Ghouls and Giggles

Halloween used to be a one-night stand, a frenzy of Tootsie Rolls and ghoulish get-ups. Now it’s a season, and along with trips to the pumpkin patch, you can scare yourself silly the next few weeks during Santa Paula’s Ghost Walk ’97.

This annual wingding is an evening amble through one of Santa Paula’s older, ritzy neighborhoods where ghosts emerge from the shadows with ghastly tales of death, ill-fated love, and, on the lighter side, surfing.

In fact, this grisly stroll is more bone-tickling than bone-chilling. If you want to glimpse these spooks, you’ve got your choice of days and times. The tours begin Friday and run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through Oct. 30. Tours leave every 15 minutes from 6 to 8:30 p.m.

These costumed ghosts come courtesy of the Santa Paula Theater Center, which benefits from this walk on the wild side. The stories they tell are scripted from Santa Paula history--with embellishments and fabrications in some cases.

“We try to keep it historically correct,” said Mary Alice Henderson, president of the local historical society and organizer of the ghost walk. “All year long we keep an eye out for stories from old newspapers.”

Take the story of “Electric Lizzy.” The Chamberlain family actually had a home, built in 1924, which was Santa Paula’s first electric house, and it was a doozy. Designed with every imaginable electric feature, it even boasted electric doors. Of course, the character of Electric Lizzy is a fictitious character--and one not too taken with all these newfangled gadgets.

Then there’s the one about John Kelley and the wife he left behind in Kansas. Another about the heroism of a young school teacher who put out a fire started by a passing train. In another, a gun battle that really happened on Main Street in 1903 comes to life. The acrobatic adventures of a fabricated character named “Barnstorming Bill” pay humorous homage to Santa Paula’s place in aviation history.

Louis Hengehold, a familiar face at Santa Paula’s venerable Mill store, plays a 1960s surfer dude whose demise is hardly morbid.

“He’s a wonderful actor--he’s everyone’s favorite,” Henderson said. “He’s so natural.”

This is the fourth year the actors and assorted volunteers--60 people in all--have put together this pre-Halloween spoof. Each year the skits and the walking route have been different.

This year the tours begin and end at McKevett School, with groups gathering on the southeast corner of Mill and Pleasant streets. From there it’s a one-hour saunter past the classy hillside homes in the McKevett subdivision, built in the 1920s. These were the homes built for the merchants on Santa Paula’s flourishing Main Street.

As guides lead the groups along the route, they pass on tidbits about the city’s history and its early denizens, like the McKevett and Teague families, prominent for their roles in building up the citrus industry. McKevett School itself is something of a landmark. Built in 1911, it won architectural awards in its day.

The walk is about a mile long, and the whole tour with its six stops for ghostly encounters takes about an hour. It’s wheelchair accessible, but there is a hill to climb. Bring a flashlight, and leave very young children at home. This is for adults and children at least 7 years old.

*

If you want more of a toe-tapping Halloween, join the “Class-eeks” for their musical spoof of the spooks at the Santa Paula Theater Center.

The seven-member vocal group of local residents puts a humorously ghoulish spin on classics like “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” “Witchcraft,” “Masquerade” from “Phantom of the Opera,” and “Hernando’s Hideaway” from “Pajama Game.”

They put an especially gruesome twist on the sad ballad “Didn’t We,” the one that goes like this: “This time we almost made the pieces fit.” They also throw in a couple of ditties by comic satirist Tom Lehrer.

The hourlong show includes a guest storyteller, and more music from the Schuel family of Santa Paula. Shows are today and Oct. 23, 7:30 p.m., at the theater, 127 S. 7th St., Santa Paula. Tickets are $5 for adults, $2.50 for children 12 and under. For reservations and information, call 525-3073.

BE THERE

Ghost Walk ‘97, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 24-26, and Oct. 30; 6 to 8:30 p.m. Tours leave from McKevett School, southeast corner of Mill and Pleasant streets, every 15 minutes. Tickets are $7 for adults, $4 for kids 7-10. For reservations and information, call 525-3073.