(Remember, Clark's PL&T column is on Daily Thunder right now. Read it. Or don't. Whatever.)
It's that weekend. The one where you can dress like a slut or a complete lunatic and nobody will say a word. Some call it genius, some call it stupid. I'm not really sure I'd disagree with either statement.
But Halloween went in four stages for me growing up.
Stage 1: The Trick-or-Treater. I dressed up as either an army man or Indiana Jones and walked around my neighborhood asking for candy. Pretty simple. Pretty straightforward.
Stage 2: The Fall Festival-er. My mother began to grow paranoid of trick-or-treating because of Sprees lined with cocaine, drunk drivers running up on sidewalks and that creepy neighbor that kept inviting me inside to see his basement. So we went to the safe place that was our church's gym and threw beanbags through a hole and actually thought we were "winning" candy. Oh and there was a hay ride, but everybody just complained on it because who wants to ride outside on a some hay in 40 degree weather with nothing but a mermaid outfit on?
Stage 3: The Scare-er. Probably my favorite stage. A couple of my friends and I would gather at a house and basically, scare unassuming trick-or-treaters. Our main setup was one of us dressing up as a stuffed, fake werewolf and sitting in a chair next to the door. When the poor kid would walk up, we'd come alive and make them pee their costumes. It was great fun. At least for us.
This stage eventually evolved into the final year of us doing it, we rolled up brownies to look like poop and actually placed the Poop Treats in the treaters bag using toilet paper. We found this hilarious for some reason. Then that same year, we took the scaring up a notch and instead of a stuffed werewolf, we used a chainsaw (with no chain"¦), hid behind a bush and fired that baby up and stepped out with a Jason mask when a little kiddie walked to the door. It was so awesome that a pissed parent actually wrote in to the Yukon Review the next morning complaining about us. We were heroes. To ourselves.
Stage 4: The Haunted Place Seeker. Every high-schooler hits this stage at one point. We wanted to go to a supposed haunted place on Halloween. Why? I don't know. The haunted stories behind each place weren't true, the places were typically dull and every time you left disappointed. Oooh, this was an Indian burial ground and in 1937 a man named Roger Ghostman died while digging a grave for a Chieftain. Now Ghostman haunts these grounds and if you listen closely at midnight you can hear him whistle. It was all a bunch of bullcrap, but we didn't care.
But I remember one night, as a senior in high school a couple friends and I went to a place in Mustang/Yukon called "The Brigdon House." It was this abandoned, decrepit home on the corner of Mustang Rd. and 15th that supposedly was home to a man that murdered his family with an axe. (It's since been torn down and apartments built there.) We went with the intention of luring other friends there to scare them. My friend Jordan and I were the first to arrive and as we walked in the house, we noticed a pool of red on the old wooden planks below us. I pointed my flashlight in another room and saw what looked like a pile of guts. Jordan was standing at the base of the stairs and called me over to look up. I walked over and what I saw made me nearly piss my pants, vomit and then deuce all at once. A dead dog was hanging by its neck above us, with its insides spilling out.
As you probably figure, Stage 4 was pretty short lived.
(And because you probably want to know, Stage 5 is the "Spend too much time/money trying to make a witty costume for a party" phase. Stage 6 is the one I'm currently in: completely indifferent towards it. Maybe I'll buy some candy for the kids if they knock on my door. Or maybe I'll turn the lights out and pretend I'm not home. We'll see. And finally Stage 7 is the one I look forward to: My kids. They do the dressing up, they do the walking around. I just sit in the car and wait for them to bring me candy. But out of all of those, Stage 4 is the weirdest of all. We went to a rundown house, in the middle of the night, alone and unarmed and walked inside. I think this is what the adults would call "Stupid.")
Anyway, while the Brigdon House scared the poo out of us, we got what we essentially wanted "“ a story that we'd tell over and over and over again. So this is for you scare seekers "“ the top five scariest places in Oklahoma. And I don't mean funny haha scary places like Alex Cameron's basement or a Toby Keith concert. I mean legitimately frightening places.
5. The Arrow
I honestly don't remember where this place was at, just that it was in the Mustang/Yukon area. I just remember the turn in was dark and dim, with a huge wooden arrow sticking up in the middle of the drive. It was said to be some Indian burial ground and you could hear crap hooting and howling if you listened hard enough (TOLD YOU). All I know is that there was a house at the end of the long drive and a guy came running out of it super pissed off and actually chased us in his truck for a few miles. I guess he could have been a ghost.
4. The Guthrie School For Boys (pictured above)
This was the place my friend Nathan already wanted to go. Everybody has that one friend that's a little too much into finding these scary places. Nathan was (and really still is) that friend for me. The school was once a youth detention center, but is now abandoned. It is said that a dark figure now haunts the bell tower located in the center of the school. I believe the figures name is Groundskeeper Willie.
3. The Stage Door
This old theater in Yukon is one of the creepiest places I've ever been. The story is that an actor's spirit haunts the place. I don't believe in any of this crap, but I can safely say that at times I heard"¦ something while alone inside there. I want to say it was humming but it's very likely it was my imagination. And then I heard a bunch of stuff fall of a shelf. That was enough to freak me out and never want to go back even if my kid is starring in a play there one day.
Any time you combine fog with night and desolate area, you've got a pretty scary place. Running from Missouri to Kansas to Oklahoma, this 20-mile triangle has been the home of unexplained lights for over 100 years. Oklahoma's spook light, in Miami, has been seen since the late 1800s. According to legend, the light is the spirit of a grief-stricken mother searching desperately for her missing daughter. The woman reportedly sent her daughter out, in heavy fog, to look for cows that had wandered off.
When she did not return after several hours, her mother went in search of her. Of course, she couldn't find her. Night after night she searched for her daughter, until grief and desperation finally drove her insane. It's believed she returns on foggy nights, and that the light is her lantern, lighting the way as she searches in vain for her vanished daughter. All this needs is to be put on an old Indian burial ground and you've got the scariest place ever.
1. Gap Road
Everybody has heard this one and everybody has said they were "totally going to go." But I've never met anyone that actually has. The legend is, during the Tulsa Race Riots, many African Americans were hanged here. It is said that if one takes his car to this road and put it in neutral, it will climb the hill. It is said that the people hanged during the riots are the force pushing the car.
There are many more out there. College Avenue in Norman, Dead Woman's Crossing in Weatherford, The Weeping Soldier at Fort Gibson"¦ evidently Oklahoma is pretty haunted. So happy Halloween. And keep in mind, trespassing is illegal.
