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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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large plastic totes. But
that’s nothing compared to
Christmas.
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to the next-door neighbor’s
yard.