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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 31, 2015)
LIFESTYLES Doggy dress-up parade/9C WEEKEND, OCTOBER 31-NOVEMBER 1, 2015 Irish whiskey revival/4C Atop Gold Butte/ 10C Staff photo by Kathy Aney Patricia Ann Barnes-Green’s yard offers witches, ghosts, skeletons, goblins and other Halloween frights at 820 S.W. Marshall Ave. in Pendleton. Little house of horrors Pendleton woman goes ‘all out’ decorating home for Halloween By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian Staff photo by Kathy Aney This apparition greets all who pass by Patricia Ann Barnes-Green’s yard Staff photo by Kathy Aney A Goblin wreaks havoc in the yard of Patricia Ann Barnes-Green, who started creating her Halloween display two years ago. From ghoulies and ghosties And long-leggedy beasties And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us. So goes the old prayer. But delightful frights and then some greet the trick-or- treaters who happily dare to approach the Pendleton home of Patricia Ann Barnes-Green and her husband Grady Green. Moaning disembodied heads line the walkway, a wailing ghost hangs on the outside wall and a 6-foot hairy spider readies to pounce from its web. Patricia has spent a few years collecting this macabre menagerie, and for the past three Halloweens transforms her front yard at 820 S.W. Marshall Ave. into an ode to the holiday, complete with a graveyard in the garden where plastic tombstones and skeletal hands protrude from the soil. “I just do it so everybody else can enjoy it,” she said. “I like people to stop and look ... I drive around town and look at other people’s decorations and see what they’ve done.” Few around here have Staff photo by Kathy Aney Patricia Ann Barnes-Green poses on her front porch with a cackling witch whose eyes glow when cars drive by. done what she has. And on Halloween she said she will add a few more key elements, namely a pair of motion- and sound-activated witches, one of which stands 5 feet tall and jerks its gnarly face and stares with green eyes while cackling, “Let me take a look at you.” That witch gives little children a scare, Patricia said, and sometimes spooks them so much they won’t ask for candy. Grady, who is wheelchair bound, said he enjoys watching his wife engage in her hobby. “She loves decorating,” he said. “She decorates for the spring and fall, she goes all out.” Patricia, who works as a caregiver, said she decorated the family house even as a child, while growing up in Detroit, Michigan. “I just like to do it, it’s my passion,” she said. And for this particular holiday, she said, there is the thrill of scaring children just enough to make them want to come back. “I scare the parents, too,” she said. Patricia carries the seasonal themes inside the home as well. Fall colors dominate wall hangings. A spider and its spindly legs dangles above the dinner table and skulls, skeleton hands and candles transform the keyboard on the living room wall into an altar to Halloween. She came to Eastern Oregon 40 years ago to start a UDQFKZLWKKHU¿UVWKXVEDQG Samuel Barnes, who died in 2003. After that she moved into Pendleton, she said, and a year-and-a-half ago she and Grady married. Gary said she and Samuel were his dear friends from years back, and as time moved on he and Patricia grew to care for one another, then decided to make WKHLUUHODWLRQVKLSRI¿FLDO Patricia said setting up the show takes about three days. And while she does most of it, her grandchildren and friends also help. Staff photo by Kathy Aney A head on a stick seems to be protesting a huge spider with glowing red eyes suspended nearby. “I just do it so everybody else can enjoy it. I like people to stop and look.” — Patricia Ann Barnes-Green “I do it in spurts, and I kind of change it every year,” she said. Lucky Cool is their neighbor across the street. He also said he gets a kick out of the display, and so do plenty of others. “A lot of people stop and take a look,” Cool said. “They do such a good job.” And to get the full effect, he said, folks need to see it at night. This year Cool gave 3DWULFLDDVPDOOFRI¿QIRUKHU extravaganza. She leaned that against the spider-infested bushes by the driveway and placed a plastic skeleton inside. Cool also caught a bit of the decoration bug. He and a friend turned a pallet into road signs pointing to question- able destinations, including Witches Brew, Spider Web Inn and Frankenstein’s Loft. &RRO VDLG KH ZDQWV WR ¿QG another pallet to make a few signs so the Greens can display a macabre menu offering “Grady’s Ghoul-ash” and “Pat’s Eyeball Soup.” If that happens, Patricia said, she will concoct an appropriate garnish. The Greens said they have about 40-45 trick-or-treaters a year, most from along Nye and Marshall avenues, where homes stretch from South- west Second Street to Tutuilla Creek Road. Grady said they would not mind if more show up, and are concerned the weather Saturday will turn wet and sour and keep the costumed hordes at bay. Patricia said the best part of Halloween is seeing the children and their reactions, so she was hopeful their cravings for fun and goodies would trump what Mother Nature churns out. And when the day has passed, Patricia will put the spiders and witches and bats and the giant pumpkin DQG WKH UHVW EDFN LQWR ¿YH large plastic totes. But that’s nothing compared to Christmas. 7KRVH GHFRUDWLRQV ¿OO WRWHVVKHVDLGDQGRYHUÀRZ to the next-door neighbor’s yard.
