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Monday, December 5, 2022

Hexeglaawe: Rehmeyer's Hollow

In 1928, after years of bad luck, John Blymire believed that he had been cursed, or hexed, by a local folk healer named Nelson Rehmeyer, who practiced pow-wow or Braucheri (Pennsylvania Dutch folk magic). The source of Blymire’s hex was confirmed by another powerful local healer, Nellie Noll - the River Witch of Marietta. To break the curse, she instructed Blymire to obtain a lock of Rehmeyer’s hair and his spell book and bury them six feet underground. In November of 1928, Blymire, along with two accomplices, broke into Rehmeyer's home. A confrontation ensued, ending in Rehmeyer's death. The three men charged with the crime then set fire to the house, hoping to remove the curse and to destroy evidence of the murder. However, the house did not burn down as they had hoped. This reinforced the belief that Rehmeyer was a witch and that his power prevented the destruction of the house.

Rehmeyer's home, where he was murdered, still stands on Rehmeyers Hollow Road. The area has now come to be known as Hex Hollow. Many locals believe it to be haunted.

This is the first entry in a series of blog posts investigating the folklore of Pennsylvania. Hexeglaawe (the PA Dutch word for 'superstition') will hopefully reveal photographic evidence of rural legends, hauntings, folklore, and roads less traveled.

Thanks, Wren, for this neat idea and project. I have a feeling we're just gonna find some monsters out there.

More information here.

Order Rehmeyer's spell book here.

Thursday, December 1, 2022

Ethereal Plane

Image by Matthew Bellemare.

Spooky Season

Nuts to think Halloween is almost a month in the past already. But what a Season it's been. I swore I'd savor it, and I did. This October was truly the best ever. Usually, autumn feels like it's a million miles away. And the heat lingers unseasonably and uncomfortably close for far too long. Then, suddenly, you see some trees changing colors and pumpkins in a bin at a local supermarket. The air gets crisp and it's a mad dash to get it all in before it slips through your fingers. And then it's Haunt-prep time. Lists within lists. Nervous energy as you pray the weather holds out. Like preparing for an elaborate, one-night-only theater in the park performance, with no covering to keep your stage props (or your audience) dry from any potential rain (I'm pretty uptight [and theatrical]).

I mentioned this a bunch of blog posts ago, but this year was the first year I was able to break from the "Tradition" of worrying too much and replace it with some actual fun in the days leading up to the High Holiday. My good friend Wren was in town, and we crammed in as much Halloween-adjacent activities as we could. Haunted attractions, prop photo shoots, horror films, Halloween candy shops, Peddler's Village scarecrows, seasonal cocktails and autumnal dinner menus, flights of wine and bourbon, a bar that could have been the bar in Halloween III, and the Lambertville Halloween House.

The Builders...

This year's Haunt was a challenging one. My biggest to date, with more props than I've ever built in one season. It was going to be a ton of work, and I was extremely grateful to have Wren as a collaborator throughout the year and as a co-Haunter on the big night. We talked a lot about what The Builders were up to. Why would they be building so many scarecrows, and what would they look like? What would three creatures use to build their totems? Were old boards and rusted cans logical? Were human skulls? For me, collaboration is a rare event. It happened back in 2018 when Theo and I worked together to build 2018's CHURCH display (still the most magical and insane memory). Aside from then, my Haunt concepts and execution have always been a solitary thing. 2022 was a wonderful and welcome change.

The Haunt became something entirely different than my original idea. That never happened before. The glowing red sepulchers within each scarecrow's abdomen - Wren's idea. The torn and tattered funeral-black cloth hanging above and around The Builders on the porch - her idea and execution. I could tell that this Haunt was going to be a hit with the trick-or-treaters. It had a depth to it that made it feel huge. And the scarecrows, despite being 13 in number, felt like they stretched out into the darkness and across the street and into the endless night. The spacing and height are something I also need to thank Wren for, as my initial plans were to have them all at the same height and much closer to the porch.

As we slowly built the Haunt on October 30th, we knew we had something unusually special by the time the sun was setting. We were exhausted from a full day of building our Dark Theater in the Park, and neighbors and passersby were stopping. And they were staring - with huge grins. I gave short tours of the fully lit and fog-filled display. The photos and video I've posted oddly do not do it justice. My one neighbor from up the street pulled his car over and hopped out. He kept saying "Oh my GOD!" and he asked excitedly "Do people KNOW about this?! We have to tell them! We have to call the news!" (I had PTSD flashbacks of my mom and her fame-driven motivations and threats to call the local news despite me informing her I would boycott and skip town if I saw a news van pulling up).

The annual open house Halloween party for friends and family was the best to date. At one point the house was pretty packed, with people laughing, drinking spirits, and eating some incredibly fun and amazing food (going to thank Wren again for that). It felt like a Halloween party from a TV special. I felt a ton of gratitude all night long. Tons.

Enter Michael Myers...

He was there. Handing out candy. Head tilts and slow hand movements. Occasionally he would walk onto the porch anticipating that the last group of kids would look back over their shoulders. When they did, and when they saw him, standing emotionless and cold (and close), they would shriek and run off. It worked perfectly all night long.

Earlier in the day, as the afternoon school buses were passing through this street on Halloween, one of the buses slowly pulled by the display. A few of the windows were down and one of the bigger kids saw me moving about finessing some props. I wasn't in costume (Michael Myers had yet to escape the sanitarium you see). The boy yelled out quite politely "Excuse me, sir? Sir?! Are you Michael Myers?!"

I yelled back "Yes! Yes, I AM Michael Myers!"

And I think I might be.

Below are a bunch of photos from this magical October (I'll be blogging later about some of these)...