Maybe Ms. Jackson can come up with some exciting and innovative idea for her many loyal fans like, for instance, “Champagne With One of Charlie’s Original Angels”? 👩🏻‍🦰😇

No doubt, many fans will positively rush to pay the $125.00 fee just to enjoy a glass of champagne with the beautiful and lovely Sabrina Duncan! 😍🍾🍸🤩

Anne and Uncle Roger,

Thanks to you both for your input and kind words.

Uncle Roger, I especially enjoyed reading your excellent points on this upcoming DS event at the Lyndhurst
estate. Yes, it tends to be very warm there in Tarrytown, NY during July. I remember being on my uncle’s boat on a very warm July day several year’s ago, approaching the Tappan Zee Bridge and directly across from the Lyndhurst estate and the heat was oppressive even in the middle of the Hudson River. There was no breeze at all out there on the water.

And, as you are well aware up there in Connecticut, the tri-state area has recently experienced many days of oppressive heat with heat indexes over 100 degrees or torrential and damaging downpours. Several New York
City subway stations were literally flooded out during an especially heavy downpour the other day. And,
tragically, two women were killed in Plainfield, NJ last week after
their car was swept off the road by a flood caused by another heavy rainfall. Only yesterday, a man was struck
and killed by lightning in Jackson, NJ after a sudden lightning storm erupted in central New Jersey. We’re
experiencing some of the horrific weather here in the tri-state area that the residents of Texas and New Mexico
have had to contend with on a much larger scale.

The weather forecast for Sunday, July 20, calls for oppressive humidity and heavy rain storms. Can you imagine
Kathryn Leigh Scott leading a group of DS fans, of a “certain” age on Sunday, to see the spot on the Lyndhurst
estate where Jeff Clark discovered a bleeding and dazed Daphne Budd on a lonely road during a scene from
“House of Dark Shadows” and suddenly, all Hell breaks out with rain, wind and the immediate threat of lightning
strikes? I hope that doesn’t happen this weekend.

I also think your point about Ms. Scott living in a very affluent zip code area (90210), and being indicative of how well off financially she really is, is right on point. I mean, it’s not as if Ms. Scott and her new husband are residing in decidedly less affluent zip code areas like 46401 (Gary, Indiana) or 08101 (Camden, New Jersey)! By the way, it’s kind of hard to imagine seeing Ms. Scott and Mr. Oster taking advantage of early-bird special dinners specials or cutting out store and brand coupons out of the Sunday newspaper in order to save money. 🙄 As to Ms. Scott deciding to charge somewhat exorbitant prices to attend her “champagne at Collinwood” event this weekend, maybe she’s been channeling the insouciant spirit of the late Marie Antoinette for
guidance? 🤔

Patrickm,

I’ll be magnanimous and won’t respond in kind to the personal shots you directed at me in this thread.

You mentioned that you doubted that I had recently been to a “fan festival” and was unaware of the increase in today’s prices for these events. You’re quite right about that, I haven’t been to a “fan festival” in a long time because I have a life.

Although, I do recall standing in the Marriott Hotel near Times Square in New York City in 1995 for that year’s Dark Shadows Festival. As I stood in the conference room of the festival, I noticed KLS and her husband, magazine publisher Geoff Miller, sitting at their table containing Ms. Scott’s assorted books, photographs and other items for sale. I took particular interest in Mr. Miller’s reaction to the people, lining up to speak with Ms. Scott and to purchase various items from her. Mr. Miller had this look on his face that I took to mean, I can’t believe that these grown men and women are actually shelling out twenty to thirty bucks to buy this stuff? Needless to say, I did not purchase any of KLS’s items myself. Heck, I had purchased several of Ms. Scott’s books in the past. And, I really didn’t see the need to buy her book about the 1991 NBC DS series, which ran for a grand total of 12 episodes or the book on the two DS movies, which had been filmed at the Lyndhurst estate in Tarrytown, NY. I understand that Ms. Scott’s later book, Return to Collinwood, which she collaborated on with longtime associate, Jim Pierson, was essentially a re-hash of her earlier books. I didn’t buy that one either. 

I also recall that at a previous Dark Shadows event at Lyndhurst, that were a number of Dark Shadows fans, who were serving as unpaid volunteers at the event. These volunteers were very impressed with the way in which Ms. Scott set-up her goods for sale in such an efficient and precise manner. The volunteers joked among themselves that if Ms. Scott could set-up her table at the gated entrance to the Lyndhurst estate, that she’d probably do it in order to get a head start on her fellow DS actors and the other DS fans, who had set-up their tables with DS-related items for sale inside of the Lyndhurst mansion. Ms. Scott truly is a Dark Shadows Dynamo!

Patrickm, you wrote I committed a “low blow” by stating that Ms. Scott is now an octogenarian. Well, she IS 82-years-old. And, at that age, instead of running another DS event, Ms. Scott and her husband Patrick Oster (husband # 3, by the way) would be far happier sitting on a beach in Santa Monica and enjoying the beautiful ocean view, just like Ms. Scott’s contemporary, the 82-year old former President of the United States, Joe Biden and his lovely wife, Dr. Jill Biden, are, no doubt, enjoying the ocean view right now in beautiful Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, in my opinion.

Patrickm, you must be a guy in, at least, his early sixties with a lot of life experience. And, I’m probably
several years older than you are. As a grown man, do you really believe that Kathryn Leigh Scott continues to run these DS events out of some benign and altruistic sense to preserve the “spirit” and “legacy” of Dark Shadows and that she’s NOT just trying to make an Almighty Buck out these events? If you do, then I just don’t know what to say to you.

All the best, and I hope you have a great time attending these future DS events (if, in fact, there are anymore of them) even though there are, sadly, fewer and fewer of the “Dark Shadows kiddies” still breathing and alert.
fewer

I was just wondering:

If you lived in the mythical New England fishing village of Collinsport, Maine and you were fortunate enough to have received an invitation from Mrs. Stoddard and Roger Collins to come to the great house to enjoy “cocktails at Collinwood,” do you think that Liz and Roger would have put the bite on you for $125.00 to enjoy one or two glasses of the bubbly stuff? I don’t think so. 🤔🥂🍸🍷🍹🍾😈🙄

Let's just hope that someone remembers how unbearably hot Lyndhurst can get in the summer. The "air conditioned" tent was extremely uncomfortable and the stable was even worse.

Of course, the Dark Shadows fans aren’t getting any younger either. Heck, many of us are starting to look and sound just like Ezra Braithwaite, Bathia Mapes, Papa Justin Collins and the Eagle Hill Cemetery caretaker. 🥵🙁☠️

A Dark Shadows-inspired tour of New England, now that sounds very “fascinating” as Carolyn Stoddard-Hawkes once described a book on astrology to the “slightly” condescending Sebastian Shaw, who replied to her that “fascinating” was an adjective frequently used by dilettantes. Ouch! 😏😵

Now, in addition to an apparent dabbler like Carolyn, which other DS characters do you think might be interested in signing up for this upcoming tour? I could possibly see Quentin signing up with the folks at mysteriousadventurestours.com for this particular tour. What the heck! Quentin has always been interested in the arcane and the occult and besides, Quentin has PLENTY of free time on his hands, thanks to Count Petofi and the truly esteemed artwork of the world-renowned Charles Delaware Tate.

Of course, the sage and savant-like Professor T. Elliott Stokes would also likely be an individual who would sign-up for the tour, since the learned academic shared Quentin’s keen interest in all things supernatural and other-
worldly. By the way don’t you think that both Quentin and Professor Stokes would be faithful and nightly
listeners to coast-to-coastam on the radio, tuning in to hear the unfailingly cordial coast-to-coast host George
Noory, discussing ghosts, witches, ufos, poltergeists, NDEs, time travel, the anti-Christ, parallel dimensions, the
Kennedy assassination, the I-Ching, doppelgängers, vampires, spontaneous human combustion (a la Bathia Mapes), Big Foot, the Yeti, werewolves, the Chupacabra, Tarot cards and Astrology with Mr. Noory’s seemingly endless array of informative, knowledgeable and “fascinating” guests? 🤔👹🧛🧜‍♂️🐸🕷🦖🌔🔥🎅🏼🎃😼👽💀😈🤡

Then again, another tour participant might be Doctor Julia Hoffman, a respected medical doctor and researcher with a wide array of eclectic interests, not to mention as another person with PLENTY of free time on her hands, as evidenced by her well-deserved achievement for being named “The World’s Most Persistent House Guest,” a title previously held by the famous radio host/raconteur Sheridan Whiteside, who was memorialized in the classic film, “The Man Who Came To
Dinner.” 👩‍⚕️🥪🍕🍔🍟🍱🍦☕️🍿🍩🍷🥃 😠

On the other hand, which DS characters would NOT be likely individuals to sign-up for this truly unique tour of New England? Well, just off the top of my head, I’d have to say that both Judith Collins-Trask and Sarah Johnson, two of Collinsport’s most notorious skinflints/penny-pinchers, would take just one look at that $2,499.00 cost of a single ticket and, as they say in the great state of Kansas, proclaim, “Sh!t on that!!!” 😮😱
🤑🤑🤑😝😡👿🤡

I hear you on that song, Gerard! 

Maybe the newlyweds would be better off choosing either “I’ll Be With You Always” or “I Want To Dance With You” as their first wedding song? 😍😘

Look-alikes: Noted author and KLS fiancé, Patrick Oster and longtime lead singer and keyboardist for The Doobie Brothers, Michael McDonald. 

Some post-election comments on the 2024 US Presidential Election regarding the state of Maine.

Maine is only one of two states (with Nebraska being the other US state) where the its electoral votes can be divided between two presidential candidates. In this years, election, Vice President Kamala Harris received three (of four) electoral votes and former President Donald Trump received one electoral vote.

I attempted to find a breakdown of how each of Maine’s sixteen counties voted in the recent presidential election. Of course, the town of Collinsport, Maine is said to have been located in Hancock County. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find out exactly who the residents of Hancock County did vote for on November 5. (Maybe only Buzz Hackett knows for sure?) 🤔🧛‍♂️

Another aspect of November 5’s election that I wondered about was whether “The Collinsport Star,” Collinsport’s newspaper of record (and, in fact, Collinsport’s only newspaper) formally endorsed either of the two major presidential candidates? Or, did “The Collinsport Star” refrain from endorsing either Kamala Harris of Donald Trump for POTUS as did such renowned newspapers as “The Washington Post” and “The Los Angeles Times”?

There has also been much discussion and speculation as to why Vice President Harris was defeated by former President Trump. Attorney Sunny Hostin, one of the panelists on the long-running television show, The View,” attributed Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump to “uneducated white women,” who did not possess the insight and intelligence to make an informed selection in the recent election. I wonder if Ms. Hostin would consider Maggie Evans, Sarah Johnson, newcomer Nelle Gunston and Susie, the silent Collinsport Inn coffee shop waitress as all being “uneducated white women,” incapable of making a reasoned choice in the 2024 US presidential election? And, what would such sage and thoughtful women as Elizabeth Stoddard and Dr. Julia Hoffman have thought of Ms. Hostin’s rather dismissive observation?

Finally, one thing I noticed at the Dark Shadows Festivals I attended in New York City over the years, was the absence of any partisan political campaigning by the DS actors at these events, specifically during the years when a DS Festival and a US presidential election both took place. At the 1988 DS Festival at The World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, I don’t recall either Jonathan Frid or Lara Parker expressing a preference for either Vice President George HW Bush or Governor Michael Dukakis in that election. Similarly, I don’t recall any DS actors openly supporting either President George HW Bush or Governor Bill Clinton in the 1992 US presidential election.

However, I do remember there was much discussion here on the Dark Shadows Forums (both pro and con), when a DS actor at one of the later DS Festivals, openly advocated on behalf of Senator Barack Obama of Illinois over Senator John McCain of Arizona for POTUS in 2008. I think that refraining from political discussions at Dark Shadows Festivals, much like refraining from political discussions at family gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas, is the definite way to go.