Story Time with ED

It was a horrifying story. ED swore it was true. I was in the second grade. ED was a mature, world-weary 4th grader. He knew things. He had bike privileges that were wide ranging, extending for blocks away from home. He was a man with multiple contacts out in the real world. Hipee, bless her hyperactive heart, may not remember this story time with ED due to some serious personal problems that were forefront in her world - naptime issues at kindergarten. The woman, or victim, only lived a few blocks east of us.

As ED told it, there was this old lady, Mrs. “Brown”. He told me her name. She and her husband lived a couple streets over to the east, just a little north of the rock park. He named the street. I knew where it was. I could even picture the house in which it must have happened. It had to be that barn red house that sat separate from the other houses on the street. That house was scary. Her husband found the body and made the gruesome discovery. Then he had to run for his life. Well, it seems that the woman had an actual nest of Black Widow spiders living in her hair! And they bit her until she died! And then they all came running out of her hair! Could there even be a more frightening tale? ED didn’t know if the guy escaped or where the spiders went. They could have even made it as far as our house! After hearing it I scratched my scalp raw in several spots. Even thinking about it today makes me want to itch. It made an already present phobia just that much worse.

Yes, in the 60’s Ed passed on the black widows in the hair urban legend to me as a factual story thus causing a life long spider phobia. Thanks, ED, and Happy Birthday.