It pretty much goes without saying that T-shirts play a big role in legitimizing events. Our haunted trail had T-shirts.

Dubbed The Forbidden Forest (before Harry Potter trivia practically became common knowledge) our group of 19 high school freshman and sophomores also had autonomy over the domain name www.scarytrail.com. But this was the year 2000, when you could probably get still get away with www.travel.com, and the like. At that age, anything “official” tickled our fancies. We even had titles. I happened to be co-assistant manager.

But I get annual pangs of nostalgia for different reasons: for the strains of Psycho wafting through the big oaks (the panic-inducing signal to take our places) and for my blood-pumping, voice-changing mask. I miss convening afterwards in the bright kitchen, peeling off my sweaty mask and trading stories with my fellow trail operators.

“Her scream sounded like this …!”

“Some lady tried to scramble away from me and fell over.”

“A squirrel was scratching at my coffin and scared the crap out of me!”

The main attraction that year was a 400-foot abandoned “mineshaft” (an above-ground tunnel) that we constructed with posts and post hole diggers, screws, rope, and sheets of black plastic. Details were our specialty. I remember spending an entire afternoon carving the words Fortune Mine into a sign – gouging out the woody fibers with a flathead screwdriver, one stubborn wedge at a time. We took mannequin heads and hollowed them out, filling them with dyed red rice. We strung pulleys up in the woods, making ghosts travel impressive distances and dropping giant rubber rats from the sky. We removed the wicks from citronella lamps and wired them with flicker bulbs, then misted them with black spray paint for a “coal dust” effect. It was like one really prolonged art project where the group actually liked working together. The crazed lumberjack and the avalanche simulation operator started dating. But we got stuff done.

    What was perhaps most endearing about our haunted trail production was that we pulled if off (mostly) without the help or supervision of adults. Yes, my friends’ parents graciously volunteered the large, wooded portion of their backyard and lent us their tools, but the hours of sweat were our own. In fact, sometimes their good intentions hindered our progress. I remember delivering a sealed note from my mom to my friends’ mom on one of the first weekend work sessions, which was opened and read aloud: Peg – Please do not allow Kinzy to operate, go near, or assist with the use of any power tools. – Pam. Determined to make up for my handicap, I worked furiously with a handsaw, which probably reversed her intentions.

On opening night, the lights went out. All of our little orange and purple lights lining the trail were dead. Upon closer inspection, we found tiny teeth marks along the plastic-coated wires – it was the work of a rodent. So we scrounged, and luckily, my friends’ basement had tubs of white Christmas lights, which did the job, though it took all of us to lay them out. Minutes later, more than 300 people lined up at the “rocky” entrance of (Mis)Fortune Mine.

Over the course of three October weekends, we raised $2,000 for local charities. It felt extraordinary, and yet I knew we weren’t extraordinary. Most of us were pretty average kids with access to resources, the willingness to ask for financial help (11 businesses offered up funds), and many unstructured afternoons on our hands. We spent a lot of time “testing” the zip-lined skeleton and the switch on the singing ghost bride. Sometimes it was all-out playtime under the guise of work – perfect for teenagers.

What has stuck with me is the insight that you don’t need to be associated with an organization to put on a successful production, and it’s not a necessity to work under the instruction/vision of adults. It was my first venture into DIY. And because of that, on the night I turned 16, I laid in a “grave,” holding a walkie talkie and waiting to hear from the entrance crew what the next “scare level” would be. A 10? Is it a 10? … and then I crouched.