Fright Nights

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 tomorrow and run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through Oct. 30. Tickets are $7 for adults and $4 for kids 7-10. Tours leave every 15 minutes from 6 to 8:30 p.m.

The 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.

There’s the one about John Kelley and the wife he left behind in Kansas. Another about the heroism of a young schoolteacher who put out a fire started by a passing train. In another, a gun battle that really happened on Main Street in 1903 comes back to life.

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.

This year the tours begin and end at the 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.

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.

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.

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. For reservations and information, call 525-3073.