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The Legend of Ol Mother Cleaver
Published 3 years, 7 months ago
Description
The Legend of Ol Mother Cleaver
by Shadowswimmer77
This is a true story. I know that’s cliché to say. In this day and age, claiming something incredible happened without video proof is a surefire way to make certain people won’t believe you. Everyone does it, though, especially in the realm of the scary and the supernatural. Movies like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Strangers are supposedly, “based on true stories.” But when you take a look at the events inspiring them, you’ll find an excessive amount of artistic license has gone into the end product. The result, many times, is that the tale told becomes hardly recognizable from its source material. I guess the writers and directors figure reality isn’t scary enough. The story I’m about to relate happened, though, just the way I’m telling it, no embellishment needed. I wouldn’t lie about that because…
Well, you’ll see.
I grew up in a different world than today. The internet wasn’t commercialized yet, phones were still attached to the wall, and kids played outside on afternoons and weekends. The information age is marvelous, an incredible amount of knowledge available instantaneously at our fingertips. Questions that in my youth would have taken days of research at the library to answer are satisfied in moments with a quick Google search. The issue, I’ve found, is having access to such a font of knowledge has made us lazy. We assume, incorrectly, that we can find anything online. If there’s nothing there, if the search results come up empty, it must either be unimportant or simply not exist. That’s not true. Some things, some very real, very important things, have avoided making the digital leap. Things like Ol’ Mother Cleaver.
My mom and I moved to a new town a couple weeks after my thirteenth birthday. My dad was in the army and eventually Mom got tired of pulling up her life and starting over every couple of years. My parents decided to try a “trial separation” and jointly concluded I’d go with Mom since Dad’s lifestyle wouldn’t be ideal for raising a kid by himself. I didn’t get to have much of an opinion in the matter, so that was that.
My mom wanted to live somewhere we could “put down roots.” She said she was looking for a place that embodied pure Americana: small town living but close enough to a big city that you could catch a flight if the itch to travel caught you. And that’s where we ended up, a little town in Pennsylvania not far from Pittsburgh. I’m not going to say exactly where because, well, then I’d consider myself responsible for anything that might happen to anyone looking to corroborate my story. Just think of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and that will give you a pretty good idea.
It was summer when we arrived, a particularly hot one, and I remember flies the size of gumballs flitting through air that seemed hazy because of the heat. Mom got a job as a secretary for the judge at the town courthouse. She worked long hours and, since I wouldn’t be starting school until the end of August, I was left to my own devices from pretty much sunup to sundown. The little two-bedroom duplex she could afford on her salary, even supplemented with monthly checks from my dad, was cozy but didn’t have air conditioning, minus a few ceiling fans that didn’t do much to cool you off. Accordingly, I spent most of my days wandering around town to take my mind off the heat.
That was how I came to meet Tom and Terry, siblings who for that summer became my best friends in the whole world. They were Irish twins, Terry being my age and Tom slightly older. Tom was gregarious and energetic, Terry more reserved and bookish, but despite their differences they shared curly brown hair, emerald green eyes, and a tight-knit bond. Even though we were on a pretty meager budget, my mom gave me a couple dollars a week in allowance that I would generally blow at the old-fashioned soda shop downtown. I first ran into the brothers at the store’s comic rack and
by Shadowswimmer77
This is a true story. I know that’s cliché to say. In this day and age, claiming something incredible happened without video proof is a surefire way to make certain people won’t believe you. Everyone does it, though, especially in the realm of the scary and the supernatural. Movies like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Strangers are supposedly, “based on true stories.” But when you take a look at the events inspiring them, you’ll find an excessive amount of artistic license has gone into the end product. The result, many times, is that the tale told becomes hardly recognizable from its source material. I guess the writers and directors figure reality isn’t scary enough. The story I’m about to relate happened, though, just the way I’m telling it, no embellishment needed. I wouldn’t lie about that because…
Well, you’ll see.
I grew up in a different world than today. The internet wasn’t commercialized yet, phones were still attached to the wall, and kids played outside on afternoons and weekends. The information age is marvelous, an incredible amount of knowledge available instantaneously at our fingertips. Questions that in my youth would have taken days of research at the library to answer are satisfied in moments with a quick Google search. The issue, I’ve found, is having access to such a font of knowledge has made us lazy. We assume, incorrectly, that we can find anything online. If there’s nothing there, if the search results come up empty, it must either be unimportant or simply not exist. That’s not true. Some things, some very real, very important things, have avoided making the digital leap. Things like Ol’ Mother Cleaver.
My mom and I moved to a new town a couple weeks after my thirteenth birthday. My dad was in the army and eventually Mom got tired of pulling up her life and starting over every couple of years. My parents decided to try a “trial separation” and jointly concluded I’d go with Mom since Dad’s lifestyle wouldn’t be ideal for raising a kid by himself. I didn’t get to have much of an opinion in the matter, so that was that.
My mom wanted to live somewhere we could “put down roots.” She said she was looking for a place that embodied pure Americana: small town living but close enough to a big city that you could catch a flight if the itch to travel caught you. And that’s where we ended up, a little town in Pennsylvania not far from Pittsburgh. I’m not going to say exactly where because, well, then I’d consider myself responsible for anything that might happen to anyone looking to corroborate my story. Just think of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and that will give you a pretty good idea.
It was summer when we arrived, a particularly hot one, and I remember flies the size of gumballs flitting through air that seemed hazy because of the heat. Mom got a job as a secretary for the judge at the town courthouse. She worked long hours and, since I wouldn’t be starting school until the end of August, I was left to my own devices from pretty much sunup to sundown. The little two-bedroom duplex she could afford on her salary, even supplemented with monthly checks from my dad, was cozy but didn’t have air conditioning, minus a few ceiling fans that didn’t do much to cool you off. Accordingly, I spent most of my days wandering around town to take my mind off the heat.
That was how I came to meet Tom and Terry, siblings who for that summer became my best friends in the whole world. They were Irish twins, Terry being my age and Tom slightly older. Tom was gregarious and energetic, Terry more reserved and bookish, but despite their differences they shared curly brown hair, emerald green eyes, and a tight-knit bond. Even though we were on a pretty meager budget, my mom gave me a couple dollars a week in allowance that I would generally blow at the old-fashioned soda shop downtown. I first ran into the brothers at the store’s comic rack and