Are you afraid of the dark?

This is a story of such a fear; child, young girl, woman and wife, terrified of what might be in the velvet sinister night.

In 13 GEORGIA GHOSTS AND JEFFREY (1973), Kathryn Tucker Windham calls the young girl Emma. Perhaps that was her name; perhaps it was something else. In any case, she lived on her father's plantation on St. Simon's Island, some fifty miles or so south of Savannah, Georgia, in the Gulf of Mexico. From her very earliest days on earth, Emma was terrified of darkness. She would scream herself into hysterics if she were left alone in the dark even for the space of a heartbeat.

It seems that Emma was "taught" this fear of the dark by an old nurse, who told her stories of ghosts, vampires, zombies and the like, always for true, to "make her behave." (It reminds me of James Whitcomb Riley's Little Orphan Annie, telling other children "The Gobble-uns 'll get you Ef you don't watch out.") Emma's mother, when she realized what the nurse was doing, had her demoted from house servant to field hand, but the damage to Emma was done. For a single hour, her impatient father tried once to break her of her fear by leaving her alone in her dark bedroom, but her screams broke him; he carried a candle into her room himself, and sat and rocked her until she fell asleep. From then on, every night, by his order, Emma had a candle in her room to keep the dark away.

Other than her fear of the dark, Emma lived a normal life. She was courted by many young men, but she fell in love with one whom Windham calls Philip. When he asked her to marry him, she confided to him her dreadful fear of the dark; he told her it didn't matter to him, and once they were married learned to sleep with a light in the room.

Emma devoted much time, as she grew older, to making candles. She preferred beeswax ones to tallow, because they gave a softer light, and she learned to make longer ones to burn during the long nights of winter, and shorter ones for summer. It was her passion for candlemaking, though, that brought about her death. One day she spilled hot wax on her arm, severely burning herself. In spite of all remedies, blood poisoning set in. She was not afraid of dying; the only thing she had to say about it she said to her beloved Philip, as he sat holding her hand: "It will be so very dark. . ."

She died, and was laid to rest in the cemetery at Christ Church in the little town of Frederika.

The night Emma was buried, Philip went out to her grave with a lighted candle, which he placed in a sheltered spot so the wind wouldn't blow it out, and with a whispered "Here's your light, my darling" he returned home.

It's not recorded whether Philip continued to sleep with a candle in their bedroom, but he faithfully took a candle to her grave every night. When the weather was unusually windy or rainy, he would place it inside a glass lantern. He outlived Emma by many years, but he never skipped this ritual.

The night that Philip was at last buried beside Emma, some neighbors noticed that the light was burning on Emma's grave as it had for all the nights since her death. Investigation proved that no one living had placed it there.

The light could be seen by people passing the cemetery until, sometime after the turn of the twentieth century, a wall was built around it, blocking the view from the road.

Emma's is not the only ghost tale still told on St. Simon's. There's a haunted lighthouse; there's the ghost of Flora de Cookpot, who manifests as a delightful smell of cooking; there's Mary de Wanda (Mary the Wanderer) who searches the shore endlessly for her young husband who died in a storm; and there are the singing slaves of Ebo Landing, who drowned themselves in Dunbar Creek rather than live in servitude.

But Emma's story is my favorite. It's proof love never dies.

And on that romantic note, fair thee well.

Long chilly day. My sister came over and we took Mom for a chest Xray (routine, prior to next week's visit to the pulmonologist). Sis has peonies in bloom, and she brought a couple to Mom. Since I haven't got a digital camera yet, I couldn't download a pic of the actual ones, but they look something like this:



According to Wikipedia, peonies are the only genus in the flowering plant family Paeoniaceae and native to Asia, southern Europe and North America. They come in a wide variety of colors, from pure white to various shades of pink and purple to blood red, and have a beautiful soft scent that one friend calls "heavenly." She's right.

The old people in the knobs have always referred to them as "piney roses", probably because when they are fully opened they resemble a rose with pinked edges. The ones Sis brought are fully opened and HUGE.

Peonies tend to attract those tiny ants us hillbillies refer to as pissants; I was at a loss to explain this until Auntie came to my rescue. She says the buds are held closed by a sticky sweet substance, and the ants eat this and allow the buds to open.

The peony is a favorite in Asian art. In the same Wiki article, I found this delightful little tidbit, relating to Greek myth:

"Mischievous nymphs were said to hide in the petals of the Peony thus casing this magnificent flower to be given the meaning of Shame or Bashfulness in the Language of Flowers. It was named after Pæon, a physician to the gods, who obtained the plant on Mount Olympus from the mother of Apollo. Once planted the Peony likes to be left alone and punishes those who try to move it by not flowering again for several years. Once established, however, it produces splendid blooms each year for decades." (Taken from The Language of Flowers, edited by Sheila Pickles, 1990)

Peonies are the state flower of Indiana, by a legislative act of 1957.



Thanks to Mom, and my late grandmothers and other older beloved people gone on before, though, they'll always be piney roses to me.

And on that floral note, fair thee well.

Yes. Watermelon. My favorite summer fruit.

Let me backtrack a bit. Normally I will not buy watermelon any earlier than June. Before then I don't find it as sweet and juicy. But last week I was at Wal-Mart shopping with my sister, and she announced, as we passed the display, "I have GOT to have watermelon."

Last year we had few good ones, thanks to the drought. I laughed and gave her my caveat, and told her to let me know if it was good.

I didn't see her again for a few days, but when I did the first thing I asked, after "how is everybody?" was "how was the watermelon?"

"Oh, it was SO GOOD--"

In fact, the Princess, who is usually not an enthusiastic consumer of fruit, ate as much of it as her mommy.

So, the next time I shopped, I bought a wedge. I left it in the fridge a full twenty-four hours before I unwrapped and cut it.

Hmm. Firm flesh, plenty of juice, seedless (well, at least, only those tiny soft white seeds), rich red color--

And then I ate a bite.

AHH! Ambrosia. Love at first bite. Sweet, just a tiny bit crunchy, icy cold, quenching a thirst I didn't know had been lurking in body and soul for a year now--no salt. Salt takes away from the sweetness.

Licking every last drop of juice off my fingers--

Oops. I think I'm gonna stop now. I'm about to begin writing ecstatic, orgasmic watermelon porn.

And on that naughty note, fair thee well.

Another update: Madame and Roscoe have been spotted heading south from San Francisco. A friend from the area phoned Willard to say that the Bud Light truck was spotted just bookin' it for Baja after an APB went out. It seems that, rather belatedly, Anheuser Busch has decided they want the truck back. Madame, we venture to suggest, hasn't drunk her way through the contents of the trailer yet, and will not give them up without a fight. Roscoe, who is a peaceful soul despite several fatal confrontations with revenuers in his youth, probably decided they'd be better off south of the border until she finishes up the Bud Light.

I can see it all now: sneaking down to Tijuana, where Madame will no doubt replenish the money Auntie sent by Western Union by setting up a tent on the nearest beach. There, with sand and spray from the ocean blasting the talcum powder off the crystal ball (it's an American Express crystal ball; she don't leave home without it ), she will take advantage of tourists drowsy from too much sun and tequila, with Roscoe standing by to muscle out the ones who don't like what she sees in the crystal. (That will be most of them.) Fortunately, Madame works for cash on the barrelhead, as we hillbillies say. Whether she works for pesos or greenbacks is still open for debate.

We do have one concern: we haven't had time to check her house and see if she took along the infamous possum fur bikini. If she did, tourism in Tijuana will be ruined for years to come. (Willard suggests that Madame might, instead, turn it into a nudist beach, but I refuse to go there; anyone who has ever seen Madame in the altogether knows it's too vile to contemplate.)

On the other hand, she might decide she prefers Dos Equis to Bud Light and stay awhile.

If so, we'll be at war with Mexico within the month, possibly sooner.



Meanwhile, may I introduce another new member to the Stream, Shakespeare's Beatrice at http://muchadoaboutnothing.blogstream.com/. Like gnostix1, she's a friend from other boards, other places, other times, who likes the fun we're all having here and has decided to join us. Drop by her site when you can--and tell her Fairweather says hi.

And on that worried note (after all, Madame and Roscoe ARE still on the run out there, and may be on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List by dark--unlawful flight to avoid prosecution), until next time, fair thee well.

Good afternoon, Tuesday--whose virtue is this: you never heard a song called "Blue TUESDAY"--Actually it's not bad here. The sun is bright, the wind is light, and a while ago the house did a little Jello shimmy that may have been a blast at the quarry across the creek or may have been a tiny earthquake--we occasionally have tiny tremors here, although we don't have a major fault line within a few hundred miles--

Anyway, a Madame update: Willard called me awhile ago. She was up early on her rounds and happened to see GOOD MORNING AMERICA was at the Golden Gate Bridge across San Francisco Bay. And--yes, you guessed it--there, back in the crowd, stood Madame and Roscoe. Madame seemed a bit tipsy; Willard said Roscoe caught her by the collar and lifted her off her feet, holding her kicking and screaming in midair until she agreed to move to a safer spot, where she was less likely to pitch headfirst into the bay.



I have a feeling they'll probably take the Alcatraz tour before they get another tank of diesel and hit the road again. I can guarantee the ghosts who inhabit the Rock--even the Birdman and Al Capone himself--will hide out till Madame's gone. Now Roscoe, he looks like he would have fit right in in the bad old days when the island was America's toughest maximum security prison, but Madame will scare them crapless with her attempts to "send them to the light"--and no Aunt Ornery there to straighten out the mess she makes--

One other note this fine PM: I have reactivated my Gimme a Book blog, so please stop by sometime!

And on that note of shameless self-promotion, fair thee well.