<<laughs>>

I truthfully can't say I fancy the idea of hanging my foot over the edge of the bed to this day. Especially when I recall that creepy old musty farmhouse we grew up in. There were lots of shadows and creaking floorboards and wind whistling through weathered panes ...and an old tin roof that sounded like ping-pong balls pounding down on pots and pans when it rained hard. Ahh, that old tin roof.

But speaking of pots and pans. These were priceless assets in our extreme, creative audio masterpiece! Oh boy, heeeere we go.

Jerry and I thought it would be fun to make a tape. A Halloween tape of scary sounds. Really frightening sounds! We wanted to create a terrifying listening experience that would horrify even the adults. We first crept out to the barn with pencils and paper and began to make notes. After all, we wanted to be little professionals about this so there had to be some careful planning and thought put into this before we were ready to record our soundtrack. Then I tucked that old heavy recorder under my arm and we set out to tape a vast variety of sounds that would send a chill through the spine of any mortal.

We jotted down everything we could think of, from scaring the daylights out of the cat to get his screams and hisses recorded, to slamming doors and shrieking in terror. We set out to test every squeaking hinge for just the right sound and got many various recordings of that. We hid with the recorder in the back of the old shed to catch Pa starting up the old ford while he revved up the engine. We had actually scripted dialog to fit in-between these sounds to make a story. We cried into the tape recorder, pleading for our lives, begging the witch not to snap our fingers off and while we wailed, Jerry and I snapped carrots in half, which made the perfect sound effects for such torture. We spoke into tin cups to distort our voices. We gargled and gurgled water to make it sound as if we were being drowned. We recorded the church bells before Mass then later proceeded to include them in our tape of a portrayed funeral. We whistled through our teeth to mimic the wind when there was none to record and we even actually got a good heartbeat sound from thumping a tire. We taped the sounds of the rocking chair on the old wooden floorboards of the porch and even the symphony of crickets and a screeching hoot owl made their way onto the tape.

We had a lot of tape.

And a lot of time.

One day when we were alone in the house, we decided we needed to add more intense suspense into our project. We grabbed that old recorder again with new inspirations. We decided to stage a killing.

It would be Grandmother.

She lived with us by the way. She was kind to us most of the time but had little patience for kids and their nonsense. She spent most of her hours either cooking, gardening or reading the Bible. She was getting a bit cranky in her old tired age so we usually left her alone. She always walked slowly with her hair in a tight bun on top of her head, an apron over her big flowered cotton dress and black stockings that always drooped below her bulging arthritic knees. We could always hear those square heels of her shoes shuffling across the floor and we pretty much just stayed out of her way when we heard her coming. But on this one night, the family was out visiting and we were left alone for a spell.

How perfect.

We watched them drive off and waved while we stood in the doorway of the old house. Ma, Pa, Uncle Gene and Aunt Freda ... and Grandmother. Ma stuck her face out the old Ford window and hollered to us, "You kids behave! We won't be gone long!"

I think we just smiled.

Gravel flew behind the wheels of the car as it backfired and in the light dusting of black smoke we could see Grandmother's head bobbing around in the back seat as they disappeared down the road.

We were alone.

That house seemed bigger somehow. It loomed above us like an old withered castle. We stood there a minute ... just thinkin'. Thinking the same thoughts I suppose.

The house was quiet. No adults around. We actually had the place to ourselves, I believe it may have been for the first time.

Hmmm ... Forbidden places and things ...unattended.

No rooms off limits ... for a spell.

Our bodies didn't move for a minute but suddenly our eyeballs rolled to the sides to meet each others' glance and as if connected by some unseen cosmic nuisance cord, we let out a synchronized squeal that ruffled the feathers on the chickens in the yard and we dashed into the house with such excitement we could barely contain it.

We didn't know where to go first.

Two young creative and most eager souls, ready to make a prize suspense tape. There was gonna be a killin’, so we had to make it loud and fierce.

Time must have flown by awful fast as we snooped through that old house from room to room, collecting things to make sounds...getting side-tracked every now and again with mischievous peeking through drawers and closets and losing ourselves in a fantasy of actors and stages. Jerry tried on old hats and man's clothes from Pa's closet and began to act the part of a wild gangster. He lowered his voice to sound all manly while he held Grandfather's old cane and pretended it was a shotgun pointing it into my face. How comical it was especially since Jerry was all of about 85 pounds and skin and bone. The skinniest kid I knew. If you could envision Don Knotts at about 8 or 9 years of age. I tried on old clothes of Ma's and stuffed pillows and socks inside an old dress, trying to look like Grandmother ... also falling deeply into the theatrical part. It was so much fun.

We created the story of the killin' effortlessly with such giddy spirit until the final scene was about to be born. We ran to the top of the second story stairs which was a long, very steep and narrow passage of rickety wooden steps. At the top of that steep staircase awaited a huge collection of Grandmothers pots and pans and kettles and ladles ...already pre-positioned and ready to go ... we had pretty much cleaned out the kitchen of all her most noisy, clanky kitchen utensils and cook wear ... including a few prized, very large cast iron pieces.

Ahh ... the Grande Finale!

Lost ... completely swept up in our glorious moment of acting and recording our glorious talents for old-time scream theater ... screaming our adlibbed, unscripted lines at the tops of our lungs ...

<<not hearing the door open downstairs>>

We screamed in unison, like we never screamed before .... "LOOOOOK OUT GRANDMAAAAAA!"

And in one mighty dual effort, we shoved ALL Grandmothers kitchen paraphernalia down the stairs. It was a racket unlike any had ever heard before. Trust me, neither of us had any idea just how loud and skull piercing this commotion would be.

In his excitement, Jerry went head first down the stairs after all the banging pots and pans and kettles, shoving them and batting them all the way down, while tumbling himself. I remember standing at the top of the stairs, just witnessing his spindly arms and legs flailing, all the way down.

My ears actually hurt from the extreme, sharp and exploding noises that I am sure could wake the dead. I remember my eyes opening wide as I saw Grandmothers cast iron kettles bouncing off the wooden steps as splinters and actual chunks of wood broke off the stairs and flew into the air, leaving dents and cracks in the steps. I think it was then I stopped screaming ... but you couldn't have heard my screams over the bulk of Grandmothers tumbling kitchen anymore anyway. Truly, you would never believe how incredibly loud and disturbing it all was.

I suddenly stood there in horror, simply not able to move. After a very long, drawn out, earth-shattering compilation of mind-numbing, tympanic membrane rupturing noise, the last thing I heard was a very loud echo or hollow sound of Grandmothers large tin tea kettle skipping off Jerry's head, then a spinning noise as the lid settled on the floor at the bottom of the stairs .......stopped by Pa's foot.

Silence.

A very battered stairway.

... still silence.

Pa looked down at the boy who was still laying on the floor with a dazed look in his eyes ...as if he had never seen the creature before in his life. Jerry was still wearing Pa's old clothes...except for the hat. Don't know where that took off to. Probly lost in the pots and the pans somewhere. I recall he was missing a shoe too and one white sock dangled loosely over the end of his foot that was still resting awkwardly on the bottom step.

I finally noticed Ma standing behind Pa. Her mouth hung open. She looked like a still photograph, she didin't move.

Aunt Freda was standing with her hand clutching her heart looking as if she was in great pain and couldn't breathe.

Don't know whatever happened to Uncle Gene.

My knees were weak and my mouth had gone pretty dry as I stood there looking down the stairs at the unbelievable scene.

I was staring at the biggest mess I had ever seen. I was also witnessing and experiencing the most intense moment of suspense in my life ... one we created for other people ... not for ourselves.

Finally, a noise.

It was the sound of those heavy square shoes shuffling across the floor through the kitchen.

Grandmother.

The shuffling paused for a moment by the stove. The shuffling began again, labored and unsure ...hesitant ... then ended at the foot of the stairs by the boys disheveled hair.

Grandmother looked around in disbelief at the mess ... her treasures ... the busted up stairs ...

Silence is bad sometimes.

Grandmother bent over with a slight grunt, picked up her tea kettle and one of the little speckled cups on the floor, waddled off into the kitchen and gingerly set them in the sink leaving the rest of the clutter and the child on the floor. We heard her shuffle back outside onto the porch where she sat in the rocker and didn't move for the rest of the evening.

Pa bent down and picked Jerry up like a rag doll and set him on his feet and finally let out an exasperated, "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU BOY?!" Pa then looked up the stairs at me and shouted, "Just what the HELL girl? What the HELL?!"

There was a bit more yellin' that I vaguely recall and on quivering knees us kids picked every last piece of Grandmothers kitchen off the floor, took it to the kitchen and washed and put everything back in its place and returned our theater garments to their proper places in the home, swept the wood splinters off the stairs, and said our proper apologies, punishment was determined for the both of us and we were grounded from seeing each other for about a week and Jerry had a big lump the size of an egg on his head from where Grandmothers tea kettle bounced off him.

But we have it all on tape.

The whole thing.

Our Masterpiece.

On that old Seavox reel.