Hometown Halloween October 2006

by Kim Linn
Images by R. Byrne

Many people are anxious about preserving the sense of community in Brentwood. Kim has been working for years with the Chamber of Commerce and, in particular, has been managing the Hometown Halloween events.

Every year troops of diminutive witches, pirates, scarecrows, kings and princesses, ghosts, Spidermen, Draculas, angels, and tramps invade the streets of Brentwood, their eyes shining with wonder and joy.

Ten years ago two woman named Jennifer Holden and Michelle Jogopulos came up with the idea of staging a Halloween event as a way of serving the children of East County. The two of them worked with local business owners who wanted to attract people to downtown. They formed an organization called the Brentwood Main Street Committee that created two annual events – the Hometown Halloween and the Snow Park. Once the Hometown Halloween was under way Jennifer and Michelle handed it off to the Chamber of Commerce to run. The Chamber has managed the event and Jennifer ran it every year until the last year, when I took it over.

My Brentwood Connections
I’ve been a member of the Brentwood Chamber of Commerce for 16 years, but my husband, Rod, was always the one doing things in a public way; I was content to remain in the background. I’m a worker bee with absolutely no desire to be the queen. After joining the Chamber, I still tried to remain in the background. But now, with Hometown Halloween, Rod and I have switched roles and he helps me.

Rod and I own Linnco Services, which is an office equipment dealer. We sell and service copiers, printers, and fax machines throughout the Bay Area. We go to people’s offices and service their equipment for them.

We joined the Chamber when we started our business because the Chamber provided us with a way to network with other business people in the community.

Sixteen years ago there were about 60 members, and the first mixer I attended was held in a space not much larger than my office. The Chamber grew as the city grew – and has really taken off in the past several years. The number of members is now more than 800, and more than half of them have joined in the past four years.

Brentwood is a different town now than it was 16 years ago, but it is still beautiful. I drive down Balfour, go by Veteran’s Park, turn down Highway 4, and drive back by Lone Tree Way. How great the changes are! What wonderful stores, shops, and restaurants are now available that we couldn’t have imagined a decade ago. If you want to buy some furnishings for your house or go out for a nice meal the options have increased enormously. The area is more crowded, of course, but that’s OK. You can’t stop progress.

We moved into Brentwood in 1989 when it was still a small town and never had any feeling of being an outsider. All the residents, and especially the business people, were supportive of us and welcoming. They made us feel like we belonged almost immediately. We felt like we were among old friends almost as soon as we arrived. We got right to work and developed a sense of belonging by working side-by-side with people in the community.

We got to meet some of the old guard. Rod joined the Lions, for example, when John Slatton, himself, was president. In fact, John became one of our first customers. We got to know Jack & Jean Adams, the parents of Brentwood School Superintendent Doug Adams. Jean was a schoolteacher and I remember that Jack used to announce all the high school football games.

Now everything has changed, but it’s still good. The people who get involved with the Chamber today retain the old sense of serving the community. People continue to work hard in putting on the Cornfest year after year and finding many other ways of helping Brentwood to thrive.

The Hometown Halloween Story
A couple of years ago, at the urging of Bonnie Lucchese, the Chamber Office Manager, I ran successfully for the position of Chamber Director. I had been resisting this because of family and business commitments, but then my son got older and required less attention, so I ran for a director spot, thinking that it was a one-year commitment. Only after getting elected did I find out that I was in for three years.

Each of the directors is responsible for at least one major function. I figured “in for a penny, in for a pound,” so I took on the responsibility for the Hometown Halloween. I knew that Jennifer Holden was doing an awesome job with this and thought the two of us could team up together, but unfortunately that was the year she quit. Jilda Fairhurst, a staff member at the Chamber, and I have done this together.

Hometown Halloween seemed like a strange assignment for me in one way because I don’t particularly enjoy dressing up in a costume, myself. So it felt kind of strange when Russell, the OneTen Magazine photographer, made me get all gussied up for the photographs to accompany this article.

I got the costume from a clothing store, called The Vault, which transforms itself every fall into a Halloween Superstore. The place is located at 5401 Lone Tree Way, near the Brentwood Kohl’s. The owner, Joanne Berbower, loaned us the $400 costume. She also connected me with Lori Lopez from Wild Orchids Salon who did my hair – and with a makeup artist named Chris, who painted my face.

So I started out the session as Kim Linn and ended up as the Evil Queen. It was an effective makeover, and I have to admit that it was both fun and startling to look in the mirror and see the terrible beauty that was looking back at me.

But the transformation really was a lot of work! The Evil Queen would be too difficult to recreate, and I simply don’t have the time. So if I dress up this year it will probably be as a pumpkin. All I have to do is pop the pumpkin costume over my head and let it hang by straps from my shoulders.

One of the great things about Hometown Halloween is that nobody makes any profit from it. There’s nothing commercial about the affair. We all get together and simply do it because of our love for the kids, because of our love for our city, and because it is a lot of fun, even for the adults!

The event centers on a number of tables that are set up by various local businesses. Representatives of a particular business staff each of the tables and hand out treats to the children coming to their tables.

Hometown Halloween is a big affair. Last year we had 60 businesses involved. This year it will be 70. We’ve decided that 70 will be our cut-off point so we can avoid over-crowding. The kids and their parents form a long line that stretches from table to table. But nobody ever seems impatient; everyone is having a good time.

One of the big attractions for Hometown Halloween is a huge carved pumpkin. Every year we buy one of these monstrosities from a supplier on the coast. Bob Brockman drives out there every year and picks it up for us. The pumpkin carving is a work of art. The pumpkin last year weighed almost 800 pounds. In fact, it weighed in at exactly 789 pounds. I know that figure for sure because we had a guess-the-pumpkin’s-weight contest.

This year we’re adding something new. Tri-Delta Transit is providing a haunted bus that will be full of spider webs, monsters, and ghoulish things that will jump out at the kids and scare them to death and then into gales of laughter. It will be a full-size bus. The kids will enter in the front and exit from the back.

I think Hometown Halloween is great! The kids have fun in a venue that is safe from traffic, drugs, and bullies. Plus, I love to see the kids come by laughing at themselves and at each other. My favorite costume last year was a little boy in a fireman’s outfit. It was a fine fireman’s outfit, for sure, but the child was so cute in his little costume that he grabbed the strings of my heart. The event seems to resonate somehow with the quaint and homey Brentwood that we hold in our imagination and memories.

Hometown Halloween is always held on the Saturday before Halloween. So this year it will be October 28th, from 5 to 8 p.m. The event only lasts three hours so the kids can get home at a safe time and restaurants can get the run-off of people having dinner after the event is over.

Events like Hometown Halloween, together with the Cornfest and the Snow Park are accomplishing their purpose of making people aware of our downtown. When the event first started, Michelle said she ran into people who had lived here for years and didn’t know that Brentwood had a downtown.

Well, here we are, whether people know about us, or not. We encourage readers to put October 28 down on their calendars so that they and their children can join us for some laughs and for some wholesome enjoyment. °