Some years later I added a life size ghost puppet made of sheets to the outdoor decor. For many years, that's all I had for a haunt. Though I looked forward to it as an important event, I eventually grew to feel that, on the whole, the response to Halloween on Greenwood was substandard, and I wanted more. Then in October of 2000 came a hard choice between attending an International Oak Conference in the southeast U. S. or operating my figures. I choose the conference and missed out on Halloween altogether. Afterwards I vowed to expand the Halloween yard decorations for the next Halloween, to make up for my absence that year. It was then that l also made a wonderful discovery - the haunting community via the internet. I joined The Halloween List forum where they discussed animatronics. I also heard the term "soft yard haunt" and other haunter's jargon. In addition I was struck by how what many people were doing was really more repellent and gory than spooky, with images of torture chambers, insane asylums and dismemberment, with blood everywhere. None of that reminded me of what I've always loved about Halloween - the traditional icons and legends, the atmosphere and poetry, and erie unknowns. The following year, in 2001, I added a homemade grave yard, fiberglass spooky tree, and three fog machines. It was the beginning of my full scale haunt.

 

Every year since then, I've added something or make improvements. The number of trick or treaters increased to around one hundred, which wasn't dramatic, and I felt frustrated. I loved all the creative work but felt let down that I wasn't sharing the vision and celebration with a larger community. I'd also posted ads for help, and had a worker who was doing fiberglass and mechanical inventions.

Then in 2006 a neighbor who worked for the San Francisco Chronicle suggested that a reporter for the Home and Garden section should do a story about my decorating . I had thought about this as a way to spread the word but wasn't sure how to go about it, plus I wanted to wait until I was able to build a marionette stage for the driveway where continuous puppet action would take place for the youngest children. I thought that would really be something different and would warrant a newspaper story. The article (read the article at SFGate.com) caught me off guard. Work on a second cauldron - stirring witch began in July, and though I didn't get the stage built for it, the story appeared prominently in the paper in mid October and brought several hundred additional visitors, including many adults and art students who asked to see the decorations in the living room.

 

 

It turned into an impromptu open house as well as a yard haunt. In 2007 another story appeared, this time in Oakland Magazine. By then I had two more helpers from The California College of the Arts, the marionette stage was well on it's way to being built in July when the reporter came, and I unpacked a few puppets I had thought about using, for photographs. All the new projects got done in time, although barely. I called the show "Driveway Follies". There were some technical problems in the haunt, but the marionette show was a big success and ran continually, repeated from nightfall to 10:45 p.m. for an audience of around 500, with the last show's audience made up of adults. No one seemed to notice the glitches in the props and effects that didn't work elsewhere.

 

My definition of "free soft yard haunt" is "a non-commercial, residential Halloween installation (usually in a front yard) which emphasizes the atmospheres of Halloween rather than gruesome shocks or repellant horror. They tend to be child-friendly". My interest in this uniquely American folk art, as well as my interest in the trick or treating custom, led me to the idea of this web site. Larry Schmidt.