I grew up as the preacher's kid. Everyone knew my father was an Episcopal priest at Church of the Ascension in Clearwater Florida.
When kids were introduced at school or in a game it went something like this: this is Tom, Mike, Bob, Will - his father is a priest- Sally, Mark, etc. No one, except me, had their father's occupation mentioned in these introductions. This drove me crazy.
There were good and bad aspects of being the preacher's kid. The bad: I had to be at church a lot. And I mean a lot. Especially during Lent. To this day, I absolutely hate Lenten suppers on Wednesday night. The good: some girls could only go out with me, the saintly preacher’s son. Sorry, no more details on that.
Once, something unexpectedly good happened because I was the preacher's kid; I was given a two-story office building to host a Halloween haunted house. Yes, you read that correctly, the church gave me the use of an entire building for a haunted house. More on that in a minute.
I love Halloween. I believe that everyone should be a vampire or werewolf at least one day a year. As a kid I built haunted houses in my garage. In junior high I graduated to leading the church youth group building haunted houses in adjacent Sunday school rooms. We charged a quarter to raise money for UNICEF.
One September I was stuck at church … again. One constant at my father's or any Florida church was lots of old men hanging around. Being 16, I thought the old men were a pain in the ass. They wanted to talk all the time. I would humor them by halfheartedly conversing with them.
One old man proved his worth. He overheard several boys discussing the vital need for more make-out or kissing time at youth group. We were brainstorming how to get more of this activity on the schedule. “Why not have a road rally?” he suggested. “What's a road rally?” me and the other boys asked. “Well,” he explained, “You create clues leading all over town. Teams of four kids per car follow the clues, the last clue ends the rally at your favorite pizza joint. The car with the lowest mileage wins.”
We were momentarily confused and a little slow on the uptake. “It sounds fun,” we ventured “but that doesn't leave much make-out time if you’re driving all over town.” He explained, “You boys will know the amount of time the rally will take since you know the clues. All the other cars follow the clues, meanwhile your car goes straight to Sand Key to make-out with your girlfriends, then at the pre-arranged time you meet the other teams, and the adults, at the end point. The adults and parents are none the wiser. Your car …. just got lost.” Wink wink, nod nod.
My friends and I were rendered momentarily speechless. This was a make-out masterstroke delivered by an 80-year-old man that we had previously considered boring at best. Genius!
My buddy recovered first, “That is an awesome plan. You don't know anyone who has a road rally map by chance?” he asked hoping for the guess-at answer. “I do, and I can bring them next week,” replied our new favorite old man. “You're on!” we exclaimed. 80-year-old men may be old, but they are still men. Manly men at that.
Back to the haunted house.
One day my favorite old man was blathering along about something when I picked up an item from the conversation: the church office was being demolished. I couldn’t care less normally, but they said the day of demolition was November 1st. Red alert sounded in my head.
I was already planning this year's haunted classroom, but a house would be so much better. A house would be awesome in fact. I ran to my father's office; confirmed the demolition of the building and asked if the youth group could have use of the soon-to-be-demolished building, for its haunted house. My father asked the rector, “Sure,” he agreed. The house was being vacated on October 15th. The ultimate haunted house was in business!
We had a problem though. We only had props for the classroom and this house was big: two stories, stairs and two porches. We would have to up our haunted house game considerably.
Team Old Men to the rescue yet again! Sitting around the church waiting for my father to finish some meeting, I was explaining my haunted house problem to the ubiquitous old men. “Well,” he said “Me and Bob do a lot of woodworking. Do you need us to make something for you?” No hesitation on my part, “We need a coffin, an old-timey coffin with a slanted top, like the one in Dracula starring Christopher Lee. We need an electric chair with a big Frankenstein switch and a mad scientist table.” He was impressed by my list. And I could tell … thrilled to have a project to work on. He and Bob would be building props for the preacher’s kid’s haunted house! An old man’s dream come true.
“Can you draw up rough plans?” he asked. I think he may have thought that I would go home to do this. He didn’t know me very well. I ran to my dad's office got three sheets printer paper, returned, and drew him detailed plans on the spot. I had the vision in my head already.
Team Old Men were true to their word and all three props were delivered by October 1st. I recruited some of my high school buddies to augment the youth group Bill Mize, Mike DeYoung, Tom Oster and Bob Perry. Having participated in the now legendary Road Rally, they were up for anything I suggested involving church youth group.
We made announcements at church several Sundays in advance of Halloween, in the Sunday bulletin and in the mailed bulletin. We put up flyers and told all our friends. The haunted house PR machine was in full swing.
Haunted House plans were drawn and redrawn. Supplies were purchased. Tombstones were constructed out of cardboard; costumes were made; makeup was practiced; cow femurs were bought from the local butcher shop; fake blood was mixed. We knocked holes in the walls enabling disembodied limbs to grab victims as they walked by! We spray painted the walls with grass, scary trees, moons, clouds, crows, owls, scary eyes, etc. We knocked holes in the ceiling, so Tom Oster’s arms hung down, dropping things like wet spaghetti on victims. When wet spaghetti lands on a girls arm the screams are to die for!
In one room a mad scientist chopped Lea Brady's blood covered skeleton leg (technically a huge cow femur bone) with a machete. She screamed so loudly it even scared us!
Another room became a graveyard where a dead Mike DeYoung with a real knife in his chest popped up and chased victims. Nearby a vampire (me) and the OG werewolf Bill Mize battled to the death … or undeath. In another room Bob Perry was electrocuted, convulsing when Igor threw the super large Frankenstein switch that was connected to the tin foil skullcap fitting over his head.
If our “guests” made it through to the end of the haunted house, a happy clown greeted them on the back porch. We did this to cheer up younger kids who got too scared. Unfortunately, that backfired, the clown scared them worse than the haunted house and this was even before Stephen King's “It.” Kathy Gibson Taylor swears to this day that she was not scared by the clown or anything. She claims now that she was not even at the haunted house. I know better.
The haunted house took place the Sunday evening prior to Halloween. People lined up around the block; it was a tremendous success never to be topped in my time in high school. The best thing was that at the end of the event we walked away … no cleanup!
The coffin came home with me as part of my bargain with Team Old Men. My parents allowed me to store it under our house next to the air conditioner. It scared the shit out of HVAC repairman over the years. My sister claimed she once saw an air-conditioner technician run from under the house to his truck … never to return.
It was definitely the ultimate Haunted House! Being the preacher’s son was OK after all.
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