Rusty Rae/News-Register ##
Mike Brooks and his wife Shannon decorate their Morgan Lane home for Halloween each year. They have numerous inflatable items, scary clowns and other fun and frightening displays. They enjoy decorating for Christmas, as well.
Rusty Rae/News-Register ## Mike Brooks and his wife Shannon decorate their Morgan Lane home for Halloween each year. They have numerous inflatable items, scary clowns and other fun and frightening displays. They enjoy decorating for Christmas, as well.
By Starla Pointer • Staff Writer • 

For the love of Halloween

Naturally, that includes some clowns.

“Mike has scary clowns hanging up. He’s always trying to scare me,” said Shannon, whose Halloween preferences lean more toward fun than fright. 

The year he added the clowns, she pulled into the driveway after work, unsuspecting. When she emerged from her car, the clowns started cackling and making eerie noises. It was terrifying, she recalled amiably.

“He does like scary,” she said, noting her husband’s affinity for scary music and movies. “He’s a fanatic.”

The Brooks’ three kids were young when they started going all-out to decorate their house on Morgan Lane, near Thompson Park in south McMinnville. Now grown with places of their own, the two boys still help their dad put up the clowns, jack-o-lanterns, skeletons, plus a haunted tree and other inflatable displays.

The display lights up about 6:15 p.m., just as dark is falling, and stays spooky for about four hours.

Shannon said she and her family often hear cars slow down in front of their house as the passengers ogle the Halloween decorations. They love that. 

The scene repeats itself at Christmastime, when they put up another elaborate display.

They shop the post-Christmas and post-Halloween sales to find more decorations. They also haunt garage sales, and add at least a couple new items for each holiday annually.

They vary their displays so the house looks different every year, Shannon said. 

Usually, their neighborhood, where they’ve lived for 14 years, gets quite a few trick-or-treaters, she said. More and more every year.

She and her husband like seeing the costumed children who come to their door — if they dare. “It’s fun for us,” she said.

This year, with the coronavirus pandemic, though, they will miss the trick-or-treating. But they hope even more people drive by.

“It’s the best display in the neighborhood,” Shannon said, fearlessly.

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