A LOUISIANA GHOST STORY

Just in time for Halloween

Louisiana Ghost Story

This happened about 6 months ago in Louisiana on Hwy 57, just outside of Dulac, a little town in the bayou country of Louisiana , and while it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock tale, it's for real.
An Ohio businessman, Saul Rubins, abandoned his disabled vehicle on the side of the road, and attempted to hitchhike. The night was pitch dark in the middle of a thunderstorm. Time passed slowly and no cars went by. It was raining so hard he could hardly see his hand in front of his face.
Suddenly, through the sheets of rain, he saw a car moving slowly, approaching and appearing ghost-like in the rain. It slowly and silently crept toward him and stopped.
Desperately needing a ride, Saul jumped in the car and closed the door. Only then did he realize that there was no one behind the wheel and no sound of an engine to be heard over the rain.
Again the car crept silently forward and Saul was terrified, but too scared to think of jumping out and running. He saw that the car was approaching a sharp curve and, still too scared to jump out, he started to pray and beg for his life; he was sure the ghost car would go off the road and into the bayou and he would then drown!
But just before the curve, a shadowy hand appeared at the driver's window, reached in and turned the steering wheel, guiding the car safely around the bend.. Then, just as silently, the hand disappeared through the window and Saul was alone again.
Paralyzed with fear, Saul watched the hand reappear every time they reached a curve. Finally, scared nearly to death, Saul had all he could take, jumped out of the car, and ran to town.
Wet and in shock, he walked into Buster's Coffee Stop. Voice quavering, he ordered a cup of black chicory coffee and then told everybody about his supernatural experience.
The room became silent and everybody got goose bumps when they realized Saul was not just some talkative drunk but was telling the truth about what had happened to him.
About 30 minutes later two Cajuns, dripping wet, walked into Buster's and one says to the other, "Look, Boudreaux, ders dat idiot that jumped in our car when we wuz pushin' it in the rain!"

The FIRST COLD NIGHT

Last night was pretty chilly. Boy Bobby put a new front porch light out front for me, with a motion detector. I noticed when it came on how spectacular the camellia by the front door looked. It measures 8 feet across at its widest, and is 14 feet tall. Its partner at the other end of the house is not as wide as we have to cut it back every year in order to get down the sidewalk, but it is the same height. I thought the pictures at night showed how full of blooms they were better than daylight shots.

Punkin is grateful for the heating pad in his box. Can't you hear him say, "Oh, that feels good on these old bones!"

Boy, blogger sure does not cooperate in the picture placement department anymore. Sorry, but I don't seem to have anyway to get these pictures where I want them.

BUBBA AND THE JOHN DEERE

Cletus is passing by Bubba’s hay barn one day when, through a gap
in the door, he sees Bubba doing a slow and sensual striptease in front
of an old green John Deere.
Buttocks clenched, he performs a slow pirouette, and gently slides
off first the right strap of his overalls, followed by the left. He then
hunches his shoulders forward and in a classic striptease move, lets his
overalls fall down to his hips, revealing a torn and frayed plaid shirt.
Then, grabbing both sides of his shirt, he rips it apart to reveal his
stained T-shirt underneath. With a final flourish, he tears the T-shirt from
his body, and hurls his baseball cap onto a pile of hay.
Having seen enough, Cletus rushes in and says, "What the world're ya
doing, Bubba ?"
"Good grief, Cletus, ya scared the bejeebers out of me," says an
obviously embarrassed Bubba .
"But me 'n the wife been havin trouble lately in the bedroom
d'partment, and the therapist suggested I do something sexy to
a tractor."

(Don't make me come splain this to you! Read the last line again, slowly.)

A LITTLE VISITOR

I HAD A LITTLE VISITOR last week. A friend called, said she needed help with a little problem, and her story included the relocation of a golfball. It was a clue! If you ever raised chickens, you will know sometimes folks put golf balls in the nest to get the hens to figure out that is where they should lay their eggs. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Now if that golfball starts moving around your hen house, you can bet the chickens aren't playing putt putt golf! You probably have a visitor in the night. So, she started visiting the hen house after dark, and what did she see? This little cutie. So, she borrowed a Have a Heart Trap and 2 days later brought this little one over to be released on my property. I kept the "teenage" possum in the barn until just about sunset, then carried the cage to a safe location, opened the door just enough for the little one to get out, and sure enough, in the morning, the food left in the cage was gone, (cat food and a very ripe banana,) and so was the visitor.

In the process of moving the little one from the trap into the safe cage for the day, my friend touched its foot. She said she could not get over how soft that little foot was! They are - just like little baby's hands.

We have not seen the Little One since, and this is good. My cats do not bother possums. They do not see them as a threat. One used to sleep in a nesting box on the carport for a few nights every once in a while, then move on. They are nomadic, one might say. But, no little bodies on the road, and miles of woods and fields to go in the other directions, so hopefully the Little one will find his or her new home near-by.

Sorry, no chicken houses for a couple of miles.

HIGH TIDE

WE HAVE HAD some really high tides the past couple of days... This is in Onancock, VA, about 2 miles from my house, on Onancock Creek which opens onto the Chesapeake Bay. The usual place for the creek is on the other side of the piling, so what you are looking at is the parking lot! Funny, no one is sitting on the liar's bench today! This last shot is the outdoor dining area at the restaurant on the wharf.

THE BEGINNING OF FALL

IT IS THAT TIME OF YEAR the mornings are crisp if not almost cold. You can get in a few hours of work outside before the mosquitoes thaw out and become pests. Usually by the time they start to look for a snack, I am exhausted and in the shower anyway. The colors here are subtle. I appreciate that, having lived in New England and the Poconos where autumn sometimes screams at you… Not that I don’t appreciate all those beautiful colors, its just that I guess I like the surprise of a spot of color here and there. No one can say that autumn on the Eastern Shore is ever over-whelming! But this is a place where it is green, well, sort of, all year long. We have lots and lots of evergreens, not just the pines, but magnolias, camellias, bayberry, boxwood, holly, acuba… even the nandina and azaleas stay mostly green with hints of red to brighten them up in the winter. I like understated…

I have had azaleas blooming for over a month, and the camellias started the middle of September. Some of the phlox are still in bloom and the daisies just started on the first of October. The dogwood tree is usually the first to change color and get its bright berries. Then comes the Rose of Sharon (Althea), and then the big deciduous trees around the first of November.

Remember the song about the autumn leaves of red and gold? Well, here we have the autumn azaleas of red and the cat of gold! How’s this for autumn colors? Pumpkin and Spook came to me around this time of year… here’s Spook and Pumpkins and Punkin and potatoes! Yep, I still have potato plants… I will have a second crop of redskins… OK, maybe not too many, but a few meals worth, I am sure! I still have tomatoes. The azalea does well at holding them up.

This is also the end of the mega spider web season which usually starts in September. For about a month, these webs are EVERYWHERE! We learn to walk with our arms stretched out in front of our faces so we don’t wear the webs in our hair all day. I don’t dislike spiders, but I am not fond of webs in my face.

It is the season for apples, especially Macintosh. My dear neighbors brought me apples again this year from Maine. How I love apples and especially fresh home-made apple pie, made with honey and plenty of cinnamon. NO PHONY STUFF! The house smells so good on pie baking day. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmm. Nothing lke a nice warm slice, fresh from the over (not warmed in a microwave – I don’t even own one of them, and a cold glass of real milk on a chilly afternoon. Life is good.

AUTUMN in ONLEY–the EVENT!

WE FINALLY HAD OUR AUTUMN in Onley mini Country Fair… our testing the waters event, as it were. Everything is a learning experience. Someone has an idea, you don’t know if it will work or not until you have tried it.

Our main purpose is, of course, to save the old building, but that takes a lot of time and money. We were so lucky to have had 2 grants, one from the Town of Onley, one from the Eastern Shore Foundation, that enabled us to get some serious carpentry work done and then a new roof put on. But our other purpose is to share the joy of model railroading with others, and use it as a means of teaching kids – not just how to play with trains, but eventually teaching math, art, history, physics, carpentry, the list can go on and on, by setting up trains and building layouts. They will also learn a lot about patience.

In celebration of the new roof, we held a big Bake Sale, Play with Trains event, and a couple fun things thrown in for the kids. The sheriff’s department came and set up to do Ident-a-Kid – a great program, free to anyone who brings their child.

Friends and neighbors brought all kinds of delicious looking baked goods. What a time to NOT be allowed to eat anything with sugar or white flour. I did manage a half a cookie before someone rescued me. (swiped my bag of cookies right out of my hand, she did!) sigh.

It was a deliciously cool day, too. Most folks had on light jackets except for the tough MEN and teenaged boys in their short sleeves. In spite of the threatening clouds, the rain stayed away and we even had moments of delightful sunshine!

Ed enjoyed helping the kids make scarecrows. That seemed like a lot of fun. The kids also had fun painting pumpkins.

The big hit was, of course, the trains. Niall Finnegan, our president, was more than willing to explain how our unfinished layout was made, from bending, shaping, cutting, and soldering the track, to gluing the foam and shaping it into rocks and hills. The layout is unfinished so kids (of all ages) can see the various steps in making a layout. The scenery is left unfinished, one of the trees still has a paper clip holding a branch section in place for gluing. The plaster base is unpainted, no moss has been attached to make it look like weeds or bushes. The kids were fascinated. So was the sheriff! Our Sheriff, Todd Godwin, dropped by to see how things were going.

After a long day of helping to make scarecrows, member Ed took a well deserved break while waiting for someone to bring him some lunch! The guys at the Fire Station grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for us. If we do this again next year, Ya’all come see us, ya hear?

PS - blogger has decided NOT to let me line the pictures up the way I want them - sorry...