Spooky II

There is a crossroads below the house that is a 4 way stop. Three sides of the intersection are wooded. Early in the mornings when I come to work and the moon is out, the road in almost every direction is a shiney ribbon of light grey between the dark, black shape of the trees. It reminds me so much of some of the spooky old country rounds than ran through woods out in Steekee or Piney or down along River Road.

Once when Mervin Cook and I were walking through the woods behind his house, and since it was so dark we started telling ghost stories to try and scare each other. Suddenly, we heard something running thru the woods beside us and it was getting closer. Before we could make up our minds whether we were going to fight or run, these three guys came busting out of the woods. Two of them were brothers. I forget their names but they lived down behind Mervin and one of them was fairly small with a cloudy eye. Anyway they scared the beejezuz out of us.

Another time we were frog gigging down by Philadelphia and was walking thru these woods to a large pond. When we got to the edge of the woods near the pond, one of the guys said they hoped there was no bulls around. About that time one of them shined his light over near the pond and we saw a glimmer of something shiney and someone yelled, "Bull". We started to one before someone figured out it was the light shining off the wet nose of a cow who was standing there patiently chewing her cud.

The last one that comes to mind was one day when we were in the woods along the ridge just south of the high school. I remember David Clark being there along with someone else, I'm not sure if it was Mike Littleton or not. Anyway, we had come to this notch in the hill that had steep banks on both sides and we were walking down in the notch while David's dog ran along the crest of the bank above us. We heard a shot and saw the dog jump and yelp at the same time. We stood there frozen while 3 or 4 more shots went zinging over our heads, hitting David's dog. Finally we yelled and the shooting stopped, but David's dog was running and yelping way back into the woods. It was a couple of the Harper boys (it was their land) and they said they thought the dog was a stray and couldn't see us since we were down in the notch. Believe it or not, about a month later that dog found it's way back to David's house. You could see where he had been shot, but I guess it missed anything vital.