Salem in October

We just returned home from Salem, and I...enjoyed it. I did. We did. But I have to say that I fell for the trap that movies can do to your perception of a place sometimes. Watching Hubie Halloween or Hocus Pocus a dozen times had prepared me for a Salem that only exists in imagination and fiction, or in my head. I'm an adult, I should know better. But we are still at the mercy of our imaginations. But the place was genuinely beautiful. And it was still fantastic to see the places and homes from some of my favorite movies.

Arriving in Salem I expected a town where every house was decorated for turbo-charged Halloween. I thought every home would look like Hubie's, but what we found was that Salem, at least in the neighborhoods, and while unofficially the town of Halloween in America, looked just like home. Every home was not decorated, nor were half the homes. It was more like 1 in 10. It was sad, at first, until I realized I am a nearly 50-year-old dude with real world problems like bills and stuff. This should be the least of my problems. But it was a bit disappointing, I've got to admit. I had expected a living, breathing Halloween wonderland! I expected it to look like Hubie Halloween's Salem!

Now I didn't expect witches flying around on brooms, nothing that crazy. Maybe a few bats would've been nice. Once I realized I was not in Hubie's Salem, I had a better time. We ate at a few nice restaurants, including Hubie's Black Cat--I mean Portside--Diner.

To be fair, we were in Salem in the second week of October. The crowds were still fairly thick at certain times of the day, or night. And some of the attractions like the Witch Museum among others were cool historical attractions of Salem's history as a Witch City.

We headed into Marblehead daily for coffee at Java Sun on Atlantic Avenue, the same coffee shop in Hubie Halloween. It largely looked the same, so it was nice drinking and having a breakfast sandwich daily there, where Violet's foster kids grabbed a drink. And I fell for Marblehead pretty quickly. It's a really pretty part of town. Quite a bit of Hubie was filmed there, with the town filling in for Salem during quite a few scenes. We got to head into Crosby Marketplace a couple of occasions too. I've become a sucker for filming locations, though props to T for taking pics of several places for me because I was simply too embarrassed to take pictures of a grocery store.

I could live in Marblehead. I still considered it practically Salem, but it has really gorgeous neighborhoods. Its picturesque suburbs made me want to settle there in a nice colonial home.

First day was rainy. So, to the museums. The Salem Witch Museum is a cozy if not drawn out account of the event which put Salem on the map. The Witch Trials.

I think a lot of people imagine Salem's witch trials as a time of Quakers running around in the street accusing every Tom, Dick and Jane of being a witch, with witches burning in the streets. But it was quite a bit different than that. It was a bit of an eye-opener to understand how few people actually suffered in Salem from witch hysteria compared to places in Europe around the same time. 

Approximately 20 died during the witch accusations in Salem in 1692 compared to hundreds if not thousands in the old country. And the accused witches died from hanging, and one gentleman died of Pressing, where a board was placed over the accused and rocks slowly crushed him to death, as he would not admit to being a witch. Kudos to that guy, I would've admitted to being a pink elephant after about 80 pounds...

Our first night concluded with a viewing of Hocus Pocus at the Cinema Salem theater. It was a small screen and super cozy with only a few other folks watching with us. But it was a great way to spend our first day in Salem.