant vouch for the rest. If you try them Please leave a comment & let me know what you think.  

1) Pumpkin Fudge
2) Pumpkin pancakes
3) Pumpkin Brownies
4) Pumpkin creme brulee
5) Pumpkin Soup
6) Autumn (Adult) Drinks

Bonus:

The Best Caramel Corn Ever!

From a newspaper article in the 1970's, a time when people both read the paper & believed most of what it said. my mother and sister have been making it ever since. I really do enjoy it more than any that I've bought.  That could have more to do with nostalgia than taste but, that's fine.

You can get recipes that are essentially the same Here & Here.


I've never made it my self, but have been known to lend a hand from time to time. A few years ago filmed most of the process and eventually Put it together into a short video.

UPDATE:

Here are a few more  pics from "The Shopping Basket"page of the Globe & Mail from October 24, 1979. Being one week before Halloween (and my brother's 2nd Birthday)  the page featured Halloween recipes and grocery specials.  It has been preserved for the  "Shell-Out Caramel Corn" recipe that is a favourite around our house.

 For the uninitiated "shell out"  is an equivalent to "trick or Treat"  used in Canada.

To get treats on Halloween kids used phrases like "shell out, Shell out, the witches are out", "shell out, Shell out, the Goblins are out" and even "shell out, Shell out, we'll break your windows inside out."   But,  that was mostly gone by my time,  we always used the foreign & generic "trick or Treat".

Next Time?

With time running out before the big day and "things to Do"  piling up,  I'm not making any promises except that this won't the the last post before Halloween.

How I Halloween | #5 Local Events

Local Events 

October is a great time of year for outdoor special events. The sun is usually less punishing (especially since most these are at night) and the air is fresh and invigorating. Rain can be a pain but, if you prepare for the weather it can add to the spooky atmosphere .

I promised this post would be quick and to the point, so lets get to it.


1) Fort George Ghost Tours
IMHO the best ghost tour around. No costumes, creative writing, jump scares or cheese. Great stories told in the places they are set. This is the bench mark by which I judge all others.

2) Fort Erie All Hallow's Eve
 Nice historical tour with a burning of the Guy at the end. On the down side, every time I've been there (6ish) it's been a step for step, word for word repeat of the times before.  The repetition didn't bother me when the price was very low.  With the new higher ticket price, I 'll probably skip this one for 2018. To be fair, the new ticket price comes with a movie, if that's your thing. Personally I like to watch my Halloween movies (&TV) with a Pumpkin Ale so, this isn't really my venue.

3) Drummond Hill Cemetery Tours
Not scary but informative and a chance to wander around a cemetery on an autumn night without getting in trouble.

4) Bridgeburg Haunted History Tour
 Never Been but, looks interesting.


5) Ridgeway parade
They call it "A long-standing Ridgeway tradition!". As an outsider, have only just learn of it. Now you know as much as I do.

6) Heartland Forrest Pumpkin fest
Something for kids. I would expect this to be you run of the mill community event.  Little kids will like it. Bigger kids will go but, pretend there too cool to like it. High School Kids will go to get volunteer hours and parents will go because it's something to do with their kids.

7) Purple Pentacle Samhain
 One more I don't have nay direct experience with. I I had to guess I'd say could be really cool or kinda lame. Don't think you can tell unless you go but, what do I know.

Next Time...

Recipes. I'll have links and reviews of Halloween recipes and maybe instructions for the Best Carmel Corn Ever (at least my favourite).



To see more of my Fall, Thanksgiving and Halloween photos, browse my Flickr Albums.
I even have a plans for a post dedicated to nothing but Halloween Photos (not all mine).

How I Halloween | #4 - Radio

Halloween OTR

As I said before, Holidays can be a good time to look back or in this case listen back. The term "Old Time Radio" doesn't always sound encouraging to people used to looking for 'what's new' or ' the latest thing'. If your feeling like that I'd ask you to try one episode of one show. You might find that it's not as archaic as you expect, you might even like it.

I find myself forgetting how long ago these things where made.  A joke is still a joke and a scare is still a scare. They can be a dated and and sometimes cheesy but,  they can also be "damn good".

Spooky Series

 They aren't specifically Halloween, but they fit the general theme of Horror & Paranormal. These shows (to me) are the sort of things where you skim through the episode list and try one that looks interesting. The only one I'm working through episode by episode is nightfall. Instead of me giving descriptions for these you can follow the link and get a description there & if you like it the episodes are there to download.

1) Nightfall
2) Lights Out

3) Suspense
4) The Shadow
5) The Weird Circle

Halloween Episodes of Popular  Shows

Just like TV today the popular Radio shows of the past liked to do holiday themed episodes.

Right-click on the links below an download them directly from here.

1) Fibber McGee & Molly
• 1953-10-30 Trick Or Treating With Teeny •

2) The Great Gildersleeve
• 1943 Halloween Party • 1947 Halloween Party  • 1951 Halloween Party- Lost Boy •

3) Jack Benny
• Costume Party (1938) • Party at Jack's (1939) •  Trick or Treating (1948) •

4) Baby Snooks
• Halloween Joke (1946) •

5) The Life of Riley
• Haunted House (1944) •

6) Father Knows Best
• Spooky Cemetery (1950) • Halloween Party at Home (1953) •

7) Ozzie & Harriot
• Haunted House (1948) •

Halloween-ish  episodes of anthology series. AKA: random episodes of random shows.

1) Don't tell me about Halloween - Obligatory Halloween Witch.
2) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - One of my favourite versions.
3) The Dunwich Horror - Nothing like a little lovecraft.
4) On a Country Road - Stuck on a deserted road while a murderous lunatic is loose.
4) Dracula - Wouldn't be Halloween with out a Vampire.

*  * * Bonus * * * Bonus * * * Bonus * * *

What Do Aliens have to do with Halloween?

In the couch gag for 'treehouse of horror X' Lisa asks "What do aliens have to do with Halloween?". The answer; War of the worlds. HG Wells, Orson Welles & the (then) new medium of radio all combine to indelibly imprint aliens onto Halloween.

You can find the original Welles version here & the Episode of Charlie McCarthy (#19 in the list) that ran opposite on another channel.

Here you'll find  a 6 part Radio Doc about the original, reactions and a series of remakes that started in 1968, the 50th anniversary of the Ors0n Wells version.

The first time I heard one of these WKBW remakes (1973 version) I was hooked.  The story is reworked to take place in & around Buffalo. Like the original it starts off slowly as a story in the regular (& real) news report, and it grows and grows and they follow the 'news story'. I think it's the nostalgia that gets me hooked the most. The show is well made but,  hearing about places that are only minutes away, from regular DJ's and news people (hooray for Irv Wienstien!) that I heard as kid is really too cool.

1968 is WKBW's 30th anniversary Adaptation of the Orson Welles version.
         Like the original, it caused some concerns when broadcast that became a legend itself.
1971 is a slightly reworked version following the same basic format as 1968.
The 1973 Edition is in many ways my favourite. It has the whole of the Halloween night broadcast in multiple files starting with W.O.T.W. then moving on other stories or "radio dramas" and finishing with some "docu-drama" pieces on Halloween themes.  It has all the commercials, bumpers, station ids etc.  There is something about the whole package and the flow of the programming that really gets me. As cheesy as some of it is, I love it.

Apparently there is a poorly regarded 1975 version that I can't find and a 30th anniversary 1998 version* made by another station under the same ownership group.
I haven't been able to find either version so far. If anyone knows where I can find Please let me know. Even if they aren't that good I'd still like to have the whole set.

*30th anniversary of the 1968 version that was a 30th anniversary of the "Original" 1938 version, isn't that sort of a 60th anniversary version?

That's a lot of Radio for you. I hope you've found something you like and I hope you'll be back in a few days for the next batch of Halloween treats.
Local Events around Halloween is what's planned for next time.

How I Halloween | #3 - LibravoxGhost Story Collections

Ghost Story Collections

There's nothing like a creepy story on a cool autumn evening. Personally I like to listen while walking. Preferably around dusk and with one ear bud out, so I can also hear the rustle of the leaves as the red and orange drain from the sky and I'm enveloped in . . . I'd like to say darkness, but usually it's the glow of streetlights. At least there's darkness and shadows between the houses and sometime even between the streetlights. It's not that the darkness itself is scary, or that something might jump out of the darkness, the thing about the darkness is that you see less & listen more. The story becomes more absorbing if your not looking at a hundred things all the time. Once you've begun concentrating on the story and are paying less attention to your surroundings, that's when the shadows can start to become just a little bit ominous, adding to the story in a whole new way.
 

For the 3rd post you have a selection of downloads from librivox.org.  As mentioned in the 1st post librivox is a project that provides reading of public domain materials for free. The books are read by volunteers and sometimes several volunteers will contribute part to one book. Due to the variety of readers there can be variety in the finished product. This can range from volume to pronunciation and rhythm. They are all 'up to the task' as they say, but some really do a great job.

One of the things I like is how they create "Collections". Like the 'coffee break collections' that are shorter snippets of stories & poems that (I suppose) are supposed to be long enough (or short enough)  for your coffee break. Another example is the series of ghost story collections we will be looking at today.

Everyone's taste is different but I've made a few suggestions for each collection. I wouldn't say these are the 'best' or even all of my favourites. The suggestions are a product of my strange taste with an allowance for variety. There are tragedies and comedies. There are tales that are creepy and sinister as well ones that are amusing. There's  a tale or two of insanity and a morality play. There is even a few straight forward ghost stories.

The suggestions are there for you to take or leave as you wish. 

There is a link to each of the collections.  You can download a zip with the whole collection or skim through the titles and download the individual stories that catch your eye.


1) Ghost Story Collection 001
Suggestions: Man Size in Marble - The Empty House - Uncle Abrahams Romance

2) Ghost Story Collection 002
Suggestions: The Ebony Frame - A Psychical Prank - The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall

3) Ghost Story Collection 003
Suggestions: An Astral Onion - The Chromatic Ghosts of Thomas -  The withered Arm

4) Ghost Story Collection 004
Suggestions: The 9:30 Up train - Green Tea - The Haunted Orchard - The Signalman

5) Ghost Story Collection 005
Suggestions: The Yellow Wallpaper - The Ring of Thoth - The Phantom Coach

6) Ghost Story Collection 006
Suggestions: Children of the Moon - The Man who was not on the Passenger List - Rattle of Bones