Swamp Tales

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Missing the little moments

There were days out on the marsh that were grand and days that were dreadful. I am finding that I really miss those little unexpected moments.
One time I was lying on the ground underneath my cat, greasing it. A cute little field mouse ran over next to me, stopped, stood on his hind legs checking me out, then ran over about a foot away to watch me. I said something to it and it took off. Only to reappear a minute or so later and do the same- stand on its hind legs and look at me, then run over to the other spot and watch me. That time I kept quiet.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Ants in my...

Occasionally the cats would break down and require a part that needed to be ordered before it could be fixed.

One time a cat sat for a good month before they got the part. After they fixed it, the foreman told me to run get it and move it down by the other cats.

The seat was torn on the back. Porcupines? They love to chew.
I looked at it, saw nothing and started driving it. All of a sudden, I was overcome by stinging bites and itching.

Blankity blank ants! All over me! In my pants, up my shirt, all over my back. At least a hundred of them, probably more.

I was driving on hard ground so I was going completely slow. I stood up and started doing a wiggle dance swatting at myself and jiggling all over smacking ants. The guys could see me from where they were, but had no idea what was up.

I stayed on the cat till I got there to explain. They sprayed it with bug spray. Whoever drove it next had no problems.

I must have looked pretty humorous. My ant dance was brought up every once in a while.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

The Thanksgiving Gift

Years ago I was a young single mother with very little money and I was having a particularly low funding time. We had food. But we were eating alot of macaroni and cheese and hotdogs because they were cheap. I was on the local sheriff edepartment's car-kill deer list. When a deer was hit by a car, if the driver didn't want it and it didn't look too bad (mangled) the sherrif's department would call the next person on the list and ask them if they wanted to come and get it. I'd already turned down two deer, because both were in the middle of the night and I would've had to wake my kids up and take them with me. Weeks went by and it was looking like I'd blown my opportunity to get a free deer from the sheriff's department.
In mid November, my brothers asked me if I was going to go deer hunting with them. I declined, saying I was on the car-kill list, so I'd get one that way, even though I really didn't believe it then. The truth was, I just couldn't afford the expense of going hunting just then. I also couldn't afford to take off from work.
The day before Thanksgiving I was visiting at a friend's house. I had one of my sons with me. It started to snow lightly and I thought we'd better get headed home. Almost home we came upon a freshly killed deer lying beside the road. It was super fresh because there were broken plastic pieces from a signal light cover laying beside the deer, on top of the snow! Yippee!
This was before I had a cell phone, so we hurried home to call the sheriff's department to ask them if the driver had called to ask for the deer. (The driver of the car that hits the deer gets the first opportunity to claim it.) No, they hadn't called to ask for it. They told me to bring it on over and they would tag it for me.
It was a nice doe, approximately 180 lbs. Yes, a REALLY nice doe. It had been clipped in the head, so none of the meat was damaged at all! A winters worth of meat for my small family! Yippee!! Yahoo! Yeehah! We were very excited.
My son and I tried to lift it onto the tailgate of my truck. To no avail. It was too heavy and he was too young. He didn't have his man-strength yet. We hefted and pushed and lifted and braced ourselves and grunted and tried everything we could think of to pick that doe up. It was just too heavy.
I contemplated running home to call and say please, please, PLEASE can I gut it first? to the deputy at the sheriff's department. You're NOT supposed to. It has to be tagged first. I thought they would tell me no. And I was also afraid that after all the work I'd already put into lifting, and all the plans and joy I had about the bounty, would be for naught if some guy came along and just grabbed it and threw it in his truck and took it home. So I wouldn't leave it to go ask. Even though it would have been much lighter. We kept trying. My son said he wished he were older (so that he'd be stronger).
I decided, maybe I could coax it into the passenger side front door, (yes, I AM a redneck!!) because it wasn't so high off the ground as the tailgate was. We had already expended our energy in frustration and we couldn't lift in through the door either. We stopped to take a break. I really wanted it. I considered it a gift from the Universe. And I didn't want to walk away. But we had tried everything physically possible and our muscles were hurting we'd try so hard. So I had to accept that we could NOT get it and we were going to have to give up.
I prayed silently. I said, Ok, you gave me this beautiful deer that will feed my family and make things so good for us, but we can't get it. If this is my deer and you want me to take it, please send somebody to help.
I decided to give it one last whirl. I tied an old speaker wire around its neck and I stood on the passenger seat of my truck and reefed on it for all I was worth while my son pushed from the ground. We couldn't quite get it in. It was dead weight and it was damn heavy. But while I was otherwise distracted, the first vehicle we'd seen in over an hour came and pulled in behind us!
Three big strapping healthy-looking fine young men hopped out. I got down from the seat and went around to talk to them. They stopped because they thought I was lifting a person in! I explained how I'd called the sheriff's department and they were going to tag it for me, but my son and I couldn't lift it, if they could just help me..
"You want it in the back?" one of them asked me. Yes!
Two of those fine young men swung that deer right into the back of my truck like it was a bag of feed, just as nice as pie! I was SO thankful!! I offered them money, they wouldn't take it. My son and I started heading for the county seat to get it tagged. We were victorious! We weren't even a minute down the road when my son said, "I prayed for someone to help us, and then they came." I said, "Me too."
WOW!!!!
He didn't know I'd been praying. I'd been smoking a cigarrette and silently asking for help. I didn't know he'd been praying. How amazing that we'd both just gotten around to asking for help, and then it came. It was miraculous.
I spent the next day, Thanksgiving, cutting up and packaging the wonderful deer.

Monday, November 20, 2006

One time I got lost while hunting

Actually, I got lost SEVERAL times while hunting during deer gun season. I either found my way or figured out how I went wrong. Sometimes I had to walk until I found a road and walk along the road until I figured out where I was. But once when I was 17 and a senior in high school, I got so lost and confused, I didn't even recognize where I was. None of the landmarks looked familiar. I knew I was within a few miles of my dad, my uncles and my brothers, but I just couldn't figure it out. I kinda roamed around, listening for beeping (which they did but I never heard), trying to recognize where I was was in relation to where I'd started out.
I was in no danger. I was hunting in central Wisconsin. The weather was mild, mid 30s. I had a shotgun, plenty of ammo, a good sharp knife, matches, snacks. I knew I'd walked the wrong direction, but I wasn't sure which direction was the right one. I had a compass. But walking the direction I thought I should be walking, made things look even more unfamiliar. If you get lost, you're supposed to stay put. But I didn't want to do that.
I wasn't scared of being lost. I wasn't worried about anyone being mad at me for being lost. I wasn't afraid of bears (it was years before I saw bigfoot too), I could make a fire. I could handle being in the woods alone. What I was the MOST afraid of was-- I did NOT want my name on the news -- gone missing while hunting/ lost in the woods -- or anything like that. Another boy in a neighboring town had just been lost a few days before. He was fine. But his name and photo was blazed all over the news and I didn't want THAT to be my 15 minutes of fame, if I were to ever have one!
I was still HOPING that I'd still come out to the vehicle, or that I'd hear somebody holler or beep the horn for me. After hours of this, keeping my composure, walking, stopping and listening, it was getting dark. Damn! I was going to have to just pick a spot and stop and make a fire and stay there. I'd had some anxiety, but no real stress. Now, I was getting a bit stressed. Oh no, they're going to have to report me missing. The authorities are going to have to come and look for me. My name will be on the news. Everyone at school is going to know I got LOST and couldn't find my way out. HOW EMBARRASSING!!!
It was already past dusk. I had just enough time to get my fire together. I decided to build it right in the middle of the logging road I'd been wallking on so I could be seen if someone came. I was gathering my brush and wood. I had plenty of little stuff and there was lots of wood laying around. It was then I heard someone walking down the road. YIPPEE!!! I can ask that hunter for directions and I don't have to make a fire and be on the news!!
I said, "Excuse me," and --
It was my dad!!
Zippity-Do-Dah!!
Of course, in my relief of him saying "THERE you are.." I started crying. I had not been upset the whole time (except for the potential embarrassment) and I was so disgusted with myself that relief made me cry, but I was still happy to be found. Somehow, I had crossed a road or inexplicably gone under it and no wonder things looked wrong, I was on the opposite side of the highway from where I was supposed to be. I still don't know how I crossed the highway without seeing it AT ALL. But that sure explained why everything looked so wrong to me.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Ghosts???

In honor of the season, I decided to tell my ghost stories. They're not all that spectacular, but this is what I've seen.

While hunting
One time I was deer hunting with my dad and brothers. I was standing along a riverbank by a great big pine tree and my brothers were hunting up and down river from me while my dad made a drive, which entailed him walking slowly and quietly through the woods to see if he "kicked up" anything to us.

Dad had been gone for about an hour and a half and I was expecting him at any time now. I was looking towards the direction he would be coming from because sometimes deer are really quiet and you don't hear them coming.
I suddenly saw a white misty clearly defined figure with a head, shoulders and shape, just like a man, about 30 feet from me, like it was looking at me, though it had no discernable features. No arms or legs. Just a head, shoulders and man shape. I said, "Okay.." like I usually do when I see something strange. It was white, shimmery, but more solid than transparent. But I could see the branches of the trees behind it.It was there for over a minute, maybe two, not changing or moving. I was wondering if it were a refraction of light of some sort, or breath of some sort or optical illusion of some sort when the figure suddenly stepped (with now clearly discernable legs) behind (or into) a real skinny tree, about one-third the width of the figure. I think the fact that it dissappeared behind or into a tree freaked me out much more than seeing it in the first place.
I was apprehensive, but I did not feel any sort of threat coming from it. But I wasn't about to turn my back on it either. It wasn't scary. But it was perplexing.
A few minutes later, I heard my dad coming slowly through the woods but not directly towards it. My brothers and I walked over to meet my dad when he made it to the river bank. I told them about what I had seen. My dad and my youngest brother were far more skeptical people than my other brother. But dad and my youngest brother took me at face value. My other brother, who's seen strange stuff himself, shook his head and said, "Well, I've heard EVERY hunting story NOW!" and kept shaking his head at me all day. Go figure!

Haunted treament facility
I worked in a treatment facility for troubled teens. It was an old Indian school where members of the Ho Chunk nation were forced to go and live away from their families and learn English and were beaten for speaking their own language. Elders who attend this school told me these stories about their own youth.
When I worked there it had been a home for troubled teens for many years. There was a main building and several more recently built units and houses that had been remodeled into units. I heard ghost stories right after I first started. Stories about cold drafts and things moving and what not. I didn't have any of those problems. I'd already worked in a haunted restaurant (see previous post) and I felt NOTHING, so I wasn't worried.

One night I was pulling a night shift. I had to check the girls every 15 minutes, but other than that there was nothing for me to do until it was time to get them up and make breakfast for them. I was sitting on the couch in front of big windows watching tv and waiting for my next check when in the big glass windows I saw a little girl with blond hair walk out of the bathroom, DIRECTLY behind me and walk into the kitchen. I JUMPED up and looked behind me -- NOTHING!! I looked back into the reflection on the windows just to see her in the center of the kitchen as far as the reflection would show. I walked out there, nothing. I checked all the doors. Locked. She had appeared completely solid. All the girls in that unit were 12 to 18 and sound asleep. Every one was in their beds. They were all in rooms down the hallway to the right of the living room. No one could have gotten past me. This little girl had been about seven. Weird as hell. I KNEW I had seen a ghost.

I didn't tell anyone at work about it. I did tell an elderly Ho Chunk woman I knew. She told me it sounded just like the daughter of the people who ran the Indian school. BUT, she was alive and well and an old lady now. And although the unit I was in had been that family's house, they didn't have indoor plumbing back in those days. Where I had seen her used to be the kitchen area and where the kitchen was now, used to be the outside. So maybe it WASN'T a ghost, but some sort of energy imprint or something.

I saw one other person that wasn't there while I worked there. I was in a different unit, one of the more modern ones. It was nearly 9 a.m. and my shift was about to be over. The kids had already been escorted off to school by another aide. I was just finishing up my paperwork, when I saw, clearly and solidly, a young boy duck into a bedroom belonging to a boy that looked just like him. I thought it was the boy I knew. I called his name and went in to ask him what he was doing there. All students had to be escorted whenever they went anywhere. I was calling to him when I walked in to find the room empty. He wasn't in the closet, under the bed, anywhere. I did wonder if it was another ghost. I called over to the school and talked to the aide that had escorted the kids to school. He said, no, that boy was sitting right there, he could see him right now. Why? I said, oh nothing, must have been my imagination. He said, "Oh. yeah. I've had one of those too."

I worked there a little while after that but had no further experiences and saw nothing else. Other people continued to have strange experiences like feeling they were sat on and getting blasted with cold drafts.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

On working in a haunted restaurant

When I was young, I worked in a restaurant that was haunted. The very first night that I worked there, we were just getting things organized to open the next day. The cook, who had worked for the previous owner, and I were putting items away in the kitchen. We put some big glass jars of mayonaise up on a shelf and put huge plastic jugs of crisco oil in front of it. The owner called us out to a booth for a short meeting on our gameplan for the following day. A few minutes into the meeting - SMASH!!!! - coming from the kitchen. The cook looked at me and said dryly, "That would be the mayonaise." We all got up to go look. All the jugs of crisco were lined up on the shelf in a row, just as we had placed them. But there on the floor was one of the jars of mayonaise that had somehow JUMPED out from behind the plastic jugs. I was Dumbfounded. Perplexed. Confused. Confounded. Mystified. on HOW that could POSSIBLY have happened???

I just couldn't understand it. It was improbable, no, impossible, for the crisco to have slid to the side to let the mayo slide by and then move back into position. No ONE else was around. There was no back door.

The cook and I stayed in the kitchen to clean it up. He then told told me that "all sorts of strange things happen around here." He wouldn't come right out and say the place was haunted. I guess he wanted us to figure it out for ourselves.

All sorts of strange things DID happen around there. I would be working alone in the kitchen, chopping lettuce for instance. I would lay my knife down, take two steps to grab a collander and return to find my knife GONE, no where to be found. I'd look all over, only to find it either right where I left it, or someplace I had not been near. It wasn't just knives, it was any object. It didn't happen every night. Sometimes it would happen once or twice a night, or numerous times. There wasn't any pattern that I was aware of.

Waitresses quit on a regular basis. Some claim to have been pinched by something unseen. One quit because she was hanging up a broom and something whispered loudly in her ear. Another quit because of a whistle in her ear and a pinch in the bottom on the same night.

The basement was really creepy. It was a very old building. It was dark with boarded up doorways and all sorts of lathe with wide gaps and cold drafts. There was a paneled office and a white, bright flourescent lighted "paper room" where we kept styrofoam and paper products. The office did not bother me that I remember. But I HATED that paper room with a FEAR so deep that I DREADED having to go there. I felt completely threatened every time I had to go there. The other girls either hated the basement altogether, or the dark scary places. But I hated that paper room. I'd reach in with great trepedation and flick on the light, step back and look to see where in there I had to go, then I would run and get the item, flicking the light off on the way by. If I missed the light switch, I'd have to gather my courage to reach back in there and flick it off. I was not intimidated by the dark creepy spots but there was something scary as hell in that brightly well-lit room that terrified me. No one else seemed to have any problem at all with that room. They were creeped out by the older parts of the basement.

Whenever we were putting stuff away in storage or down in the office talking to the manager, we'd hear the main door open and heavy boot thumps or high heels walk in the front door. We'd hurry upstairs to find no one there. It happened time and time and time again. It finally occured to us that where we were hearing it was impossible, because there were booths there and because the floor was carpeted. No one could have walked across the floor like we thought we'd heard. We surmised there must be a hallway upstairs in the apartments that we were hearing, until someone pointed out that they each had their own entrance. No hallway up there.

The cook and the manager got really mad at everyone talking about ghosts. The cook quit saying he wasn't working with a bunch of superstious women. I became the cook then. The manager told everyone not to talk about the experiences to me because I had to close every night. I'd known about it since that very first night! And every one of the waitresses that quit came and said goodbye to me and told me WHY they were quitting! We had a great boss, she was a really sweet lady, but they just couldn't handle the weird stuff that happened.

I kept thinking there MUST be some explanation. I did believe in ghostly stuff, but I thought all the pinching, whispering and whistling the waitresses were experiencing could have been fear making their minds run wild. I'd seen the mayonaise jar shattered on the floor. I'd reached up and touched the shelf to see if it had been wet. I'd had knives and spatulas and all sorts of utensils moved on me when I was alone, I heard the boot sometimes, high heels sometimes on the floor, but nothing ever whistled, whispered at or pinched ME, so I wasn't that scared, EXCEPT for the paper room, which I COULDN'T explain and no one else was concerned about.

After the cook quit, I wondered if something had happened to HIM that scared him. He was WELL aware of the activities BEFORE we were. And when he was calling us superstitious, he was angry (scared?) and didn't even finish his shift, and no one had said anything TO him that night he quit.

Then we had a hellacious summer storm. Tornadoes in the area. The power in the whole town went out. We were closing up and cleaning up by lantern light. I let all the waitresses go home. It was just me finishing up. My manager called and told me there was a tornado between me and my home and I should just stay THERE and sleep on the cot in the office. That would be the cot in the office DIRECTLY across the basement from the paper room!

I told her, NO, I'll go home. She tried to tallk me into staying there. NO WAY!! was I staying THERE. So I went out to my car. Trees down everywhere. Power lines and mattresses in the streets. It NEVER occured to me to go back inside. Nope! I drove home in high winds and on FUMES because I was going to put gas in after work, but with no power, no gas. I got within a few miles of home and had to turn around and go 10 more miles out of my way because the trees in the road were too big to drive over. But I made it okay.

Now, many things happened at that restaurant. Many waitresses came and went. It's been over 20 years and I've forgotten details and stories by now. But this I haven't forgotten because I can relive it at will.

I was helping the waitresses clean up one night. I grabbed a big plastic tub and started to clear out the salads from the salad bar. We were closed, but there were a few customers finishing up. I had my tub full, grabbed it with both hands and backed up -- into a huge solid SOMETHING -- that felt like a big man. It wasn't like a post, it had give to it, just like I'd backed up into a big lumberjack or something. I stepped forward and turned to apologize to NO ONE and NOTHING, because only NO ONE and NOTHING was there! No person, no post, nothing! It really rattled me. I was completely startled.

I had two skittish anyway waitresses working with me. So I didn't tell them. But with the adrenaline rush I had -- I power-cleaned full throttle and we got outta there FAST.
That event changed the way I viewed the place. I realized that all those waitresses that quit -- had REASON to!

The managers husband started having health problems and we didn't work there much longer after that since she had to sell the place. I wasn't unhappy about having to find another job. It became a food co op after that. I always wondered about the place. But I've never gone back there to ask!

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Viruses on our hotdogs!!????

This just completely horrifies me...

In August, the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) ammended the food additive regulations to provide for the "safe" use of a bacteriophage preparation to be sprayed on ready-to-eat meat and poultry products as an antimicrobial agent against Listeria monocytogenes. This action is in response to a petition filed by Intralytix, Inc.

It doesn't have to be listed on the label. This is a combination of a couple different live viruses that supposedly only attack the Listeria bacteria. But if you were eating a food that was coated with live viruses, wouldn't YOU want to know about it???

For more information check out the organic consumers website.

Addresses of the articles are:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1801.cfm

or

http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_2400.cfm

or

http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/cf0559.pdf

Isn't it bad enough that mad f-ing scientists are splicing jellyfish genes into our fruits and vegetables that now they have to start coating our foods with live little nasties like this??