One of the enduring memories of my childhood is the old TV series "Dark Shadows". I was nine years old and I had an unbelievable crush on Angelique. Outside of the baseball and hockey games of the week, there was nothing I looked forward to with greater anticipation than "Dark Shadows". By today's standards, it was so cheesy as to border on campy, but it creeped this nine-year-old out big time.
The setting is a small fishing village, Collinsport, Maine. High on Widows Hill stands Collinwood, the brooding family mansion. It's a home of dark mysteries and intrigue. Within its great halls stalk the tormented residents of the estate... ghosts, witches, werewolves... held captive by spells reaching out from the depths of time.
Young Vicki Winters has come here to be the governess of 10-year old David Collins, heir to the family fortune... and also to be companion to Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the inscrutable mistress of Collinwood. To Vicki's surprise, ominous events unfold, not only in the present but in the past.
The supernatural is commonplace at Collinwood, home of the family's 175-year old resident vampire, Barnabas Collins.
Ol' Barnabas scared the bejeezus out of me. When I was nine, my family lived in tiny little house near the Howard County Fairgrounds in Hibbing, MN. I refused to go down into the basement, because I was terrified that Barnabas Collins lived down there. Even the suggestion that I go to the basement struck me with abject terror. Once I got over Barnabas Collins, then I became convinced that Ho Chi Minh lived in our basement...but's that's another story.
I can only laugh when I think about this now. I'm sure that if I were to see an episode of "Dark Shadows" now I'd be laughing. Man, I was once scared nine-year-old, though....
