There she is.
Lurking in the corner.
She’s always there whenever I enter.
Why doesn’t she go away.
Sitting in that chair and just staring.
All she does is stare.
Staring at me.
I know that because whenever I look over there.
She is just staring.
Staring at me.
That blank face.
That hair.
Those hands.
And those creepy eyes.
(shiver).

It’s Halloween.

As an adult, I am no longer much of a fan of Halloween.

I guess I have lived through too many real-life scary moments, too many real-life traumas, to want to conjure up fear and creepiness, or celebrate with cemeteries and skeletons.

But when I was a kid, that was different.

Halloween was cool.

My memories of Halloween growing up in Oceanport N.J. were mostly positive.

The local businesses that made up what we called “downtown” all had large windows facing Oceanport Avenue. Every year there was a contest at school where we could submit a piece of Halloween related artwork and if chosen, we were given the opportunity to duplicate that artwork on one of the big windows of the businesses “downtown.”

It was a big deal to be chosen.

One of my submissions made it once and I got to paint a window.

All those businesses are gone now, where they once stood, there is now a park.

The famous circus clown, Emmett Leo Kelly, was born on December 9, 1898. Emmett would become an American circus performer and create the clown character “Weary Willie”, based on the hobos of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

His character had special place in my childhood.

The Oceanport Hook & Ladder Fire Company had a clown routine back in the 1950s and 60s that featured a clown car and clowns played by the fireman that they would use in local parades as well as at the annual New Jersey Firemen’s Convention, which was back then held every year in Atlantic City.

My dad was one of the clowns.

He created his character based on Emmett Kelly Sr.’s “Weary Willie.”

As we came along, my brothers and I, we also got to share in the “Weary Willie” experience.
As sort of a rite of passage, when we hit a certain age, we got to accompany big “Weary Willie” as little “Weary Willies.”

The Oceanport Hook & Ladder Company firehouse was the focal point of Halloween in Oceanport as kids because that is where the festivities were held.

Once we were done “Trick or Treating,” kids and their families would meet at the firehouse and at a certain time, we would parade across a makeshift stage based on our age group and have our costumes judged and we could win prizes.

I think I won once or twice.

And other than the one year my mother traumatized me by dressing up as a hobo with a full mask on and big gloves and harassing me by pushing me on the shoulder and she wouldn’t speak when I begged to know who it was that was scaring the poo out me, like I said, Halloween was mostly positive.

But there is still the one that traumatizes me (no not my mother, well maybe sometimes), not just at Halloween.

The one in the chair, the one who just sits and stares.

She is still staring at me after all these years.

No longer does she sit in her chair in the corner of my grandmother’s dining room, at the end of the antique bed my grandmother slept in. All those years growing up I had to enter that room, sit at that dining room table and try avoid gazing in that direction, meeting that stare. The old dress, the hair, the hands, those eyes.
(Shiver).

Now she sits in the corner of my mother’s bedroom, in that same chair, still with the hair, the hands, the eyes, and with that same stare, still creeping me out after all these years.
(Shiver).

Happy Halloween!

Postscript:

This doll was my grandmother’s doll. Family folklore has it that the doll’s hair is actually my grandmother’s hair. My mother has it now.
It still haunts me, it still gives me the creeps.
And thanks to Chat GPT for the scary smile.
I am not sure I have all the mini Willies photos correct, but trust me, we all shared in the experience.