Staff writer
Linda Orcutt’s favorite holiday is Halloween. She goes all-out decorating her front yard at 812 Poplar Street in Peabody.
Three different ghosts hang from the middle tree in her front yard. She has a large spider web underneath another tree complete with stuffed animal spiders.
“The kids enjoy it,” Orcutt said. “They say, ‘Your house is so cool.’”
She said she made most of the decorations; she started working on them after Oct. 1. Candy corn characters made of wood welcome children to the yard. A pirate and gypsy guard the house; their faces are made out of carved coconuts. Nellie Orcutt, Linda’s late mother-in-law carved the coconuts.
“I think she did a great job,” Orcutt said. “She used a lot of sea shells to make the teeth.”
While trick-or-treaters enjoy Orcutt’s decorations, her house was one of several Peabody residences vandalized last Halloween. The ghosts in her tree were torn down and their heads were separated from their bodies. A witch in a different tree was pulled down and was decapitated.
The vandals moved the coconut people but did not smash their heads. Orcutt would not have been able to replace the heads.
She does not expect the vandals to be deterred by a curfew.
“It’s not the little ones,” Orcutt said.
But, she won’t be deterred by vandals.
“I’ll put it back together and put it right back,” she said.
Special curfew
The official trick-or-treat event in the city will be Oct. 31, which is a Sunday. An 8:30 p.m. curfew for anyone younger than 18 will be enforced by local police officers.
“Anyone who is not yet 18 must either be at home or in the company of a parent or guardian after 8:30 Halloween night,” Peabody Police Chief Bruce Burke said. “A juvenile may not be out after curfew accompanied by an older sibling — it must be a parent or guardian.”
For more information contact the city building at (620) 983-2174 or the police department at (620) 983-2133.