MATTHEW BURNETTE

Staff Writer

Trick or treating growing up was always a mixed bag of emotions for me.

Obviously, as any kid does, I enjoyed collecting various candies and goodies for doing nothing other than dressing up in a costume and walking around. A pretty good deal on my end.

Were there some costumes that maybe at the time I was a little embarrassed to wear out in public out of fear of ridicule? Sure. Here’s lookin’ at you Mr. Potato Head.

But I was never too concerned about going out for the annual festivities.

My biggest issue was the approach.

As a notoriously shy kid, a trait that occasionally still rears its ugly head every so often despite working in a field that requires talking to strangers, I always found it difficult to walk up to houses in order to say the magic passcode that led to free candy: “Trick or treat.”

There would always be a couple of folks that would try to press the issue and force me and others to say it before they’d fork over the candy.

(Side note: That’s not really cool. I understand that there are conditions to this unwritten trick or treat contract, but don’t force a kid to talk if they don’t want, especially on a night that’s supposed to be fun.)

One house in particular though left me nearly trembling in fear along with just about every other child of my generation. Not because of shyness, but because of what awaited us at the end of the seemingly miles long walkway leading to the house.

College Street was always and still is the hub for Halloween activities in Woodbury. It’s where we all gathered and traversed the streets in search of treats.

About halfway down the street, one of the town’s most historic, there was this old, white two-story house that still stands to this day.

The house itself was always spookily decorated in a way that I can appreciate now as an adult, so there was always a little trepidation, but the real teeth-chattering fear came from the creature handing out the candy: a gorilla.

Now, obviously it wasn’t a real gorilla, but as a kid, it may as well have been. The way this guy in his gorilla suit silently lurked and slightly cocked his head when he looked at you could send a shiver down your spine.

For years, my fellow youths of the 90s and I have been left with the question: who was the man behind the gorilla suit?

It’s a memory we all shared but one didn’t have a creator for.

Was it one of the Street’s residents who really enjoyed Halloween and also terrifying children? Did a relative come into town and decide to cause a bit of mischief? Was it some wayward traveler with only a bindle of possessions and a movie-quality gorilla suit?

It’s something I thought about every year when Halloween rolled around. I inquired a couple of times with various folks and was never able to nail down an answer.

Then, around a month or so ago, I posted on social media about it to see if maybe I could put a face to the gorilla.

Several comments were left by people my age about their memories of being terrified of the same gorilla while they were trick or treating with one person, an avid Halloween fan, even admitting she loved the gorilla and his antics.

A comment then came in from a gentleman named Nathan who I knew from high school that absolutely blew my mind.

“That wasn’t a “he” at all. That was my grandma.”

His grandmother, a well-known lady in the community named Joann Davis, was indeed the gorilla perpetrator.

He noted that she just really enjoyed the holiday and her gorilla suit.

When you keep these mysteries in your head that you are never able to seem to find an answer to, the truth more often than not ends up being disappointing, but this one definitely wasn’t.

I learned that Mrs. Davis was a City Council member for several years and always had an open kitchen for anyone that was hungry. Upon her passing, her obituary noted that she had “a personality and sense of humor that brought abundant laughter and joy into any room she entered.”

A part of me wishes I would have had the chance to meet her and ask a few questions about her motivations. She sounds like she would have been a really fun person to talk with.

Instead I’ll just enjoy the fact that a whole generation of kids in my hometown were scared senseless by someone’s grandmother in a gorilla suit.