Dad was forever bringing us home books and magazines. Sometime ancient ones from
the 1800's through the early 1900's. Sometimes when he took scrap metal in to
sell the man would let him take what he wanted out of the paper recycle bins.
Rarely he would bring us home paperbacks with the covers slashed off. Sure, it
was illegal but it didn't seem to matter to anyone. You would go to a used book
place and find bins of them for sale.
Sometimes he'd bring home a box of magazines. He never looked at what he was
taking when he took it. He would just go down the row taking one of each kind.
Sometimes we got good magazines, sometimes trashy stuff. If Ma saw one with a
naked person on it, she'd snatch it up and toss it in the burn barrel.
Often we'd get Detective magazines. They sometimes scared the heck out of me but
still I read them avidly. One story stuck in my mind. It was about a little girl
who was found on a yacht and she was all alone. It was supposed to be a real
story with no solution. The name of the boat was something like "Blue Bell" but
not that exactly. The child was too young and had no memory or way of telling
the authorities what happened. It gave me nightmares for a long time. I even
stopped reading the detective one. As you can see I never forgot the story but I
did forget the details.
When I look back I think of all the precious old magazines we had that would be
worth a small fortune today. I loved the ones with the old directions for
crocheting lace and doilies. I loved to do that. Mom taught us the basics but
then I got a book out the library and learned more from that. One day someone
saw me crocheting at work and told me I was doing it backwards but to me I was
doing it right and I didn't care. It looked the same as in the picture and that
was good enough for me.
Our Wells half cousins got allowances. They spent them on ice cream and comic
books. Every now and then we'd get a batch of them second hand from them. A lot
of them I loved. Dad loved the war ones and that got me reading them to when I
ran out of the other ones. Mom loved Tarzan and the little kid comics like
Little Lulu, Porky Pig, Donald Duck, and Casper. I literally read everything.
Sometimes a bunch of Horror ones or outer space ones would be in the bunch. I'd
read them if I got to them before Mom tossed them in the burning barrel. They
gave me nightmares too.
One night my dog Foxy climbed over my face in the night. His fluffy tale brushed
my face and I "woke" screaming that aliens were after me. Mom got me back to bed
somehow but she was real careful to make Dad let her sort the comics before he
gave them to us as well as any free magazines he brought home.
We did get a lot of smut rags. In those days they were all black and white and
they could print anything they wanted to print. Some were filled with smutty sex
stories. You guessed it! Mom would consign them to the burn barrel unless Dad
grabbed them first or hid them in the car. We would sometimes sneak them and
look at them. Most of us weren't interested in the sex stories but we liked
laughing at some of the other stuff. I can't speak for all of us because you
never know what someone else is reading or thinking.
One man claimed his name was Anton La Vey. We'd heard of him from time to time.
Supposedly he thought he was either a warlock or a devil and he claimed to
practice black magic. He had a column in one of the rags that told about the
Satanic bible. We were fascinated. But that was as far as it went for us or me,
anyway. I think Enid thought it might be interesting.
One day Dad brought home a Ouija board. That was exciting. We like fortune
telling and "reading" card fortunes. We really believed that people could move
things with their minds and speak to ghosts. Mom was always one for hating
cards. She would constantly tell us that "Cards are the tools of the devil". We
seriously did not believe in the devil.
We thought God must be real but the Devil, no.
Two of us sat at the table with the board and put our hands on the planchette.
Someone would ask a question and the planchette would move by unseen forces to
spell out the answer. I think I tried it got nothing but Enid and one of the
others tried it and I swear Enid was pushing that thing herself to what she
wanted it to spell out.
Mom caught us and the board was yanked out from under their hands and Mom was
out the door. I think she tried to break it first but didn't get far. She got it
in the burning barrel and tried to burn it but it only singed part of it. She
threw it as far as she could into the woods. I think one day we found it there
with moss growing on it.
There are magical things that I believe can happen. I do know that people can be
visited by the dead but it takes an open and accepting mind to see them. I may
tell more about this later but not now. I also believe that all those psychics
you see on TV talk shows are not real. They are slick con artists.
I read somewhere that if you have a gift for "seeing" anything you should never
use that gift to make money and if you do you will lose it. It makes sense to
me. Of course that book I read could have been a big falsehood, too.
One day I read a book called "Salem's Lot" about vampires taking over a
community. It terrified me so that I have never been able to read anything about
vampires again. I know its all fantasy but at that time, I believed it could
happen.