Well, it was bound to happen, the protesting has begun

[Badger]

I knew when I began work with the USS North Carolina that there would be a fine line between creating a good quality haunt and keeping the spirit of those who served and died abourd her in the line of duty. This week, they got their first letter from a veteran concerned about putting a haunt inside a war memorial.

I think we have done everything we could to keep it entirely fictional and not in any way based on any events that happened to the battleship, but I guess you can't please everyone. They open next weekend and hopefully this will bring good crowds to see what all the fuss is about...

http://www.wwaytv3.com/some_concerne...t_ship/10/2009

[monsterwax]

That's the problem with retirees. They have plenty of time on their hands to write protest letters. Now if only we could get them to spend more time volunteering to play witches in wizards...

[farnsworth]

Careful there... You're always going to have someone who has an opinion they want to "share"... But when it comes to veterans, they have very passionate and legitimate concerns. These are people who fought in wars and saw close friends die next to them. The best thing you can do is try to honor those that died by avoiding any reference to war(which it seems you have avoided that, by the article). As far as the veteran, there's nothing you can say to change his point of view. But of all people, any veterans opinion should be respected, even if you don't take the "advice" they may have.

[Jim Warfield]

The First Graveyard Tour..

Here in Mt. Carroll's cemetary generated a letter to the paper from an eldely woman saying we should show more respect and maybe this sort of thing should not be happening?
There were no scares, monsters, just some people standing in period costuming while a narator from the hayrack introduced these actual historical characters and talked about their lives.
I knew this letter writer, I made a point to talk to her a few days later.
In the meantime she got to remembering how much fun she and her late husband had on a New Orleans graveyard tour and that it was not totally respectfull with Mother-in-law " jokes and the like.
Most concerns around here are about people littering the place or vandalising stones which could happen anytime for actually little or no reason.
I have ALOT of my family members buried there and I also had mixed feelings about it.
At the bottom of cemetary hill a "Troll" hid under the 1903 Galena Street bridge as the wagon brought the people to and from the graveyard, of course the little Waukarus River became the river Styx that night.
This is 2 blocks from the graveyard so they rules were followed, no horror masks or monster movie type activities tolerated in the graveyard.