A helping of Halloween

Alex Coolman

As if ordinary life wasn’t scary enough, here comes Halloween.

Around town, the children are getting antsy and mischievous, normally

staid adults are planning to dress up like pirates and princesses and

organizations that are typically the most responsible segments of society

are gearing up to show a different face to the community -- a face that

has vampire’s fangs and yellow eyes of a zombie.

With haunted houses, carnivals and parades, the Newport-Mesa area offers

a variety of options for the witching season. The only real question is

how much terror does it take to have a good time.

On the fairly sedate end of the spectrum, pumpkin patches offer a low-key

way to enjoy the season. At Country Fair Pumpkins in Costa Mesa, kids

scramble through a hay-strewn field in search of an ideal gourd for

carving. Some of the pumpkins are petite little vegetables that are

suitable for juggling, while others are massive and misshapen. They slump

like mushy beanbags and could only with considerable ingenuity be carved

into anything resembling a face.

Six-year-old Cole Blower of Newport Beach selected a pumpkin on a recent

afternoon that was possibly the ideal size: large enough to afford a big,

toothy jack-o’-lantern grin, but small enough to be lifted by a single

energetic kid.

Workers at the patch caution against taking a knife to a pumpkin too

early -- they rot quickly, especially in the kind of heat the area has

experienced recently, and what looks like a solid gourd can morph in a

matter of days into a fuzzy, soupy mess.

But Blower, who plans to hit up the key trick-or-treating neighborhoods

of Balboa Island, Bayshore and Newport Heights in his Pokemon Charmeleon

costume, didn’t look like he was in the mood to be patient.

For kids who hope to get started on their candy-collecting endeavors

while the sun is still high in the sky, the Orange County Fairgrounds

holds trick-or-treating at its swap meet on Halloween day. Children can

try their luck asking swap meet vendors for candy, though there’s always

the chance that they’ll receive a pack of discount socks or a set of

socket wrenches.

Also a notable early-strike opportunity is the ninth annual “Halloween

Happening” at Fashion Island, which runs from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Oct. 31.

Costumed kids -- more than 3,000 are expected, organizers said -- can

rampage through the mall in search of merchant-provided candy.

For those who need an absolutely immediate fix of fall, the Fairgrounds’

Harvest Festival, which runs today and tomorrow, offers a few

pumpkin-related activities. A scavenger hunt, games and a

pumpkin-decorating contest are scheduled for the festival. Admission is

free.

Other pre-halloween festivities can be found at the city of

Newport Beach’s “Halloween Extravaganza 99,” which takes place from 3 to

5 p.m. Friday at the Community Youth Center at Grant Howald Park, at the

corner of 5th and Iris Avenues in Corona del Mar. Costume contests for

various ages, carnival games, relay races, strolling performers and the

inflatable “bouncers” that children enjoy will be available. The event is

free.

Parades will fill the streets at several locations around town. The

Freedom Homes Canyon Park Neighborhood of Costa Mesa has been holding a

Halloween parade for 10 years, and it’s an event that co-coordinator

Anita Hallock said attracted more than 100 people last year.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Hallock said. “All the kids and parents

participate.”

This year’s parade, which starts at 4 p.m. on Oct. 31, departs from the

corner of Oak Street and Republic Avenue in Costa Mesa.

A much more adult activity can be found at the grand ballroom of the

Doubletree Hotel, which will host the “Red Lion Party” from 9 p.m. to 2

a.m. on Oct. 30. About 2,000 people are expected at the party, which will

feature DJ Priest of Buzz At The Beach and DJ Roly of Aysia 101.

Almost its own category of event -- nothing else looks to be quite so

massive or extravagantly entertaining -- is Vineyard Christian

Fellowship’s “Fall Fun Night,” which features game booths, bands, DJs, a

maze, a dunk tank, a chili cook-off, two

“bouncers” and a large skate park for older kids.

The Fun Night, which runs from 4 to 8 p.m. on Oct. 31, is Vineyard’s largest event, both in terms of the organization’s preparations and of

the crowd that attends, said Kirk Kirlin, who helps to coordinate the

event. Last year, almost 1,500 revelers showed up.

But even a skate park with half pipe and grinding rails is hard pressed

to match the curious appeal of the haunted house, which is the

imaginative heart of spooky traditions on Halloween.

The Lou Yanton Boys and Girls Club of Costa Mesa is holding a haunted

house from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in addition to a carnival and costume contest.

Families Costa Mesa is planning to make its office space thoroughly

spooky for evening visitors.

“We’re going to change our office into something scary for kids,” said

Leda Albright, program director for the organization. “We’ll have weird

noises and flashing lights and disorienting things that people seem to

like one time a year for some strange reason or other.”

Around town, there are also a few intrepid residents who take it upon

themselves to transform their own homes into haunted destinations for

their trick-or-treating neighbors. This sort of thing has died down in

recent years as public caution about Halloween has increased, but it

hasn’t died out.

Jonathan Beach, a 16-year-old peninsula resident, has gone to tremendous

lengths to render several rooms of his parents’ house into sites of

terror and mayhem.

Just getting past the door of Beach’s Alvarado Place home is an ordeal,

as a scene of gory decapitation confront visitors before they’ve even

managed to ring the doorbell.

Inside, the offerings are no less gruesome.

Beach proudly displayed the coffin he has rigged up with artificial

cobwebs glowing skulls and a hissing fog machine. Inside the grim box, a

curious glance will uncover only more horror.

“There’s a guy in there,” Beach said. “It looks like his brains are

alive.”

As suggested, the brains of the figure in the coffin appeared to be

undulating and jiggling with unnerving vitality.

The brains, however, are only the beginning of the terror Beach has in

mind for visitors.

“People will be jumping out and grabbing people,” Beach noted. “It should

be interesting.”