Kathy and Louise

All of us have had pivotal moments in our childhood. Whether its an epiphany of age versus time or friends who helped to shape who we have become in our adult lives, there's always those ear mark moments that we remember throughout life, like a favorite poem in a book with the corner of the page folded down so we don't forget where it is. I've had MANY of those moments and I've been blessed with a good memory to remember most of them in immense detail. Some people I know (including my own brother) have managed to block out most of their own childhood.

When I first moved to Victorville CA at the ripe old age of 8 years old, I knew right off that I would have a hard time making friends. It was a while before I had even one friend, and that was my Great Dane named Lady. The neighbor girls Rachel and Rona were friendly, but both were quite a bit younger than I was. They were ok to play with, but we didn't become real friends until we had all been neighbors for a few years. Tina next door was older than I was and nearer my brothers age than mine, and her younger brother was still in the "girls have cooties" stage of life. By the time I was 9 I had all but given up on making any real friends.

I think Kathy and Louise moved into the "Circle" around the same time. They made friends with one another before I discovered the two of them while walking my dog one day. They invited me to play with them. I still remember the game.

It wasn't long after Christmas and all the scraps of used wrapping paper were fluttering in the ditch looking very much like one large gift to us, while to others it looked like a massive junk pile. The three of us (and my dog) spent the day right there in the ditch. We would pick up little bits of trash like old coke bottle lids and discarded nickles and then wrap them in the old bits of paper without using any tape. Then we would give them to one another and play "Christmas Morning" over and over until all the bits of paper finally blew away. They were never bits of trash to us though. That old coke bottle lid was a Barbie hat. The discarded nickel was exactly that - money! Even the used Popsicle sticks had a purpose when we were building rock castles for our toys.

Once all the paper was gone and we were looking for another fun activity, we went to Kathy's front porch where we would pick up the flat desert rocks from the garden and build things on the sidewalk with them. We would build as high as we could before they would tumble all over and we would have to sweep them up. Eventually we developed the Pony Playhouse system. We would build open-top castles for our toys at first. We couldn't figure out how to keep a roof from caving in on them. With the Popsicle sticks we collected with the Christmas game, we finally figured out a plan. They would hold the roof and door frame together so things wouldn't go crashing in around the My Little Pony inside. Later on we abandoned that idea though. It was too hard to get the ponies in and out, unless they were in prison.

Kathy and Louise were easily the best friends I ever had in my childhood. I spent every waking moment with them. Sure, we had our arguments and I would spend a couple of days sulking on my own, or Kathy wouldn't come play with Louise and me. But as best friends always do, we got over it and we moved on. In no time at all, we were like the three amigo's all over again.

Both Kathy and Louise had beautiful blond hair. I always wanted to be like them when I was a kid. I didn't know too many blond kids, and both of them were so pretty. They had the faces of angels, while I looked much more like a troll. Kathy had bangs that were often cut too short and usually always had a pony tail, while Louise had gorgeous naturally wavy hair, like Sleeping Beauty herself. Kathy always had an extremely high opinion of herself while Louise was too humble to take credit for anything she did. It seemed the blond hair was the only thing my two best friends had in common, other than an overwhelming love of all animals.

Louise was obsessed with Bugs Bunny (and loved rabbits everywhere) while Kathy shared my adoration of horses. Louise wasn't allowed to have friends over very often, just like me, while Kathy was always wanting us to play in her room. Louise and I both had an older brother, but they didn't get along much that I recall, other than a brief month one summer where they went into the desert and dug a fort into the dirt. Kathy had one older brother and one younger, named John and Mikey. I had such a crush on John back then. I didn't dare ever tell Kathy that. Kathy and I were both very competitive while Louise was very relaxed and patient with us. Louise was always kind and gentle to all thing and people, while Kathy occasionally had a cruelty streak in her that frightened a lot of other kids that didn't know her very well.

Finally one year at school, Louise and I had the same class with Mr. Steinerson. It was the 5th grade and there were a lot of exciting things coming our way. And yet...

As was the way of Military life, eventually we had to part ways. Louise was the first to move, and Kathy went two weeks after her. I was left alone in that town without a friend to turn to. I went to school the day after she left and Mr. Steinerson asked me to come up to his desk.

"Louise wanted me to give this to you," he said, handing me her eye glass case. I gasped. Did this mean she was coming back? Surely she would need her glasses! I opened the case and I began to cry. There were no glasses inside, but instead a note and a photo of her from the previous school year. I was nearly inconsolable for a week. Every time I started to miss her I would open that eye glass case and see her picture and I would feel better. I truly loved Louise. I missed her terribly. Military life destroyed my childhood, but Louise and Kathy had somehow saved it from complete disaster.

Kathy and Louise had become more than my friends. They had grown to become my sisters in those years we spent together. Kathy sent a Christmas card once, but as with all kids, we loose interest in writing and the three of us completely lost contact.

That never stopped me from looking though. I never gave up the search.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Camp Thousand Pines

I think I was in the 5th grade when I went to Camp Thousand Pines for the first time. I remember pulling up in the bus and having all the girls in one group, the boys in the other. It had been a hard year in school for me that year, having just lost my best friend, Louise Pritchard, when she moved away. I've never stopped looking for her.

The bus pulled up in one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. Little cabins were dotted through the woods with a central hall in the dead center of it all. The kids all piled out and began to scatter in multiple directions before one of the teachers bellowed for them all to freeze where they were and reassemble by the bus.

One by one we received cabin assignments. There was a teacher or parent in each cabin, but that didn't stop the girls from giggling and the boys from trying to pull practical jokes on one another at night. Parts of the trip turned out like the practical joke events in the original "Parent Trap" movie.

We went on night hikes. We met the local Native American tribe and they came to teach us how to do the traditional Rain Dance. I discovered my allergic reaction to bees. I had a metal ladder fall on my leg and sprain my ankle and we all took turns in the kitchen preparing a meal for the other kids before taking any food for ourselves. We even learned how to curl our hands and place our lips in the correct position in order to call the squirrels. I can actually still do it.

We told ghost stories out by the fire at night, roasted marshmallows over the open flames and enjoyed root beer floats while chatting about life in general. Though it seems as if Camp Thousand Pines has changed a lot since I was last there, my memories of the place before technology, live on just as they were.

Boo Hag - a Ghost Story.

You know how they say some folks are lucky at cards and some are lucky at love? Well, that fit Bobby Hansen to a ‘T’. He was the best poker player in the county, but somehow he couldn’t find himself a bride. Oh, he proposed to several girls, and even got accepted by a few. But they always got cold feet a day or two before the wedding, and it was bye-bye Bobby.

After the third time, Bobby was mighty discouraged, and his Pa felt real sore for him. They worked together in the family grocery store, and Bobby would sometimes sit on top of the pickle barrel and tell his Pa all his woes. And his Pa told him to hang in there, because a nice lady was on her way. Neither of them believed it, but it made both of them feel better to hear it said. Well, the day after their latest talk, the old woman who poled her barge through the swamp to deliver milk and eggs to the grocery store had a long talk with Bobby’s Pa. Seems she had this daughter who was hankering after a husband with a good steady job, and the old woman thought Bobby would do the job nicely. She suggested they introduce the pair at the next dance, and Bobby’s Pa agreed.

The night of the dance, Bobby’s Pa insisted that his son dress in his best. Bobby was dragging his feet a little, remembering all those women who played him false and not wanting to go, but his Pa dragged him out anyway. Well, the moment Bobby clapped eyes on the dark-eyed, red-lipped girl from the swamp, he was head over heels in love. Her eyes sparkled like the sunlight on the bay. Her skin was as creamy as new milk. Her voice was low and sweet.

The pair cuddled and cooed and waltzed the whole night long, and come sunrise Bobby was all for bringing his new love before the visiting priest who delivered his sermons in the grocery store (since there weren’t no church in that vicinity) and getting married right away. Well the girl was willing to get married, but not by a priest.

“Let’s just go to Beaumont and have the judge marry us,” she said to Bobby, and he was so smitten he agreed, though it would have been quicker and easier to just walk a mile down the road to see the priest.

By the next evening they were wed, and Bobby brought his pretty bride to the nice little cottage he rented just down the road from the family grocery. It had a nice front porch with a swing, a big bedroom on the second floor and a big attic with a window that could be made up into a second guestroom should his new mother-in-law care to visit from her home in the swamp.

After fixing him a nice dinner, Bobby’s new bride sat awhile in the rocking chair near their bed while Bobby yawned and watched her fondly. She cuddled under the blanket and knitted and hummed, and Bobby’s eyes grew heavy. He didn’t wake up until early morning, when his new bride crept into bed all hot and sweaty and fell asleep at once. When he asked her where she’d been, she wouldn’t answer him. Bobby was mighty sore that his bride had snuck out on him on their wedding night, but when she got snappish and her eyes blazed like they did when he questioned her, he grew frightened and backed down.

Life took on an odd pattern for Bobby. During the day, everything was perfect. His wife was sweet and pretty and loving. She kept the house sparkling clean and cooked him wonderful meals. But each night she refused to come to bed after supper. Like their wedding night, she sat up singing and rocking and knitting until he was asleep and did not come to bed til just afore dawn. She was always sweaty and cranky when she came to bed, and went to sleep before Bobby could question her.

Bobby was very confused and upset by this behavior, and finally confided in his Pa one morning after opening up the grocery store. Bobby’s Pa was awful worried. The visiting priest had gone on to his next parish, and there was no one they could consult but the local conjure woman. So he sent Bobby to her with a couple of chickens as a gift.

The conjure woman knew all about hoodoo magic and was an excellent herbalist. Local folks went to her when they were sick, on account of the doctor lived nigh on twenty miles away. When she heard Bobby’s story, she told him to pretend to go to sleep that night and watch what his new bride did. Then he was to come back and tell her everything. Bobby agreed.

The next evening, he pretended to fall asleep while his bride rocked and sang in her chair. Then he followed her up to the attic and watched through the crack in the open door as she sat down at the spinning wheel and spun off her skin, leaving only pulsing red muscles and blue veins. She was a terrifying sight and she sprang through the window and flew away into the night. Bobby ran out to the privy and was sick after he saw her. Who, what was this monster he had married? He was still trembling and in shock when his bride, looking like a normal person again, crept into bed at dawn, and he had trouble behaving normally at breakfast.


Part 2: Video created by a Reader
As soon as he could get away, Bobby ran to the home of the conjure woman and told her about the spinning wheel and the terrible skinless creature who flew away from his attic. “A boo-hag,” the conjure woman said at once. “You’ve married a boo-hag.”

“What’s a boo-hag?” asked Bobby. “A Boo Hag is a witch and a shape-shifter,” said the conjure woman. “She lures men into her trap and then delivers them to her Boo-Daddy, who eats their flesh and gnaws their bones. And that’s what she’ll do to you if you don’t get rid of her first.”

The conjure woman told Bobby to get himself some blue paint. As soon as the boo-hag left the house that night, he was to spread blue paint on every window frame and every door frame and make sure it was two coats thick. A boo-hag couldn’t fly through a window or door that was painted blue. And if she didn’t get back into her skin before dawn, she would be trapped without it, and be revealed for the monster she was. So he was to leave one tiny window unpainted, and keep it open a sliver so the boo-hag could squeeze through. Then he was to fill up her skin with salt and pepper, which would burn her up from the inside out. And Bobby promised to do exactly as the conjure woman said.

That night, Bobby lingered over his dinner, looking with sad eyes at the pretty woman sitting opposite him. He knew she was really a monster inside, but it was so nice to have a little wife in his home. He hated like anything to see her go. But he didn’t want to get eaten by a Boo-Daddy, and that was his fate if she stayed. So he went up to their bedroom and pretended to fall asleep while she rocked and sang and knitted. Then he followed her quietly upstairs and put salt and pepper into her skin after her ugly red-muscled blue-veined figure had flown out the window to her Boo-Daddy. He spent the rest of the night painting over every door and window frame with blue paint, leaving only one small unpainted window open in the cellar. He nailed it up so that it would open no further than a crack, just as the conjure woman instructed him. Then he hid himself behind a large chest of drawers up in the attic to wait for the boo-hag.

Just before dawn, the boo-hag came flying up to the attic window. As soon as she touched the blue frame, she gave a shriek of pain and rage. Bobby listened as she flew around the house, testing each window and door and howling like a banshee when it burned her skinless hands. Then she found the little window in the cellar, and he heard the thump as she landed beside it, followed by a painful whimpering sound as she squeezed and squeezed herself through the narrow opening, her skinless red muscles and blue veins tearing painfully against the rough wood.

The boo-hag ran up three flights of stairs into the attic and squeezed and squeezed into her skin as fast as she could. She just barely got it on when the first light of dawn shone over the horizon. And that was when the salt and pepper did their work, burning the boo-hags body from the inside out. With a scream of agony, she flung herself out the attic window. The glass shattered everywhere as she tried to fly away, tearing at the skin to get it off. But it was too late. She exploded into tiny pieces right over the swamp, and the alligators had them a mighty feast of cooked boo-hag for breakfast that morning.

So Bobby was once again without a wife. But bachelorhood looked much better to him after that, and he never went looking for a wife again. ‘Course, after he made a pile of money in oil, the girls started chasing him. But that’s another story!

Cousin Kyle

Kyle, my cousin, was a troubled kid. He was my fathers’ sisters’ son. I don’t know why he was troubled, and I don’t know what he did, but I do remember the summer I met Kyle.

He came to stay with us for a few months. I was so excited to have a new body in the house! “Someone new to play with,” was the first thought in my mind. I didn’t realize that my cousin was 16 and I was 5. He wasn’t interested in playing with me. He wanted to go smoke nasty smelling paper things out behind the bushes. I stayed away from him when he went there. I remembered those bushes all too well. I knew what people did when they went to hide behind bushes.

I wanted to impress my cousin; make him think I would be fun to play with. Maybe then he wouldn’t want to hide behind the bushes with his burning rolls of paper. I loved the swings. I played often on the playground and had calluses that would make a professional gymnast proud. Still, my favorite things at the playground were the swings. I used to lie on them on my stomach and swing back and forth, pretending I was Superman. The day I decided to impress my cousin, I really did impress him, but not the way I had planned.

I took off running toward the swings, arms over my head as if in a diving position. Suddenly, about 2 feet from the swing I was aiming at, I soared into the air. For a split second I felt like I was flying. Then I landed. Not with my stomach making contact with the swing, but rather with my head making a stunning, sickening thud when it contacted with the sand underneath. My legs hung limply over the swing, my butt in the air. I had soared right over the swing completely and landed on my skull on the other side.

Kyle and my brother both came racing over, asking me if I was ok. Once I could get the dirt out of my mouth, I grunted that I was all right. I claimed that it didn’t hurt at all, and even got up to show Kyle the cautious way to do the Superman, forcing back tears the whole time. Kyle marveled at how tough I was not to cry at landing directly on my noggin.

Kyle had to suddenly go home one day. I remember coming in the house with my mom yelling at him. I wanted to stay out of the whole thing, so I tip toed upstairs to my room. On the way I smelled a funny odor coming from the bathroom. It smelled like the funny smell my nose sensed every time Kyle went behind the bushes. I had never smelled it in the house before, except on Kyle’s clothes. I figured that was why mom was mad a Kyle. Years later, I found out I was right. Kyle never came to visit again.