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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 31, 2019)
B1 THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, OcTObER 31, 2019 CONTACT US ewilson@dailyastorian.com (971) 704-1718 COMMUNITY FOLLOW US facebook.com/ DailyAstorian IN ONE EAR • ELLEDA WILSON PLAYING GAMES F rom the Saturday, Oct. 31, 1885 edition of The Daily Morning Astorian: “Tonight is ‘all Hallow e’en’ and a good many old memories of old-fashioned games and sports cluster around it. In many localities it is customary on this eve- ning to have family gatherings at which a good many funny pranks are played, furnishing occasion for consid- erable innocent mirth. “Tonight is the great night of the year to tell fortunes, and if ever told fortunes come true, it is those that are told on ‘all Hallow e’en.’” One favorite prognosticating parlor game during that era was the Halloween cake, according to Victorian-Era. org (bit.ly/hallowcake). The host, while preparing the cake, would hide a ring, coin, button, key and thimble inside it. The oldest person present would cut the cake without saying a word, as the first words said after the cake was cut were prophetic. Whoever received the ring in their piece of cake would marry, the coin represented wealth, the button meant the recipient would meet their true love, and the key holder would travel. But woe to the unlucky one who received the thimble — he or she would be a bachelor or old maid. Until next Halloween, anyway. SIX ANGRY ARMS BELIEVE … OR DON’T O n Aug. 16, deep in the woods in North Carolina, there was an intriguing sighting by Hickory resi- dent and Bigfoot tracker Doug Teague. So, of course, the Ear saved his adventure for Halloween. The incident happened when Teague went with his dog, Daisy, to retrieve some game cameras, he said in a video on the Catawba Valley Bigfoot Research Face- book page, recorded on Aug. 30. He is pictured, in a screen shot from his video (bit.ly/DTbigfoot). On his way out, he heard some knocks, then a golf ball-sized rock was thrown from the top of a hill, and rolled down. When he took out his cell phone to start recording — but kept malfunctioning in the heat — a rock was tossed again. He didn’t see anything, but off to his right, there were “numerous loud grunts,” then another rock came down. When he looked up, he could see something black sitting on a stump. A still shot from his video is shown. He said the “object” moved every now and then, even revealing a “perfect profile. … And it’s awesome, because it does look like a gorilla. … You can see chin, nose, forehead.” Then one of the critters (there were three, he said, but he could only see one) started vocalizing, and another rock was tossed. Then the one Teague was watching stood up. “It looked down the hill,” he reported, “it turned to its left, and walks diagonally down the hill. Looked at me once. “It didn’t have the arm swing … but it was definitely … 7 1/2 to 8 feet tall, and it had a beautiful silver sheen to it. “It had longer hair on the arms and hips, and it kind of turned, went right over the hill and just disappeared.” Sadly, there is no video of this part of the encounter, but he is adamant about what he saw. “… To me they’re real,” Teague insisted. “I know they’re there. I mean, I’ve seen ‘em before, I’ve col- lected evidence, I’ve got friends who do the same. … Either you believe, or you don’t.” TWEET NO MORE T witter posts took a macabre twist with The Tweet Hereafter website which, ironically, died and was resurrected by the Internet Archive at bit.ly/ gonetweet. The site was a compilation of the last Twit- ter tweets by “notable, newsworthy, famous or infamous people.” Some posts can be downright creepy, such as that of Daphne Caruana Galiz, a Maltese reporter investigat- ing government corruption. On Oct. 16, 2017, at 2:40 p.m. she tweeted, “That crook Schembri was in court today, pleading that he is not a crook.” Twenty minutes later, she was killed by a car bomb. And then there was Colleen Burns, who tweeted, “That view tho @ Grand Canyon National Park” on July 7, 2016, at 9:48 p.m. She tripped and fell 400 feet to her death there the next day. Others are poignant, such as surfing filmmaker Sonny Miller’s tweet, “I get by with a little help from my friends! Live to Love! Love to Live! …” At noon the next day, he died of a heart attack. (He is pictured, courtesy of his Instagram feed, @ sonnymillerfilms) “In the age of social media,” the website warns, “those of us who post will ultimately leave behind a final message, intentional or not. … What will your last words be?” MR. GHOSTY’S BLUFF SCARED OUT OF THEIR KNICKERS A Halloween must-see horror movie with a local touch is “It Came from Beneath the Sea,” about an octopus on the rampage. A colorful poster from the 1955 film is shown. The six-armed menace from the deep — two unani- mated and unbudgeted arms were removed on the final model used — has become enormous, radioactive and incredibly angry, after being exposed to H-bomb testing. In the path of his wrath are: a freighter, which he overturns; the Golden Gate Bridge, which he grapples and demolishes; some buildings in San Fran- cisco he found particularly irritating; and a hapless submarine. And, for the local angle, he also attacked the peace- ful coastal town of Harper’s Cove, near Astoria, Ore- gon, killing some locals in the onslaught. You can watch the black and white version of this gem at tinyurl.com/octup-2. Movie history fans will note that Ray Harryhausen, king of the stop-action critters, did the creepy cephalopod special effects. More info is here: tinyurl.com/octup-1 and tinyurl.com/ octup-3 One question lingers — where is Harper’s Cove? A ghostly encounter, dated March 29, 1894, from the George Flavel Facebook page (courtesy of the Clat- sop County Historical Society): “The latest excitement in an Uppertown neighborhood is a haunted house. In the lonely hours of night clumsy ghosts monkey around in the cat-loft, fall over chairs and mash dishes, when there are not any chairs and dishes there. “Last night the occupants of the house called in a neigh- bor to help keep a watch for Mr. Ghosty, who made his presence felt by his usual antics at the hour of 12. “The gentlemen on watch were armed to the teeth with guns, hatchets and clubs and as soon as the racket started in the garret they commenced to run a bluff on ghosty by pounding on the floor with their hatchets and hollering out that they would shoot. “After this break the noise upstairs ceased and the next mysterious round was at the back door as if trying to enter. That settled it, the occupants proceeded without any cer- emony to take their departure out of the front door. The affair is to be kept a secret.” R WHAT WILL YOU BE? W ant to dress up for Halloween with minimal effort and expense? Check out “102 cheap and easy Hal- loween costumes,” with instructions, from Livingonthe- cheap.com (tinyurl.com/hallowup). You could be a flowerpot, or a crayon, or a bag of jel- lybeans, or even a floor lamp. Or you could be Medusa (with rubber snakes), a Freudian slip or a cereal killer. On the other hand, the Victorian photo shown demonstrates what can go quite dreadfully wrong when making home- made masks. And, the perfect “keep it simple” un-costume: Be a werewolf, but wear your regular clothes, explaining that Halloween did not fall on a full moon. umors abound that Fort Stevens State Park, espe- cially Battery Russell, is haunted. There are tales of a young man with a flashlight looking for enemy sol- diers, another in a soldier’s uniform, carrying a knife, strange noises, giggling and cold spots. The HauntedPlaces.org website (bit.ly/FortBoo) has several reports from those who’ve been scared out of their knickers at the park: • C. Roberts: “… We left right around dusk on that June day and we heard someone yell ‘fire,’ and we actu- ally heard the cannon boom, and the ground shook, too. We ran to our car, and then we saw the guy with the lan- tern follow us almost to the parking lot.” • Tamera Thorn: “… I was walking through Battery Clark with a friend of mine one day, looking around, when we saw a dark figure float across the hall in front of us …” • Marian: “… We visited the old Battery Russell, and we could hear voices faintly ... I could ‘smell’ the fir- ing guns …” • Lynne Coughlin: “My son, Alex and I walked through the bunkers, (and) you can hear people talking in hushed tones (but) no one around tourist-wise … we felt as if we were being watched by hundreds of eyes …” • NickTurner: “One time we we pulled up to unpack at our campsite, and as I reached for the door handle my arm was scratched. Three 3- to 4-inch parallel thin bloody lines on the bottom of my forearm. We were around blackberry bushes and I would say that was the culprit … but I hadn’t gotten out of the car yet.” • Katrina Brown: “… I went inside a building and took a video. … At the end of the video I was by some stairs, and you hear what seems like a girl saying ‘yeah’ and giggling. There was nobody around but me. … I definitely felt something around me when I was walking.” A Halloween visit to the park just might be in order. TRICKS, NO TREATS ‘C PH security has been dealing with a rash of van- dalism the last couple of weeks,” Central Penin- sula Hospital in Soldotna, Alaska, posted on its Face- book page on Oct. 24. “Several vehicles have had their sunroofs or windshields broken.” “However, the vandals are not what you may expect,” the post explained. The miscreants are delinquents of the avian kind. “They are crows, or ravens, that have been wit- nessed dropping rocks onto vehicles.” “We have reached out to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for advice on how to deter the vandals,” the post added. “We are installing owl decoys in the parking lot today, per one suggestion.” In case you’re wondering, a follow-up post noted that “the fake owl did nothing.” The hospital is “researching other options.” And probably not watching “The Birds.”