DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

  Candy Corn, Tootsie Rolls, Snickers, and Hershey's Chocolate products are popular with trick or treaters.  Other than how good they taste, what else is there to know about these yummy treats?  Take a look at some of these fun candy facts.    Candy Corn was invented in the 1880s by George Rennigner.     The oldest company to produce the surgary corn is The Goelitz Company which is now known as the Jelly Belly Company .  They have used the same recipe for over 100 years.  Can't get enough of this Halloween classic?  At the moment, you can buy 10 pound for $81 dollars.   Approximately 9 billion pieces of it will be made each year.    Tootsie Rolls were invented in 1896 by Leo Hirshfield.  The product is named after Hirschfield's daughter whose nickname was "Tootsie".  In 1896 Tootsie Roll cost one cent.  In fact, it was the first "individually wrapped penny candy".  Over 100 years l...

   Halloween, as we know it has been a tradition in our country for many years, but have you ever wondered where it came from?  The Celts, or people from and around Ireland, the United Kingdom and Northern France around 2000 years ago had their new year as November the 1st.  So that meant  the end of the year for them, the time when the harvest was over and the start of the long cold winter was October 31st.  Due to the facts that many people died in the winter, and the living world and the dead opened up.  On this day the dead could invade the world of the living and priests would be able to predict the future and talk to the dead more easily.  They would dress up and at a large central bonfire, pay homage to their Celtic deities, sacrificing animals to the gods.  They would also try to tell each others fortunes while dressed up in costumes of animal skins and heads.    These festivals of sorts was known as Samhain (pronounce...

Belcourt Castle    One of Newport, Rhode Island's most exquisite landmarks is the French Renaissance-style  chateau known to locals as the Belcourt Castle.  Many believe it to be the location of paranormal phenomena and events that involve haunted chairs, ghostly armor, apparitions, a statue that has been declared as possessed, and a haunted mirror that is truly baffling as you cannot see your reflection, only moving images that shift back and forth.   Belcourt Castle is not for the faint of heart as sightings are normal occurrence when visitors take the candlelight or the more favored haunted tour through the darkest corners of the property, especially the spooky Gothic Ballroom. Known as the hot spot for apparitions, visitors love seeing the vast collection of antiquities and the occasional spirit that lights up the room.  Belcourt Ballroom       The Castle was built for the wealthy bachelor, Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, who ...

    With Halloween just around the corner, here's a true American haunting story.The story of the "Bell Witch.    The haunting, which took place in the early 1800's on a farm in Tennessee has never been explained, although a lot of theories exist about what might have happened there.  The strange activity has captured the minds of many writers over the years, who have gone to write their own fictional ghost stories.  One of the best known is " The Blair Witch Project".    As is the case with a lot of ghost stories, there are many different versions about who the Bell Witch really was.  However, the most popular belief is that she was a rather disagreeable neighbor of the Bell family.  Apparently, she felt that she had been cheated when the Bell's purchased a piece of her land.  It wasn't a slight that she intended to overlook, so as the story goes, she cursed the Bell family on her deathbed, promising to kill John Bell.  The ...

   In Chinese folklore Chiang-Shih, or "hopping ghost", is a combination of spirit monster and unburied corpse, which vaguely resembles a Western Vampire; it comes to life and wreaks death and misfortune.  The Chinese believe that an unburied corpse was a great danger because evil spirits could easily inhabit it.    Traditionally the Chinese would bury their dead in garments that bound their legs together, so the spirit was thought to hop instead of walk.   The Chiang-Shih are blind but intensely powerful, with great supernatural powers, including gale-force breath, sword like fingernails, incredibly long eyebrows that can be used to lasso or bind an enemy, shape-shifting powers and the ability to fly.    The Chiang-Shih is created when a person dies a violent or painful death or when the soul has been angered because of an improper burial or improper preparation for burial, or when improper respects are paid to the dead.  Something...

   Japan like any other country is steeped in ghostly lore.  Here are a few of the more common Japanese spirits for you to read about and be amazed by.  Bakechochin     Translated as "haunted lantern", in Japanese folklore a Bakechochin is a lantern inhabited by ghosts.  According to folklore the lantern has a long tongue and wild eyes and is home for the ghosts of people who died with hate in their hearts; for this reason, they are doomed to hauntthe earth for all time.  If someone should light one of the haunted lanterns it is thought that a hateful ghost may leap out of it and attack.  Buruburu    Buruburu, meaning the sound of shivering, is a terrible ghost from Japanese folklore that for reasons unknown is said to lurk in forests and graveyards in the form of an old person, who is sometimes one eyed.  According to legend it attaches itself to its victim's spine and causes a chill to run down them, or in the worse cas...

   Have you ever asked yourself where the scariest places in America are?  There are literally thousands of them and here are just a few to entice you.  Visiting these places may cause you to become a believer in ghosts and the supernatural, if you are not already one.  The Jamestown Bridge     The first place is The Jamestown Bridge located in Piedmont, Triad North Carolina.  This bridge is said to be haunted because at night many tourists and visitors have claimed that they would pick up a little girl who was looking for a ride on the side of the road.  When they picked her up, everything would be going fine and then all of a sudden when they look over at her again, she is gone.  Many ghost hunters find this spot to be intriguing because it leaves so much to the imagination.  It is said that this girl wears a white dress and can be seen at night.  Huntingdon College     The second place is called the Huntingdon C...