Street Talk

By Shari Kaplan

In the spirit of Halloween, what's the spookiest or scariest thing that's ever happened to you? (Asked at the Almaden Library)

“I was taking my kids trick-or-treating last year and I saw this weird Frankenstein-type man lying down in a huge Halloween-decorated yard. I thought he was fake. Then all of a sudden, he jumped up and came after me! I was really startled! One of my friends laughed and told me that I was “an easy pick.”

Colleen Brass , 46

Almaden Valley

Chiropractor

“I was 6 years old and there was a house in our neighborhood with an old couple where the lady acted like a scary witch on Halloween. She had weird face makeup and a wart on her nose. She talked about having a cauldron she'd put all these gross things in. And she'd say to her husband: “Come out here ‘cause I have some nice little kids to cook in the cauldron!”

Matthew Brass , 9

Almaden Valley

Holy Spirit School student

“I was lying on the couch at home when the 1989 [Loma Prieta] earthquake hit and when I got up I couldn't even move. It felt like my house was bouncing up and down. I didn't know where my elderly mother was and I remember yelling: ‘Mother! Mother!' After it subsided, I found her pressed against the wall —it looked like she was holding up the wall!”

Joyce Williamson , 75

San Jose

Friends of the Library volunteer

“I was sitting having lunch and fishing at Echo Lake here in Almaden Valley and I noticed a big tarantula creeping along on my jacket. I freaked out! I must have jumped about two feet in the air! I think I was about 11 years old at the time. I've also almost touched some black widow spiders on the woodpile out behind our house.”

Terry Haggin , 44

Almaden Valley

Web site designer and Save Echo Lake Committee founder

“I was spending Thanksgiving at a friend's house in the late 1970s. I couldn't get to sleep, when suddenly I got this strange feeling. It was like I was aware of the whole room. I heard footsteps getting closer and louder, and then I heard a voice that said “you don't belong here!” The next morning I told my friend's grandmother and she said there were things that went bump in the night all the time there. She said it was haunted by the ghost of a ranch hand who was murdered at the turn of the century.”

Paul Dileanis , 48

Fremont

Photographer

“I can't think of anything spooky, but the scariest thing was when my 2-year-old son —he's 14 now—fell through a second-floor window. I was getting dressed in my room when I heard a loud crash. He'd been running and slipped on some water on the floor. We thought we'd lost him, but he had grabbed a tree branch on the way down, so he didn't hit the ground so hard. He just had one cut by his ear.”

Mojey Ghafouri , 36

Almaden Valley

Loan officer