Two True Halloween Stories in my Formative Years

Since it is the Halloween season, here are two true Halloween stories that happened in my formative years.

Story Number 1.  We read in The Marietta Daily Journal the other day that The Marietta Daily Journal will sell their building at the corner of Fairground and Glover Streets to the Cobb County Education and move closer to town.

The Cobb County Board of Eduation already owns most of the property on the south side of Glover Street from one end to the other.

The mention of the  property that The Marietta Journal is on now brought back memories.  I lived around the corner on Manget Street from age 7 to 15 and knew almost every tree, slope,  and little hills in the area.  Across from the Marietta Journal building on Glover Street is the Perry Parham Little League Baseball Field.

Manget Creek flowed through Larry Bell Park, across Glover Street, behind into a patch of woods the MDJ would own.  A trail went into the woods beside the creek.  The trail went up a hill. 

We boys called that area "The Hollow".  At night we could hear strange owl and other bird sounds.  We thought the area was haunted.  It was only natural that one Halloween night to go to "The Hollow" and see which one of us was brave enough to go deep into the woods there.

I was something of a show-off and said I would go down the trail into the darkness.

From memory I could stay on the trail and go up the hill.  About half way up the hill I heard a noise in front of me and looked up.  A pair of green eyes were looking at me.  I stopped and started backing up but keeping my eyes on the green eyes. 

The eyes started following me.  I was scared shitless.

Walking backwards down a hill I lost my balance and tripped.  The green eyes rushed to me face to face.  Then I felt Skipper, my dog, lick me in the face.

Skipper was a huge part collie and part bird dog that ran free.  Back then we never heard of a leash law.

I think the reason his eyes were green is the about the same reason in some photos our eyes might be red.  Dogs do not have the same eye-ball innards that we do, I think that is why most of us can see color and dogs can't.  But sometimes you see dogs with green eyes in a flash photograph.  There must have been a street light or something nearby.

Halloween Story Number 2.  I don't think  this story happened  on Halloween, but is scary and violent and the same area.

In the previous story the trail went up the hill, if one had followed it they would have ended up behind a barn.

The barn belonged to Eddie's grandfather.  Not me, another Eddie.   This Eddie was mentally challenged and I think his parents disowned him and he lived with various relatives, including his grandparents.

One day a bunch of us were up in the loft of the barn playing, wresting, and so on.  Somebody reminded Eddie that just about a year ago I broke his nose in a fight and blood went everywhere. 

Evidently Eddie had forgot that, but now his memory of the event surfaced.  He pounced on me and started choking me. 

 He was very strong and I could not break away.  I could not breath, I thought I was at my end.

Then,   like divine interference, the plywood over the rafters in the loft tilted.  They were not nailed down and we got too close to the edge, so it tilted with the new weight on it  and dumped us to the ground like a dump truck would.  I hopped up and sprinted away like a jack rabbit.

A couple years ago I heard Eddie was now in prison for murder, thank goodness, not mine.