A little terror from a big brother ~ October 26, 1988

David Heiller

When was the last time you heard a scary story?

How about the latest presidential poll? (Just kidding, George.)

This newspaper recently ran a contest, soliciting scary stories from readers. We’ve got some good ones, and have printed several of the best on page seven in this edition. I hope you enjoy them.

The Heiller boys, before they started 
telling little brother, David, horror stories

I may be mistaken, but the best horror stories come from the minds of kids. As a member of the generation that grew up before axe-murder movies, I confess: I haven’t seen Friday the Thirteeth Part One yet, let alone Part Seven. And this Freddie guy doesn’t scare me—when I see those stainless steel finger nails, I think what a great job he could do working up our garden next spring. Wouldn’t even have to borrow a tiller. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy would be too tired for people after he finished cutting up the four-and-a-half cords of wood I bought from my neighbor last Saturday.

Yet 20 years ago, Lon Chaney would scare me for days if I sat up to watch him turn into a werewolf on Saturday night. Maybe it was staying up late that one night a week that did it. Maybe it was Earl Hinton. Maybe it was my brothers, who threatened to switch beds after I fell asleep and put me into Danny’s bed, the single bed—alone!—instead of the double bed where I slept with Glenn. (Glenn was nine years older than me, and always made me sleep next to the wall, but I didn’t mind after watching Lon Chaney turn into a werewolf.)

Back then, everybody knew a scary story or two. We took turns telling them at night at the school grounds. I think those stories had today’s butcher movies beat hands down. Danny had one of the best—or worst. I’ll share it here, with a warning—it came from the mind of a 12-year-old boy in 1962. Faint of heart and lovers of cats, stop reading now.

The story featured Danny (of course), and an old man, maybe Freddie’s grandfather. “This guy had only one good arm,” Danny would tell in an eager voice beneath the yellow streetlight at the school grounds. “The other he had lost in an accident. But for his other arm, the one that was missing, he bought a sickle attachment.”

“Where’d he get it, at the hardware store?” some older kid would crack. Danny ignored that, boring in on the younger kids with his quick eyes.

“And he didn’t use it to weed around the garden. He lived in this deserted house in the woods. One night a group of us got lost in the woods, and we came onto this house, see. A single kerosene lantern was all that shined through the windows.

“We crept up to a window, and slowly raised up to peek over the sill and into the room. Then we heard this noise—putt-ssss, putt-ssss, putt-ssss. Danny had this noise mastered from countless tellings, the sound of liquid dripping onto a hot surface. “Putt-ssss, putt-ssss.”

“It was dark in the room, so we leaned closer against the window. We could see something dripping onto the glass of the lantern. It was dripping from the ceiling above the room. Putt-ssss, putt-ssss.

“We didn’t know what to do, so I thought, “Well, I’m going to see what’s upstairs.” So I climbed in through the window, and there was a stairway in the corner, a steep stairway that went almost straight up. I could see a dim light there. So up I went, trying not to make a sound. I got_, to the top, and looked over.

“There, in a corner above the lantern we had seen downstairs, a man sat with his back to me. There was a gunny sack next to the man, and I could hear a strange noise. It was hard to figure at first, but then I recognized it, the sound of cats meowing all together, kind of crying and howling and moaning. Then this guy reached into the bag, and he pulled out a cat with his left hand, and he raised his right hand into the air, but he didn’t have a hand there at all. He had a sickle. And swoosh, that sickle sliced the air, and chopped that cat’s head off, and he raised it to his lips, and drank the blood, and tossed it in the corner. He was sitting in a pool of blood, so much that it was dripping through the floor, onto the lantern below, putt-ssss, putt-ssss.”

By this time, I couldn’t breath. Danny would manage a grin, a sneer that Lon Chaney would have envied. “Then I moved my foot, and the stairs creaked. That old man turned around and spotted me. He raised his right arm in the air, and jumped to his feet, blood dripping from the sickle. I couldn’t move. He charged, and then I turned and ran, we all ran, and we didn’t stop running, we ran for hours it seemed, always looking back, and seeing something behind us, we didn’t know what. We finally made it back to town, and we never saw that house or that old man again.”

About that time, someone would give a whoop. We would all jump and laugh. Mom would call from down the street. The story would be over, that night’s version anyway, forgotten but certain to be told again, passed down with the same chilling effect, until I had heard it enough times to scare the younger kids too.

I don’t think I’d ever repeat that story again today though. Certainly not in a weekly newspaper. Too tame. Better stick to Friday the Thirteenth and Halloween.

Like ‘em or not, woodticks are sticking with us ~ June 13, 1985

David Heiller

You can straddle the fence on a lot of subjects, but one thing which everyone has an opinion about is woodticks. One person may rejoice in torturing them, the next wouldn’t live in the same state as one.

Woodticks are no laughing matter to many people, including my mother-in-law and her dog, Muffin.

Muffin, as the name implies, is a poodle mix. She measures about 15 inches long, weighs maybe eight pounds after a haircut. In other words, she’s only slightly bigger than some of the well-fed woodticks of northern Minnesota.

Muffin came for a visit last weekend, along with a bunch of other family members. She sprang from the car warily, her gray fur cut short, and a pink ribbon tied in a bow on top of her head. Binti, our dog, (followed her around as she staked her territory at several spots in the yard, as dogs (even poodles) are wont to do.

From the very beginning; Muffin seemed to keep ‘one eye on the house at all times while she explored outside: She may have remembered the day two years ago when we were walking up the road past the neighbors, and their shepherd/husky mistook her for a large gray squirrel or rabbit. Muffin emerged from that mismatch with a punctured lung and some broken ribs. She didn’t leave the yard this last visit.

In fact, she didn’t leave the house much. But still, the omni-present woodtick radared in on her. Sunday morning, despite an aerosol spray with anti-tick stuff, she had a woodtick on her nose. It was so small, we couldn^’t get it out with our fingers and had to use a tweezers. Lorely, my wife’s mother, wouldn’t even attempt it with her fingers. That prompted a dinner table recollection from Cindy.

“Remember that time I had a woodtick right in the middle of my back?” she said. “I couldn’t reach it, any way I tried. Then I asked you to take it out.” She nodded at her mother. “And you wouldn’t take it out.

“That’s not true, I did too take it out,” Lorely said firmly.

“Yes, but you used a tweezers,” Cindy answered.

“Well I still took it out,” Lorely said in a dignified voice, as if to say, “I may not like ticks, but I wouldn’t leave them sticking in my daughter.”

On the other end of the spectrum, some people like to do battle with woodticks. I visited a friend two weeks ago who has a handful of kids. My dog came with, and nosed up to eight-year-old Josh. Josh began petting Binti, and immediately began pulling ticks off her back. It came as natural as a handshake. “What’s the matter, don’t you take the ticks off your dog;” Josh scolded me as he tossed them aside. I had to admit it was a losing battle.

But nothing tops the time a friend came to visit from Texas. “We hadn’t seen each other for some time, so he started telling me about how things were different in the Lone Star State. I picked up a basketball, and the more buckets we shot, the more he bragged.

“Corn grows so fast down there,” he said, shooting the ball “we have to harvest it with an ax, and even then we have a hard time, because it’s hard to hit the same spot twice, it shoots up so quick.

“And we have to strap old roller skates on the bottom of watermelons so that they don’t tear up the yard when they’re growing on the vine.

“The Mosquitoes, why we just expanded Dulles International Airport to accommodate their landings and take-offs.”

He started to continue, but I cut him off. “What about woodticks?”

He stared at me. “Yeah, what about them?”

I held up the basketball. “You know this thing you thought was a basketball...”

I did t get to finish the sentence. My friend was already halfway out the driveway. I haven’t heard from him since, except for a form-letter Christmas card.

Like I said, most everybody has a story about woodticks. Not all of them are entirely true.

English is ‘dam’ interesting—and maddening! ~ May 9, 1985

Language is a fascinating subject, even though it can be abused. Some abuses are obvious, but since this is a family newspaper, I won’t go into the details on that type of mistreatment.

Other language aberrations come naturally. I’m thinking of some of the things my 22-month-old son comes up with. Parents—you know of which I speak. The worst series of words he has come up with could easily have driven Socrates to his hemlock. It goes like this:

“Noah, sit down and eat your supper.”

“No.”

“Why not.”

“Cuz.”

“Because why?”

“Cuz.”

“Noah, sit down and eat!”

“No.”

And so on. Noah has no concept of the word “because” and all the reasons that are supposed to follow: “I’m not hungry. This food belongs to the dog. I have a headache.” A simple “Cuz” suffices. I wonder where he picked up that sequence?

Another teeth-gnashing exchange: Dad is outside, fixing the garage steps. Noah is watching intently.

“You doing?” This is a question but Noah says it like Gospel truth.

“I’m fixing the steps.”

“You doing?”

“I’m sawing a board to nail across the runners.”

“You doing?”

“I’m nailing the board.”

“You doing?”

“I’m shaking the finger I just smashed.”

“You doing;”

“I’m going crazy. How would you I like to go see Momma?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Oh-oh.

“Cuz.”

So times words are also confused, to the discomfort of the innocent speaker. I’ll end with a well-worn example: A peddlerpasses through the neighborhood one afternoon, selling fish which he had caught at the local reservoir. He knocked at the misnister’s house and asked, “Would you like some fresh fish that I caught at the dam?”

The minister’s wife examined the fish and bought three good sized ones. The oldest son, a teenager, was listening. When supper time came, and the blessing had been said, the boy exclaimed, “Please pass the dam fish.”

The minister reached across the table and swatted the boy’s head without a word.

The second oldest had seen the peddler earlier too, so she repeated the request: “Please pass the dam fish.”

Again, the minister reached over and swatted his daughter’s head.

The youngest boy sat for a second before speaking. “Please pass the potatoes,” he said finally.” That damn fish will get you in trouble.”