It's Halloween and we have been facebooking about our "chili tradition" which got me to thinking about celebrating Halloween, when the kids were growing up. Our house was situated further back on our lot, giving us a fairly large front yard. About halfway to the street we planted two miniature stone pines the very first Christmas we moved in, having been told that these trees could be trimmed to 8 feet and never get bigger than 12 feet, well, 60 feet later we had two very large miniature pine trees with lots of pine needles littering the front yard..so, being very creative, Dad decided to use those pine needles as mounds, depicting a graveyard, with the appropriate tombstones. This was not quite enough for him, so he took one of his flannel shirts and an old pair of levis and stuffed them with newspaper,added an old pair of shoes, a ball stuffed in a pillowcase, with a face drawn on it and a baseball cap on his head, and proceeded to hang our new friend from the pine tree nearest the gate, where trick or treaters would come in for their treats.
Still not satisfied, he wired up a speaker near the tree, connecting to a microphone in the house,
where he hid behind the drapes and would talk to the ghosts and goblins who came to the gate.
The hanging man would then speak to the children. "hi Mr Cowboy, come in" What a pretty little princess, Oh my goodness, a scary pirate.. It really worked, he would ask them to help him get down, he asked one child to scratch his foot, and his footwas scratched.. Some little ones were
so scared they wouldn't even come in. Word soon spread and people were coming by in car
loads and dropping their kids off.
We continued this for a couple of years and then all the neighbor kids as well as our own, were growing up and no longer trick or treating.
Hope you enjoy this Halloween memory
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
HALLOWEEN
A brief disclaimer. I was asked to write a short spooky story for the mine as they will be touring
visitors thru a Haunted Mine this spooky season, so as my printer is not yet hooked up and I dont know how to forward stuff, I am doing it in my blog. Holly, this is for you
It's Halloween, a time to be thinking of ghosts and goblins and scary things that go "clunk" in the night.
We are about to enter the McCaw Mine, but before we do, I need to warn you about something---you may
not know, but miners are a very superstitious group of people. You will notice there is a horseshoe on the wall
about the portal of the mine. It it is pointing up, it holds all good luck, but if it is pointing down, all the good luck will pour out. A miner would not enter the mine, unless the horseshoe was in the upright position.
The legend of the tommy-knockers started a long, long time ago in England, Cornwall, to be exact. In the "olden
days" there was no modern equipment, and because the mines were hollowed out by hand, the tunnels were barely high enough for a man to enter. He usually crawled in and did most of his work scrunched down. Because they didn't have the equipment that they have today, the mines were not necessarily very safe. There
were many cave-ins and the mines could be filled with gasses. In any case, many miners were trapped in the
mines and died there. Being superstitious, the miners believed that the ghosts of these miners were still hanging
around the mines. They were convinced that these ghosts would play pranks on them, they would lose their
tools, their lamps would go out, lunches would disappear, they sure seemed to be full of mischief. On the other hand, it was believed that the ghosts were also responsible for saving lives and for helping the miners find the
vein of gold, or where great deposits of ore were to be found. the miners called them "tommy-knockers"
because they would hear strange knockings on the walls around them. The miners had respect for them and
definitely did not want to make them angry, for they were also known to be very mean, when they wanted to
be. In order to appease the tommy-knockers, the miners would leave them food and perhaps a pint of ale
and hoped the tommy-knockers would be good to them.
Now as far as I know, no one has ever claimed to have really "seen" one, but they all heard them knocking,
and some would see hammers pounding on rocks, held by invisible hands, seen wheelbarrows being filled with ore when no one was around, lamps going on and off for no reason, but above all, when the day was over
and the miners were going home for the day, the lunch bucket they had left for the tommy-knockers was
empty and the container holding the pint of ale was dry.
How did they get to this country. Well, when mining first started to become a big thing in this country, we didn't have very many experienced miners and they would hire miners from England. The mining company would ask the miners of they knew of anyone else who would like to mine here and they miner would usually say "well, now,
there's my cousin Jack, and if ye would pay his boat ride he would come work for you. So the miners from
Corwall would come over here, and brought with them the legend of the tommy-knockers. The Americans
generally referred to these miners as "cousin Jacks"
Now, I am not saying this is true, and I am not saying it's not true, but just to be sure, let's check the horseshoe
and leave some food.
visitors thru a Haunted Mine this spooky season, so as my printer is not yet hooked up and I dont know how to forward stuff, I am doing it in my blog. Holly, this is for you
It's Halloween, a time to be thinking of ghosts and goblins and scary things that go "clunk" in the night.
We are about to enter the McCaw Mine, but before we do, I need to warn you about something---you may
not know, but miners are a very superstitious group of people. You will notice there is a horseshoe on the wall
about the portal of the mine. It it is pointing up, it holds all good luck, but if it is pointing down, all the good luck will pour out. A miner would not enter the mine, unless the horseshoe was in the upright position.
The legend of the tommy-knockers started a long, long time ago in England, Cornwall, to be exact. In the "olden
days" there was no modern equipment, and because the mines were hollowed out by hand, the tunnels were barely high enough for a man to enter. He usually crawled in and did most of his work scrunched down. Because they didn't have the equipment that they have today, the mines were not necessarily very safe. There
were many cave-ins and the mines could be filled with gasses. In any case, many miners were trapped in the
mines and died there. Being superstitious, the miners believed that the ghosts of these miners were still hanging
around the mines. They were convinced that these ghosts would play pranks on them, they would lose their
tools, their lamps would go out, lunches would disappear, they sure seemed to be full of mischief. On the other hand, it was believed that the ghosts were also responsible for saving lives and for helping the miners find the
vein of gold, or where great deposits of ore were to be found. the miners called them "tommy-knockers"
because they would hear strange knockings on the walls around them. The miners had respect for them and
definitely did not want to make them angry, for they were also known to be very mean, when they wanted to
be. In order to appease the tommy-knockers, the miners would leave them food and perhaps a pint of ale
and hoped the tommy-knockers would be good to them.
Now as far as I know, no one has ever claimed to have really "seen" one, but they all heard them knocking,
and some would see hammers pounding on rocks, held by invisible hands, seen wheelbarrows being filled with ore when no one was around, lamps going on and off for no reason, but above all, when the day was over
and the miners were going home for the day, the lunch bucket they had left for the tommy-knockers was
empty and the container holding the pint of ale was dry.
How did they get to this country. Well, when mining first started to become a big thing in this country, we didn't have very many experienced miners and they would hire miners from England. The mining company would ask the miners of they knew of anyone else who would like to mine here and they miner would usually say "well, now,
there's my cousin Jack, and if ye would pay his boat ride he would come work for you. So the miners from
Corwall would come over here, and brought with them the legend of the tommy-knockers. The Americans
generally referred to these miners as "cousin Jacks"
Now, I am not saying this is true, and I am not saying it's not true, but just to be sure, let's check the horseshoe
and leave some food.
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