A safe place for vampires

Hearse owners and Dracula's acolytes discover that they fit right in at Trick or Treat Festival.For most people, celebrating Halloween means dressing up in a costume and going trick-or-treating. But for vampires, it's the time of year where they blend in -- no one thinks twice about their odd clothing, fangs or fascination with skeletons and coffins.

While many people came to the eighth annual Trick or Treat Festival at the Orange County Marketplace on Sunday dressed as superheroes, fairies, witches and animals, Mark Webb of Garden Grove and Michael Bloom of Westminster came as themselves.

They consider themselves vampires and belong to the League of Vampiric Bards, a Southern California gothic performance group. Bloom said he has thought of himself as a vampire since long before the term goth was coined.

Webb and Bloom were at Sunday's event for the annual hearse procession and show. Bloom, a hearse collector and vice president of the Los Angeles Hearse Society, drove his 1975 Cadillac hearse, which was filled with rusty shovels, plastic body parts, skeletons and handmade wooden coffins.

Webb and Bloom said October is a busy month for them, but they also celebrate other holidays, such as Dark Christmas and Vampiric Valentine.

"About the only thing we don't do is Arbor Day," Webb joked. "Something about trees reminds us of stakes."

Orange resident Robert Dean, owner of 12 hearses and member of Phantom Coaches -- another hearse collectors association -- said they're busy with events the whole month of October.

"It was a cool event," said Dean, who is the organization's funeral director, a position other organizations might refer to as events coordinator.

Ethan Acres, an Englewood resident and new member of Phantom Coaches, only recently purchased his first hearse, a 1982 Cadillac.

"It's a great group of people who all share a love for these misunderstood cars," Acres said. He said his stepfather was a Southern Baptist minister who was involved with the local funeral home. Having grown up around hearses, Acres said, he always thought they were beautiful vehicles. To him they represent that "final leap into the unknown."

The hearse procession began at 10 a.m., with more than 20 classic hearses, ambulances and limousines parading through the streets of Costa Mesa before arriving at the fairgrounds. Famed radio show host Dr. Demento was the grand marshal and also deejayed two music sets.