Go into Guv’s Place in Houlton these days, and you will see lots of creatures with skeletal hands, many of them entangled in — or hanging from — spider-like webbing and holding outdated, creepy weapons.
Some heads also dangle from the ceiling, hung up by things such as their tounges or lips.
This is the seasonal contribution of bartender Jess Thompson.
Her love of putting up Halloween characters began when the kids came along — they’re now about 18 years old.
So that makes her a veteran, credentials that are enhanced by the five-year-anniversary of the startup of Guv’s, and its fourth Halloween party. This also has served as an anniversary party, and most every year the haunted offerings grow more extreme.
“This year I didn’t go as all out, with the bridge being closed,” she said of the span across the St. Croix River at Stillwater. “Still, people keep on bringing me things to put up.”
In the past, a lot to them have gone to also fill a big tent in parking lot, but this year the goblins have taken a break from that extra source of fright, since the patron level had temporarily dropped off. Thompson had purchased “trees” with creeping branches, and they were put inside the tent, prompting many people to take pictures with them as a backdrop.
Still this year, that doesn’t mean that characters such as “Uncle Charlie,” who is almost six feet tall, don’t hang out inside the bar.
What is Thompson’s scary style of choice? (Aside from dangling body parts).
“My favorite are creepy clowns. I find them amusing,” she said. They reside mostly in the corners of the bar, and are joined on the northwest end by a poor soul on a gurney who is being electrocuted.
Some of her co-workers have said they’re a little freaked by the clowns — as well as Death looming over an entryway to a back room — when closing up under dim lighting at night. “People tell me that they’re creeped out. They’ve said they have glowing eyes. I find that all a little funny,” she said about the fear inspired by those blinking windows to the soul.
Do Thompson’s co-workers tease her? “Oh yeah. Oh yeah. All the time,” she said.
And does she feel a bit guilty? “Nope,” she said without remorse. “But every year they give me crap.”
So she continues to add more things each Halloween.
No such pretense is needed at Season’s Tavern in North Hudson, or at some entertainment haunts along the main drag in downtown Hudson, such as the new tenants of the basement of the old Opera House, or various places high and low in the Dibbo Hotel.
Maybe it’s the history of this being a more rough-and-tumble area when a 1800s outpost town, but workers insist they have seen ghosts, or at least things such as plates or silverware moving about because of them.
At Season’s, the ghost is known to most longtime workers. It hangs out in one of the northern, back corners of the lower-level and is said to have a plaid lumberjack shirt, and be accompanied by a just as dead dog. Part of the theory about why this soul is so restless is that there’s a cave-like maze off the south end that led to his death in pioneer days.
To get there, you have to go through the kitchen, which is where he plays an occasional practical joke on staff members and makes things tip of shelves.
There should be a proviso here to diners. It’s very unlikely that you’ll have your meal disrupted by the ghost since he only comes out right before closing.
I guess last call even applies to the undead.