I made a palpable difference in my community last week.
There is a house just outside the McDonough square that does some intense Halloween decorating in their front yard. They have been doing this for the past 3 years and every year it gets more elaborate. This year, in addition to the pumpkins, tombstones, ghost sheets, and black cats, they displayed an evil zombie rising from the ground. Its gets worse...the zombie was holding a severed head and another severed head was laying nearby. There were also some severed limbs in the vicinity. These detached body parts look quite real and they were disturbing even to me.
The zombie and the heads terrified my kids each time we drove by, which ends up being dozens of times a week. After 2 weeks of frightened toddlers, I decided to act. I looked up the address on the Tax Assessors webpage and I realized that the man who owned the house did not live there, it was a rental house. I called the owner and we spoke long enough for him to tell me that he had not seen the offending decorations, but he sympathized with me and he promised to ask the tenets to move the zombie/ heads out of the front yard.
When we drove by on Sunday, the scary stuff was gone, replaced by a few more black cats.
I am a big advocate of free speech, but sometimes the public displays that a occupant puts in front of their home can be inappropriate for public consumption. In that case they should be examined and removed as necessary. I can't see how severed heads and demonic zombies are innocent Halloween fun. They are not traditional Halloween decorations, they seem to be the result of a culture that increasingly produces movies like Saw. I mean who would think that real severed heads are cool...serial killers and Islamic terrorists come to mind and thats about it.
I am glad that the owner understood where I was coming from and I am happy that the tenets agreed to do the right thing. Its a victory for the eyes and minds of toddlers throughout Henry County in my opinion.
