A Spooky, Scary Story

Hello my little buckaroos! Well, two more days until Halloween! Eeeeeee! I'm so excited!

I received this great little story from a Ranch Dressing friend named Sara and I think that you'll find it pretty spoooky! This is from when she was in 2nd grade.

I bring to you "A Spooky, Scary Story". Enjoy!





In case you can't read the small print, here is a translation with her words unchanged because I can't even bear to change the cute little misspellings (and I know the adult Sara and her spelling is top-notch these days so not to worry! And besides...does anyone but me notice the badly placed comma in the original mimeograph sheet?):

When he walked in the house he saw spiders.
And then he walked a little more and saw a ghost.
And he walked up the stars and saw a brain
It was getting late and his mother told him to go to bed at 8:00
and when he went to bed something woke him up

IT was strang and horrible
It was.....goblins!
he was scared to dath
he ran so fast he got home in time


How cute is that?! It makes me sad even decades later that you can tell that she ran out of room on that page. I bet that little Sara would have just kept going with her story! Here is a note from her about the story:

I totally remember getting this paper too. It was one of those mimeograph copies, where the paper came to you kind of damp feeling and had this certain smell to it. Anyway, I remember trying to think REALLY hard about what would be insanely scary to me. My Mom and Step-Dad had just been watching some movie on TV (the name of which completely escapes me now, possibly The Beast with Five Fingers, because it would have been the late 1970s) where there was a hand crawling around on it's own killing people. I was completely freaked out by a hand living on it's own killing people. Hey, what's more freaky than body parts with a mind of their own? So, I guess I thought about all our body parts and the brain seemed like the most frightening of all - and into the story it went. I guess, ultimately though, I thought goblins were the most scary because that scared him to death! What 'goblins' meant to me as a 7 year old? Hmmm, huge monsters maybe??? Hard to say!

I'm not sure why I finished it 'He got home in time' because he was sleeping at the haunted house, but I guess that is a 7 year old for you. :D

The words are supposed to be - 'strange' --- 'horrible' ----'death'.
You can see I was not he best speller back then - but I did color the ghost within the lines!

Well, I love the whole thing and completely agree with the teacher's remarks of "Good!"...though I'd probably say "Great!" Thanks for sharing your story and your lovely ghost coloring with us, Sara! Thanks also for reminding us about those freshly printed mimeograph sheets. I can remember how all of the kids would put them up to their faces and huff the fumes when they were handed out!

And hey! I think that now would be a good time to see a bit about the film that inspired her story! (Sorry Sara....cover your eyes with your hand and just peek through the fingers now..)










My gosh, Sara is right! A hand living on it's own IS pretty darned freaky! Her story made me wonder what other kinds of body parts can terrorize folks. Here's what I found!

Okay, first off, another hand - but not just any hand....it's the hand of an astronaut destroyed in space!










Eek! And can we take a second to pay homage to quite possibly one of the best lines in a movie ever: "What does it mean I'm stacked?"

I think that I'll ask Mr. Kitsch that when he comes home from work today just to see the wheels turning in his head.

Next up...The Crawling Eye!










Oh my gosh! Those crazy, creepy disembodied eyes coming from the hills! (I might just fear them about as much as I do that show "The Hills".) Okay, buckaroos...I know what you must be thinking: "Please Miss Eartha! We'll never go to sleep tonight! And how will we ever look at our OWN body parts again??" ...but you must at least see this one:










Like those first few frames with that brain? That's just for you, Sara!
How about that last line dripping with sexism that is even scarier than disembodied parts creeping around terrorizing people?

Thanks to Miss Sara and to the film makers in the golden age of horror and sci-fi for making me love the "spooky" and "scary" even more than I did before.

Until next time (what's that behind you?!!)
x's and o's,
Eartha