THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 26, 1995 TAG: 9510240143
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VICKI LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Mary Jones' children are too old to trick or treat, but that doesn't stop this mother of two from making sure that the youngsters in her neighborhood have a fun - and scary - Halloween.
For the last month, Jones has been gathering huge cardboard boxes, paint, fake spiders and artificial cobwebs to turn her concrete driveway on Bill Street in Forest Park into a tunnel of horror for trick or treaters on Halloween night. She also has recruited friends and relatives to dress up as witches, vampires and monsters - including a 7-foot-tall Frankenstein - to greet the little ones during their quest for candy.
Brave trick or treaters will make their way down the 39-foot enclosed tunnel only to be met by a ``live'' vampire lying in a black coffin, constructed by Mary and her brother out of cardboard and painted black. Only then will they get their candy.
Mindful that wee little ones may be too scared to enter the tunnel, she'll also have someone out front to fill their bags.
``I love Halloween,'' Jones said. ``I'm just a kid at heart.
``It's the one time of the year that you can act really silly and get away with it.''
Actually, Jones said she and her family love all special occasions. At Christmas, her family enjoys decorating their home with wooden Christmas carolers, Santa, and a sleigh and reindeers that they made themselves.
Forest Park is very big on Halloween, too. Many of the homes in the tree-shaded neighborhood are decorated for the event. Even without the tunnel, the Joneses' yard displays scary heads hanging from the trees, a billowy white ghost and tombstones protruding from the ground.
Only a handful of kids in the neighborhood know what the Joneses have planned for Halloween, but she won't let them peek at the yet to be completed tunnel.
The tunnel, which is adorned with ghosts, bloody hands, devils, spiders, bats and other creepy creatures, was constructed from huge appliance boxes, including seven refrigerator boxes and five dishwasher boxes. They were donated by Luskin's and Norfolk Paint, which donated paint, too.
The boxes have been a bone of contention between Jones and her husband, Kenny, an auto technician.
``They really take up a lot of room,'' Jones said. They've been banned from the garage, where he keeps the car he uses to compete at a Richmond drag-racing strip.
For that reason, she said that even though she plans to construct the tunnel again next year, she'll start from scratch.
This is the second year she has made a Halloween tunnel. The first time was in 1988, when, she said, her work was met with great enthusiasm.
Jones has two children - Dusty, a 16-year-old student at Granby High School, and Wendy, 20, who is at George Mason University in Fairfax. Dusty helped paint the pumpkin patch mural in the tunnel, but he has yet to commit himself to being present Tuesday night.
Jones' biggest fear now is not the demons and goblins she has all over her yard but rain. The cardboard tunnel, of course, is very vulnerable to water. She said that in addition to keeping her fingers crossed, she'll make sure that she has plenty of plastic bags to drape the tunnel with if the unthinkable happens.
She hasn't yet decided what kind of candy she'll distribute to the trick or treaters.
``Whatever I can get a large quantity of,'' she said. ``I'm going to need a lot.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY C. KNAPP
Mary Jones works on her Halloween tunnel at her Forest Park home.
by CNB