THE MUMMY ON HEIGHTS BOULEVARD
By Jim Towers, M.J.A., J.D.
The mummy is about twelve feet tall, and he has the best view on the boulevard.
He stands in the front garden of The Victorian on Heights, at 1011 Heights Blvd., bent at the waist and leaning over the wrought-iron fence as if he’s thinking about stepping onto the sidewalk. His bandages are coming loose. A pumpkin sits on the stone gatepost in front of him, which does nothing to make him look friendlier.
He has company. A skeleton lounges on the porch roof with one arm thrown back, like a man who has finally found a quiet spot. Ghosts in pointed witch hats hang in the upstairs windows. A spider web as wide as the porch is strung from the gutter down to the shrubs. More skeletons sit on the garden furniture and climb the three-tiered fountain. A tombstone rises out of the flower bed, and beside the walk a skeletal horse and its hooded rider wait under a stone archway made of skulls.
Every trunk in the yard is wrapped in string lights. Somebody spent a long weekend on this.
The house is a red-brick Queen Anne with a turret, a wraparound porch, and teal and red trim. On most days it hosts weddings. On October 28, it hosted “Haunted on Heights,” which the yard sign billed as “an immersive Halloween experience,” with VIP entry at 6 p.m. and the general crowd at 7.
The best thing on the block isn’t in the yard, though. It’s parked at the curb.
A black Model T Ford sits under the live oaks, its nickel radiator shining and its spoked wheels turned toward the street. The sign on the door says “Follow Me to The Victorian.” When I photographed it, a late-model Mercedes was coming down the boulevard behind it. Roughly a century of Ford engineering separates the two cars, and they were sharing one lane.
The Heights has always been good at this. The houses are old, the trees are older, and every October, people who live here decide the neighborhood needs a little more theater. Most of it is a pumpkin on the steps. Some of it is a twelve-foot mummy.
Halloween is Saturday. He’ll be there.
The Victorian on Heights is at 1011 Heights Blvd.
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