Scaring the neighbors
Published 10:56 pm Thursday, October 30, 2014
In the Holland community, 6734 S. Quay Road has its own “cemetery.”
When Diana Jones got it in her head to decorate her home at 206 Brook Ave. for Halloween, her partner wasn’t without reservations.
“She did it all, to be honest with you,” David Griffey said. “I did nothing but complain about how much money she was spending.”
To create the spooky atmosphere, Jones set up a miniature graveyard, attached cloaked skeletons to walls and was more than liberal with the jack-o’lanterns.
Tealayshia Porter smiles for the camera in the yard her aunt, Diana Jones, decorated for Halloween.
“I didn’t get any from yard sales,” Jones said of her decorations. She shopped at Walmart and from a catalog, and when the Suffolk News-Herald rang Thursday she and Griffey were shopping some more at Party City for a few last-minute items to flesh things out.
“I just go by my imagination,” Jones said. “Whatever comes to mind, that’s what I do.”
Jones says she has decorated for Halloween for the first time for the benefit of her five grandchildren, ages 3 to 10.
“At first they were scared of the grim reaper — the two youngest,” Griffey said. “After about a day or so they got used to it, and they enjoy it now.”
Friday night, Griffey, who plays music, plans to laugh ghoulishly into a microphone attached to an amplifier with the reverberation dialed up.
He thinks the sounds effects will appropriately accompany his partner’s decorating skills.
“I’m going to be scaring the heck out of them,” Griffey said.
Meanwhile, at least couple of homes in the Holland community have gone all out for Halloween.
The yard of 6730 Ruritan Blvd. is strewn with body parts, disemboweled witches, Siamese demon babies, werewolves, skeletons, skulls and gallows.
All fake, of course.
Vicky Collins turns 55 on Halloween. “As long as I have been on this earth, there have been Halloween celebrations” at Collins’ household, she said.
“Growing up, I thought I was the only one born on Halloween. I’ve been collecting (decorations) for many years. It’s a one-man show, basically.”
But in terms of sheer volume of decorations, 6734 S. Quay Road probably wins. They’ve gone for an “Eerie Acres Cemetery” theme, with dozens of plastic headstones and tarantulas.
Only restless spirits answered a knock on the door at South Quay Road on Thursday.
