Haunted Memories

 I'm doing this post a little early because I want it to be up a couple of days before Halloween. Today I (sort of) have a couple of items from my youth. I say "sort of" because I actually found examples online and made my own. You can do that with printed paper stuff, if you don't mind tol much that it isn't original.

The first item is a poster released by Scholastic Books in the early 1970s. You could order books from a newsprint flyer that the teacher would pass out ever so often. I LOVED ordering books, and actually still have a couple of them. The poster, however, is long gone. So, I finally found an example online and:

There it is, in all it's purple glory! I have it hanging on the wall in my office. It's actually much smaller than the original, being the size of a regular piece of copy paper, but it works for me. 

Why do I like it so much? I think it catches a feel for that time when I was a kid when haunted houses were very possible. The whole country had gone through the Monster Madness of the 60s, and this was a great combination of funky poster and chilling subject.

Interestingly, if the photo was printed normally, it would be actually charming. It's the purple and black that push it into the Twilight Zone. 

Next, we have something that I looked for for years and could never find. I actually started to think I had dreamed it. A little backstory (cue wavy lines across the screen).

When I was in third grade, I had just moved from Denison, Tx to Garland, Tx. In my new town they had a Jack in the Box fast food place. It was actually in the shape of a big box, and yes, you talked into a clown to order.

It was near Halloween (1972) and they were giving away a picture of a haunted house printed on heavy card stock. It had strips that fed through the sides that would make ghost, ghouls, (and, strangely, fast food). move past the windows. I really wanted one for some reason, and one night when we were going through the drive-thru, by golly I got one! It looks like this:

Note the scary fries in the bottom right window. Spooooooooky! Actually, all of the windows and doors open, so it's easy to see how these would get worn out pretty quickly. 

I found this one on a blog called andeverythingelsetoo.blogspot. I looked it up when I was writing this and was surprised to see that it's still going strong. There seems to be a ton of posts on horror comic books, Halloween decorations, and even monster models. I'm pretty sure I could get lost down that rabbit hole pretty easily. 

Anyway, I remember taking my Jack in the Box Haunted House to school and being the coolest kid there! (Or so I thought). 

As far as my new one, I printed it out on card stock and used an exacto knife to cut everything out. I'm happy with it.

So there you go! Sometimes the treasure you seek ends up being digitized...which makes things easier. 

Happy Halloween!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!