A Real Life Halloween Horror Story.  

So, over COVID , to help lift moods and family morale, Missy Hooks Dollahon thought that it would be a good idea for us to foster kittens.  I am not an “animal person”, mind you, but gamely went along with the scheme in the spirit of unity.

Our first litter was a mom and five kittens...and that went well enough...but this second litter...three little rascals...are monster biters and scratchers!  They also, oddly love me, although I don’t give them any attention.  I can’t sit still without one of them climbing up on me and eventually biting my knee or knuckle.  Little #^%ers!!!

At night, they sometimes sneak in our bedroom and because I’m a big warm lumpy guy tuck themselves within the folds and creases of my beautiful, fleshy corpus.  This is a little terrifying in that I live in drowsy fear that I’ll roll over and utterly pancake one of them unknowingly...

But, sometimes they like to “play”.  In the darkest pit of night.  Which means they skitter about me and eventually - always - bite me somewhere painful.  Like the thin, parchment skin around my ankles...or a toe...

I will then have to get up and round them all up and then throw them outside our bedroom and firmly lock the door.

So the other night...  The kittens entered our bedroom and found Their Favorite...and like other nights couched themselves purring and peaceful around their most cherished “jelly rolls”....and then, hours later...roused themselves for a bit of midnight fun...and as they minced and capered around me one of them saw something inviting and intriguing to naw on...there...just in neath the thinnest price of fabric...

I SAT UP AND SHRIEKED IN BLINDING PAIN.   

Yes...

One of the kittens had decided to chomp down hard atop what is sometimes medically described as ones “Hooded Warrior”.  

My “Top Hat and Tails”.

My “Meat With Two Veg”.

Tiny little fang-like daggers...eager to make mince of Your Trusted Author’s “Master Of Ceremonies”.

I am still in recovery.

Stars

My grandfather Chester (b. 1913) told me a story about how when he was a boy he knew an old woman who had been a slave.  I wish I could remember her name - they all called her Aunt something?  Or Granny? He said she was so old, the children would always ask her how old she was, and she would always answer, “don’t know when I was born, don’t know when I’ll die, but I was born when the stars fell out of the sky.” 

I’ve long wondered what she was referring to, and figured it must have been a local meteor shower. I’ve tried to research it before but found nothing. Then today, reading the Texas Slave Narratives, I came across this quote from Sylvester Brooks, a slave of Josiah Collier in Green Co, Alabama: 

"Old Marse often told me 'bout de stars fallin'. It was 'long 'bout sundown and growed dark all a sudden and de chickens goes to roost. Den some stars with long tails 'gins to shoot, den it look like all de stars had come out of Heaven, and did dey fall! De stars not all what fell. De white folks and de niggers fell on dere knees, prayin' to Gawd to save dem iffen de world comin' to a end, and de women folks all run down in de cellar and stayed till mornin'. Old Marse say it was in 1833, and he say dem stars fall awhile and quit awhile, like de showers when it rains."

This must be what it was! The storms happen every 33 years but it must have been the 1833 storm for her to be considered ancient by 1920 or so when Chester was a boy. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonids

Mom, did Jesus die on Black Friday?
- bethie