The Daily News
1 It's Halloween.
2 Almost.
3 I'm not sure as to exactly what that means except that I'm taking the Heidi show to the Chill on the Hill. Right into the Theatre. Lights down. Showtime. Great moments indeed.
4 Last year I was able to have a session with my Enlish class, but it wasn't nearly as intense or amazing as the annual ghost-story extravaganzas that we used to hold in the YB Theatre. I actually brought the legend to the Chill last year, but we crammed into my office, not into the Theatre. This will be a first.
5 It began yesterday in my English class. I began setting the story up for my class, and within minutes an all-too familiar feeling filled the room, which had turned cold.
6 Of course I realized instantly that it became cold because I controlled the thermostat but I must say...something kicked in, and the students couldn't wait when I told them to meet tomorrow "in front of the school's Theatre. Don't bring your books..."
7 I'm a day early. Doesn't matter; the original Heidi stories weren't told on Halloween, they were told on either the day before or the day after. They eventually progressed to being told on Halloween, but originally Halloween was reserved for student ghost stories. That tradition will begin again.
8 Anyway I'll be telling the Heidi stories today, the day before Halloween, and it is in keeping with the original ways the stories came to us. Keep in mind that the earliest stories were shrugged off by my practical, scientific self.
9 This will be the first time I'll be doing them in this school's Theatre. Now that it has become much more familiar with the place, it's a natural step.
10 Already some strange things have gone on up there, just not in the Theatre. First, if you're able to access last year's Halloween DN's, you'll know that the story followed me to the front door of the Chill.
11 Literally. On the very first day I went up there, a car pulled in front of me at the Ruby/Quimby corner, which is the corner on which the school sits.
12 A car pulled right in front of me. It's license read "High T 2". Sound it out and you'll see why I laughed aloud. My very first DAY up there.
13 Last year I brought my freshmen into my office, since there were only 20 of them. I turned all the lights off in the building, but it was still a little too bright because the hallway light outside my door has no switch, so it was stuck on.
14 At least until I started telling the story.
15 Once I began, it decided to go off by itself. The temperature in the office dropped.
16 Moving on, sort of: The night before last I visited the http://www.ybdrama.com website, just for old time's sake. I looked at the message board and saw there was a comment from a fellow by the name of Tony Long, from my very first year teaching at YB. I was surprised; it was from April. He said that he remembers walking into the dressing room when they were playing those board games, a direct reference to the earliest people trying to reach Heidi.
17 Unfortunately, I abandoned that website last year when Geocities (which sucks incidentally!) never gave me more memory when I paid for it.
18 I never saw Tony's message until the other night. I have since re-visited the message board and left a Halloween message to everybody. If you jump over there, you'll see it.
19 Anyway, two nights ago I tried to copy and paste the entire first chapter of The Heidi Chronicles onto this Xanga. When I went in to see if it worked, it had made a "ghost" of the Heidi Chronz right over yesterday's DN. I couldn't access this Xanga to do the DN. The ghost piece lay over the top of the DN, preventing it from happening.
20 It looked SO strange! You could look right through The Heidi Chronicles to that rather long DN you saw yesterday, only it had pictures of Lincoln and all the buttons and whistles of the Drama Workshop website embedded on top.
21 I finally was able to troubleshoot and ghost-bust the piece, but it was REALLY strange. There was simply no background, just the words and pictures sitting directly on top of yesterday's DN, like a transparency.
22 Eerie. It just was eerie late at night.
23 Moving on, part Next: Many long-term DN readers have experienced some of the strange manifestations of the story. Jenny has experienced her fair share.
24 Yesterday I sat down at my computer and looked up. There is this little statuette of Snow White that is standing next to the lamp above the computer. I looked up and thought of Jenny and Jeff's wedding, and how it had a Disney princess feel to it, and at exactly that moment, Jenny called. Of course she laughed.
25 And last year I printed an e-mail that came to us from Jeff, who was in Iraq at the time. He had talked about this strange feeling he had when he was in our Theatre all alone one time.
26 That was something I had never talked about, because it just sounds too dramatic and borderline "emo". But every single year I would get that very essence, that very eerie feeling each time I would tell the story.
27 That happened instantly yesterday when I talked to my class about the story. I could simply feel the same exact feelings that would always come over the room each time I would tell the story.
28 I've always said I never really cared if people believed the stories or not. Getting people to believe all that stuff was never an issue. I always simply reported events that occurred, some of the strangest things ever.
29 They happen now with such regularity that it no longer phases me.
30 It actually gives me hope.
31 Anyway, today I'm going right into a Theatre that has been more and more welcoming to me. I'll report anything unusual.
32 And yes, it's going to be the same story, the classic Heidi stories with Abe Lincoln and the Titanic. The things that have happened since are just repetitious, almost like a cursory reading of Poe's The Bells. Good, but not Annabel Lee or The Raven.
33 But stuff will happen. Just yesterday a student brought up Abe Lincoln when I began the tale. I hadn't mentioned a thing about Lincoln. I smiled. I might not know a lot about what this all means, but I do know that stuff will happen.
34 That much I do know.
35 And I'll be waiting for it. Already when I was writing this, and mentioned Jenny, a girl named Jenny started dancing on Dancing With the Stars. It had a commercial for Toys 'R' Us on, the only one I've seen all year.
36 Happy Halloween.
37 Almost.
38 Peace.
~H~
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