Day: October 31, 2024

Pompey

What historical event fascinates you the most?

The devastation of Pompey resulting from the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A D has fascinated me since I first learned of it. The images of its residents frozen in time made them victims to me, not long lost faceless humans. I felt a connection to those fleeing the terror of the eruption. It was all to clear they were fully aware they were doomed. No one, man or beast escaped the wrath of Vesuvius.

Terror at the Camp Out (Halloween Story)

Scary0004

repost of Halloween story. Original art by my mother Kathleen Swain

The backyard campout was all Billy and his friends could talk about. My cousin Sue and I furiously watched them build a tent out of old quilts stretched over the clothesline, furious we couldn’t camp out with them. No girls allowed!

The boys kept reminding us all day what a great night they would have while we slept in the house. However, watching ghost movies had their teeth chattering even before they headed out for their camp-out. Those smart-alecky boys were spooked even before they straggled out to the tent with only one failing flashlight between them and the terrifying night.  The further they got from the door, the faster they ran, expecting to be grabbed at any second. The lights in the house blinked off one by one, leaving them totally alone in the blackness.  Sue and I gave my parents plenty of time to go to sleep before slipping out to fix Billy and his buddies.  We made a wide loop behind their tent and lay in the bushes quietly listening to the boys telling the story of Maggie Parker.

“Maggie Parker was a witchy old woman who had lived deep in the woods not far from us.  There was gold buried behind the house haunted by the ghosts of her seven husbands all buried in a row.  If you were brave or crazy enough to go out there on a dark night and wade through the thick vines, you could see ghostly eyes shining on each of the seven tombstones. No one knew how her husbands had really died, but the rumor was she killed each of them after she got their gold.  Someone else said she kept her crazy hired man locked in the shed and only let him out to work. If he ever got loose at night, he would kill her or anyone else he crept up on.  Froggy told about his daddy’s grandma’s uncle who went out one night looking for Maggie Parker’s gold and was found four days later in the woods by some hunters. His hair turned white and he never spoke another word.  He was led around like a child for the rest of his life.  He screamed in his sleep and shook in his bed so bad, they had to lock him in a shed at night.  One morning a few years later they found him lying in his bed, eyes wide open, like he had seen a ghost………..scared to death.”  The stories got scarier the later it got.

The only sound was the chirping of crlckets as they lay in their lonely tent, talking in low voices about the last movie they had seen.  An angry village mob had tortured a poor crazy old hermit, cut his legs off, and left him for dead. He somehow managed to survive by dragging himself into a cave. The frogs were croaking loudly as the darkness fell. In his fevered sleep, he dreamed he had his legs back.   He rose and walked on his stumps, leaving bloody prints behind him. The frogs got quieter.  Just before he knifed his torturers……..….total silence.  The last thing you could see was him raising his knife and hear the screams of the dying.

The longer they talked, the more scared they got.  Finally they got so tired they just had to try go to sleep.  They could hear the frogs just outside their tent. The frogs got louder. It was horrible. Suddenly………..dead silence.  Too scared to breathe, they waited for the knife!!! Finally…..the frogs started back up. Just as they exhaled nervously, they were grabbed from behind!  They exploded outward, disintegrating the tattered tent, falling and grabbing in their fight for survival, their fear fed by the maniacal screaming in the dark.  A ghostly figure was staggering around in tattered rags, arms outstretched. They beat each other and everything else in their path trying to reach the safety of the house. In their wild terror, they ripped straight through the latched screen door of the kitchen, shattering it. The ghost was right behind them!

My parents were jolted awake by the crashing screen door and screaming campers, sure they were being murdered in their beds.  The pulled the tattered quilt from around the ghost revealing Foggy, who’d gotten tangled in the quilt, thought the ghost had him, and was as terrified as everyone else.  When they finally calmed the boys and did a head count, they found everyone alive but battered.  Sue and I came staggering out of my bedroom rubbing sleep out of our eyes and trying to look like we just woke up though we both had wet grass stuck to our feet and dirty pajamas. Our plan to scare the boys had worked far better than we dreamed it would, and the best part was, we had more fun at the camp-out than anyone else!

Terror Most Delicious

Maw Maw by CarPictured Above, Mettie Martha Knight Swain, my paternal grandmother

Desperate for ghost stories, I hung on the words of my superstitious Maw Maw. While the men were out hunting, the women and children of the family gathered to share the long evenings.  As the evenings stretched on, lap babies were rocked to sleep and knee babies drifted off in their mother’s laps and were put on thick pallets of quilts on the floor to sleep.  Earlier in the evening, the women took turns telling tales of their youth but as it got later and more little ones drifted off, they moved on to scary stories.  At the peak of the evening, when the most impressionable had nodded off and the lights were low, one of the daughters would encourage Maw Maw to tell a story.  She held her grandchildren spellbound with the scary tales.  Should she falter, one of my aunts urged her on…”Mama, remember about the big black dogs running through the house.” Her stories were more terrifying because she believed them with all her being.  Once she started, I was too deliciously terrified to even risk a trip to the bathroom alone.

 “Oh yeah, lots of times, late at night, if the wind was still, and the night was dark, me and Granny could hear them ghost dogs, howling and scratching at the door, trying to get in…but once in a while, if the moon was full, we’d see them big, black devil dogs blowing right into the room where me and Granny was, made of black smoke from the fires of hell with blazing coals for eyes.  We hid under the covers, ‘cause Granny said ‘if you ever looked in them fiery eyes, you was bound for Hell’.”

 Opportunities to hear scintillating stories like these were rare, usually limited to visits to Maw Maw, my paternal grandmother. Mother could hardly snatch her spellbound children from the writhing mass of cousins clustered around Maw Maw’s knees. Daddy ruled the roost, and he liked the stories as much as anyone.  Mother held the ridiculous notion that tender minds didn’t need to hear scary stories, more concerned about the nightmares she’d be dealing with in a few short hours than the extreme pleasure they afforded us at the time.

 I do wish I could hear and savor those stories again, unmolested by that nagging voice in the background.  “There’s no such thing as ghosts.  Those stories are just pretend, like cartoons. Now, go on to sleep and forget about them.”

cousinsTop Left Cousin Ricky Compton, Sister Phyllis Swain Barrington holding Sister Connie Swain Miller, Cousin Allen Lee, Linda Swain Bethea, center, Standing Aunt Ola Bea Shell holding Cousin Trudy Shell

First row, Cousins Sandra Shell, Gary Shell, and Leslie Shell in right front corner.

Lou and Lynn Part 23: Grocery Day

Aunt Kat tiptoed in and whispered to Lynn. “I have to take Daddy to work today and keep the car so I can go to the grocery store. Y’all can sleep late if you want to. If you get up, stay in the house. I’m taking the babies with me. I’ll be back as soon as I can so we can go to the grocery store.”
The next thing, Aunt Kat was telling them to hurry up and dress. She passed out sausage biscuits and milk.

“You better eat up. You’re gonna be hungry before we get home!” She loaded a diaper bag with bottles, diapers, and a couple of wet washcloths in a plastic bag, and picked up her purse.. “Lynn, fill that big thermos with water and bring the big baby. I’ll get the little baby. Billy, go back and get your shoes on. You can’t go to town barefoot. Lou, pick up those two pairs of shoes by the door we have to take them by the shoe-shop to be half-soled. Darn! The cat got out in! Lou, can you go back and get the cat out? Hurry!”

All the while, Billy was protesting having to wear shoes. He finally brought them along without putting them on.

She rushed them into the car. “Lynn, you sit in the front and hold the little baby.” She put Connie in a flimsy car seat that hooked him over the seatback. Lou was amazed at that, having grown up in the time of safety seats and seatbelts. This car had no seatbelts.l

When they got to the small town, Aunt Kat drove slowly through the grocery store parking lots at three stores to look at the hand-lettered prices posted in the store windows.

Last thing before going shopping, she threatened all the kids. “Do you see those kids sitting in that hot car over there! If you cut up in the grocery store and beg for stuff, I’ll march you right back out to sit in the car! Billy get your shoes on, NOW.!”

Billy whined, “I can’t. I don’t have any socks.” Aunt kat whirled a looked daggers at him. Why didn’t you get socks?”

“You didn’t tell me to.” he explained patiently.

“Ughhhh!” she groaned.” Then you’ll just have to go without….unless you want to sit in the car with those kids!”

Four kids sat in a car just across the way. Two kids with snotty noses were hanging out the windows bawling their eyes out. A boy was honking the horn. There was a girl in the back seat looking like she wished she wished she was anywhere else. Billy realized he knew her and called out to her,” Hey, Margie!” Margie stuck her tongue out and turned her head.

Once Aunt Kat had her battle plan, she led the kids into the A&P . She made a nest for the little baby in one cart, pulling it behind her.Connie was in the seat of a second cart she pushed before her. She went straight to the coke machine and got a coke, her treat for the week. The kids knew they had their choice of a coke or a box of animal crackers. That was it! Aunt Kat didn’t have the patience for treat wrangling. They could enjoy their treat while she shopped and she’d pay when she cashed out. She filled Connie’s cart with unglamorous groceries: a twenty-five pound bag of flour, ten pounds of meal and sugar, twenty-five pounds of potatoes , dry beans and peas. There were no cookies, pastries, or candy in her cart.

Piggly Wiggly for the meat specials, then Jitney Jungle for the ten for a dollar specials on canned goods It was exhausting. Both babies were squalling. Everybody was starving. The car was blazing hot in the August heat. “I don’t have time for the shoe shop, today.”

Kat pulled into a drive-in restaurant that specialized in five for a dollar burgers. To Lou’s surprise, they each got a skinny burger with no fries or drink. They passed around the water jug to slake their raging thirst. The burgers weren’t very good, but the kids were hungry. Afterward, Aunt Kat pulled out a bag of sandwich cookies. That was lunch.

Thankfully, both the babies went to sleep on the drive home. Aunt Kat and Lynn were able to cart them to their beds without waking them.

Everybody helped unload groceries. There must have been ten or twelve bags. They loaded up the red wagon to make it faster. The kitchen cabinet was heaped high. “Lynn, I’m going to take the little baby but leave Connie here while I go back and get daddy. She should sleep till I get back. You girls put away groceries. Billy, you stay in the house and mind Lynn.”

“Mother, can’t you take both babies? You know Connie will cry if she wakes up.” Lynn pleaded.

“No, I can’t. I only have one carseat. I need you to stay here and put away groceries and watch Connie. I’ll be back in an hour.”

She grabbed the little baby and was on her way. Before she reached the end of the driveway Billy ran out and banged the back door.

Connie squalled out from her crib. “We’re in for it now,!” Moaned Lynn.

Afternoon Funny

Halloween party
A married couple was invited to a Halloween party. That night, as they were getting ready to go out, the wife said she had developed a migraine headache and had to stay home. She told her husband to go to the party without her. “Don’t let me spoil a good time for you,” she said. After further discussion, the husband put his costume on and went to the party. The wife took some aspirin and went to bed.

After sleeping for a while, she woke feeling much better and decided to go to the party and surprise her husband. As she was getting ready, she thought to herself, “I wonder what my husband really does when I’m not around.” She then got into a different costume, so her husband wouldn’t recognize her, and went to the party. Getting there, she stood off to the side and watched.

There was her husband dancing with one girl after another and getting very physical with them. She decided to see just how far he would go. She went up to him and started dancing with him, got very close and whispered that they should go outside. Going to one of the cars, they made love. Prior to the midnight unmasking, she left and went home to wait for her husband to return so she could confront him.

He arrived home about 1:00 a.m. and climbed into bed. She sat up and asked “Well, how was the party?” He replied, “It was no fun without you honey.” She said, “I don’t believe you. I bet you had lots of fun!” He replied, “Really, Honey. When I got to the party, some of the guys and I got bored and we went downstairs and played poker all night. But you know, that guy I loaned my costume to had one hell of a great time.”

What makes men chase women they have no intention of marrying?

The same urge that makes dogs chase cars they have no intention of driving.

Baked Beans
Once upon a time there lived a woman who had a maddening passion for baked beans. She loved them but unfortunately they had always had a very embarrassing and somewhat lively reaction to her.

Then one day she met a guy and fell in love. When it became apparent that they would marry she thought to herself, “He is such a sweet and gentle man, but he would never go for this carrying on.”

So she made the supreme sacrifice and gave up beans. Some months later her car broke down on the way home from work. Since she lived in the country she called her husband and told him that she would be late because she had to walk home. On her way she passed a small diner and the odor of the baked beans was more than she could stand. Since she still had miles to walk, she figured that she would walk off any ill effects by the time she reached home.

So, she stopped at the  diner and before she knew it, she had consumed three large orders of baked beans. She putt-putted all the way home, and upon arriving home she felt reasonably sure she could control any lingering effects.

Her husband seemed excited to see her and exclaimed delightedly, “Darling, I have a surprise for dinner tonight.”

He then blindfolded her and led her to her chair at the table. She seated herself and just as he was about to remove the blindfold from his wife, the telephone rang. He made her promise not to touch the blindfold until he returned. He then went to answer the phone.

The baked beans she had consumed were still affecting her and the pressure was becoming almost unbearable, so while her husband was out of the room she seized the opportunity, shifted her weight to one leg and let it go. It was not only loud, but it smelled like a rotten egg gone worse.

When her husband returned, he instructed her to remove her blindfold. And when she did, 50 people around her said “Surprise!”