Every small town has their own myths and legends, and mine is no different.
We are in the long shadow of Chicago, which means no one ever really thinks about us.
Orland Park is a village about 25 miles away from the Second City, and it is a peaceful, quiet place to live. Like I said, just because we are quiet doesn’t mean we are without ghost stories and pieces of local lore. As a kid, my favorite was about a living scarecrow called Mr. Nix, who lived in the cornfields and looked for naughty children to drag away into the darkness. I’m bringing this up because now that I have graduated from film school and moved back to Orland Park, Illinois, I think my first movie should be about the scarecrow legend. First of all, it’s one of the only legends that Orland Park can call its own, and second, my dad claims to have seen it when he was a kid. He is almost sixty now, and the owner of a successful HVAC repair shop downtown, and has always been very vocal about his belief in the legend. In the local Orland Park history museum there is even a little display about the legend, and a newspaper clipping about my dad is part of it! He had his picture and his quote printed in the Orland Park Examiner, so he is officially part of the local lore! If I can get him to take a few days off from the HVAC shop I’d like to film an interview with him, and use it as the basis for my Orland Park documentary.