CONTENTS 10/31/2020
Halloween Round-Up
Halloween & Covid
Mayor Discourages Trick-Or-Treating
Little Mighty Story Box
Jaeger Street Halloween House
Kulshan Street Haunted Trail
Shout Out & Review
Candy Chutes
Virtual Pet Parade
Lundquist Woods Closed For Halloween
Halloween Activities
York Scarecrow Throw Down
Clean-Up Party
Free Elliptical
Hand In Hand Parenting
Quote From Tolkien
Radio Free Fl!p: Griesly Bride
Happy Halloween!!!
HALLOWEEN ROUND-UP
Here are all my recent Halloween posts in one convenient spot.
HALLOWEEN & COVID
The Whatcom County Health Department considers trick or treating to be high risk, and offers other suggestions.
[My favorite alternative is the families I’ve hear from who are letting their kids trick or treat at each exterior and interior door in their house. My Grand-Twins are doing it with their Bubble Family. I’m fantasizing hiding in the closet under the stairs, waiting for the knock! Love/Fl!p]
MAYOR DISCOURAGES TRICK-OR-TREATING
From WhatcomTalk: City of Bellingham, written by Janice Keller
With Halloween just around the corner, Bellingham Mayor Seth Fleetwood joins local health officials encouraging everyone to celebrate safely to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. This includes avoiding traditional door-to-door trick-or-treating – especially in typically popular Bellingham residential neighborhoods – and incorporating face masks and social distancing into Halloween activities.
LITTLE MIGHTY STORY BOX
Corner of Victor/W.Connecticut
This Halloween, the one and only, on special occasions installed, invites aimless, searching Halloween strollers of all ages to casual window-shop some eye candy offered via a two part display of imaginative puppet-telling. Walk or cycle by at your own pace! Colorful curbside dioramas will attempt to tell the tale of an obscure, mysterious two part sequel to the Jack and the beanstalk story called: “One More Bean.” Warning: Yes ! Evil Giants will be visualized !
The tableau of Act ONE will be on view SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, from 1 PM till after dark. Followed by Act TWO the next day, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1, at same times, same place. Have a Healthy, Safe, Sane, Loving, Creative Harvest Time! No Tricks! ~ ”Max” Eberhard Eichner, Puppeteller
JAEGER STREET HALLOWEEN HOUSE
Trick or Treaters: Due to Covid-19 we will NOT be partaking in handing candy out BUT we did do the outside up for ALL the neighborhood kiddos. Happy Halloween Columbia, have a safe night. ~Jared Jones-Valentine, 2400 block of Jaeger (you can’t miss it!)
KULSHAN STREET HAUNTED TRAIL
COMING SOON! My friends and I have designed and decorated the first annual HAUNTED TRAIL! All Ages Welcome! Masks, Hand-Sanitizer, and Social Distancing will be Enforced. Join us Friday, October 30th & Saturday, October 31st from 6:30PM until 10PM on the 2700 Block of Kulshan Street (North End) – Happy Halloween! ~ Grayson Stone, 2730 Kulshan Street, 360-788-3730 GraysonStone31@gmail.com
[Our eldest son is putting on a COVID aware, open air, sanitized haunted trail on Friday and Saturday night with masked up BHS ghouls. There will be hand sanitizer and masks required for entry and social distance a must. It is all ages friendly, but obviously kids scare differently. You still need to be the judge. These are really good kids building this and they’re not out to traumatize…much!]
KULSHAN TRAIL SHOUT OUT & REVIEW
I’d like to give a simultaneous shout out & warning. The Haunted Trail On Kulshan Street is astounding; these neighbors have outdone themselves! It is so well done, in fact, that it maybe seems best suited for high school-age kids & up. We’re big Halloween folks and this place is SCARY. Probably not good for young kids; it was too much for ours. In any case, kudos to the artists who brought this project to life. Yikes! Happy Samhain! ~ Morning Manzo
CANDY CHUTES
Almost all households appear to be going dark, and almost all families report they are skipping trick or treating this year. There are at least a couple houses with candy chutes. One on Eldridge and on in the 2200 block of Victor. Stay safe everyone!
VIRTUAL PET PARADE
Happy Halloween Week! We are partnering with Whatcom Humane Society to create a virtual Costume Parade with your four-legged friends. Cats, dogs, llamas and lizards, frogs, donkeys . Go to the Garden Spot Nursery facebook page and post a picture of your pet in an awesome costume, and let’s have a blast! For the first 50 (heck! let us make a 100) pets who post a photo, we will donate $5 per pet to Whatcom Humane Society. Donations help sustain and support our Humane Society’s programs to care and find homes for animals in Whatcom County. ~ Marcy Plattner
LUNDQUIST WOODS CLOSED FOR HALLOWEEN
With Halloween coming up very soon, we thought we should notify our neighbors that due to the pandemic, our ‘destination Halloween house’ will not be open for trick or treating this year. We have not put up any outside Halloween lights like we normally do, and we will not be carving and lighting pumpkins, nor handing out treats. We have LOVED being a great place to trick or treat for decades, but this year, it just isn’t the right thing to do, so we are not. No one on the West end of Jefferson will be offering treats to our great neighborhood kids, but we think everyone will understand. And we thought we should save people a trip down our street! We do plan to light up for Christmas though!! Thanks. ~ Pat and Bob Lundquist, Jefferson Street
HALLOWEEN ACTIVITIES
Margaret Bikman has gathered a great collection of things to do this year. Check it out!
https://www.whatcomtalk.com/2020/10/13/halloween-is-still-a-thing/
YORK SCARECROW THROW DOWN
Anne Mackie, here, with York Neighborhood Association. I got a call from someone outside the neighborhood who was interested in the details about our Scarecrow contest, so I thought I would reach out to you. It was announced in the Weekly, so it has gained some external interest.We just wanted something fun for the kids to do on Halloween (adults, too). So the details are, if you want to announce it (or not):
York Neighborhood’s Wine & Roses Garden Club is sponsoring a “Scarecrow Throw Down” contest. The scarecrows are popping up around the neighborhood with Halloween Sat. Oct. 31 being the deadline to enter the contest. The list of addresses will be published by then on YorkNeighborhood Facebook https://www.facebook.com/yorkneighborhood and our website, yorkneighborhood.org
If someone wants to “enter” their scarecrow they can email to:
OR…if they have a great scarecrow in another neighborhood, let us know so we can come take a picture!
CLEAN-UP PARTY
Put on a Halloween costume and head out anytime between October 21st and November 1st for a solo cleanup, send us your photos and win a chance for some sweet treats! Join Surfrider Northwest Straits Chapter, Surfider Western Washington University Club, and RE Sources to get that Trash Monster this fall!
We need anyone in Whatcom County who wants to lend a hand picking up trash! Just be sure to follow all health and safety guidelines and have fun out there! Complete your cleanup anytime between October 21st and November 1st. Submit your photo along with the rough amount of trash cleaned up to Kirsten by 5 PM on November 1st for a chance to win some prizes, including some t-shirts, soap from Sea Witch Botanicals, and gift certificates to local Ocean Friendly Restaurants! We especially encourage folks to head out on Saturday, October 24th for Make a Difference Day, but anytime that works for you is a good time!
Why? To keep our waterways clean and free of harmful garbage! And because we can’t organize larger cleanups like we usually do because of COVID, we’d love for everyone to still come together as a community to make an impact on the trash monster
DETAILS: nws@surfrider.org
FREE ELLIPTICAL
I’m looking to give away the elliptical sitting in my garage. It works fine but runs on 4 D batteries that always seem to be dead by the time I think to get on it (such as right now). Would be perfect for someone with a better exercise ethic and a battery recharger! BYO batteries to try it out. Christina Nichols, Lynn St. (360) 820-9266
HAND IN HAND PARENTING
Flip, I wanted to say thank you from the top and bottom of my soul. A couple of months ago you sent me a link to Hand-in-Hand Parenting. I have since read (well, actually, listened to–) Patty Wipfler’s book, Listen: Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges, and I’ve also listened to countless Hand-in-Hand Parenting podcasts; and I even recently took part in a week-long special playtime challenge.
Our family is forever changed. I would venture so far as to say saved even. Previously I had read many great parenting books and articles offering fantastic perspective, but what I really, desperately needed, was concrete tools. I’m just realizing that there are so many of us who, despite being educated, well intentioned, full of love, etc. etc., just never experienced or learned some of the basics. With Hand-in-Hand Parenting it is all laid out. Accessible. Encouraging. Effective.
Thank you. ~ Morning Manzo
[I couldn’t be more thrilled! If I could, I would hand a copy of this book to every parent I know. Here, at least, is a link to her website: https://www.handinhandparenting.org/ ~Love/Fl!p]
QUOTE FROM TOLKIEN
FRODO: I can’t do this, Sam.
SAM: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened.
But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.
FRODO: What are we holding on to, Sam?
SAM: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.
RADIO FREE FL!P: GRIESLY BRIDE
OK. I’ve been waiting weeks for this! This is the song I thought of when I decided I wanted to post Halloween songs. This may be the scariest song I know. I got it from Laura Smith (used to live on Williams Street but moved to Fairhaven years ago). I don’t have a recording of her singing it, doggone it! I did find a pretty darned good version from Cindy Mangson. Based on the “The Griesly Bride” by Australian poet John Manifold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUtsgIQZHag
Love/Fl!p 360-671-4511 2518 Cherry Street flip@columbianeighborhood.org
If you want to ask me to post something, just email me. If it’s urgent, phone. If it’s a real emergency, call 911.