Saturday, October 25, 2008

Bats in the Attic

I have mentioned kindergarten here a few times. In the middle of kindergarten I transferred to Wisconsin, where I graduated from kindergarten and completed one semester of first grade.
But let's go back to before kindergarten. It was so much simpler then. One prekindergarten episode was when I was still an only child in Eddyville, Oregon.

We lived in a gigantic old farm house. An old woman had lived there before we moved in and she was dead now. There was an upstairs with long dark shadowy halls and all the doors were to be kept closed. One of the rooms had been the old lady's bedroom. The room was left as if she could come back at any time. I wasn't so sure that she didn't do that. I don't know how much a four-year-old has heard of ghosts, I don't know if anyone had told me any ghost stories by then. All I know is that one night in the middle of the dark, black night I was out in that upstairs hallway, and the banister post of the staircase turned into a a golden metallic archer and he was aiming an arrow at me. All I remember now is that I was rescued by my mom. I told her about it and she didn't look very unconvinced, if you know what I mean. After that I got to sleep in their room. That was a good thing, because it was scary in my room with all the bats flying around in there. There were bats flying around in my parent's room too, but at least my dad killed them. I remember watching him tearing around the bedroom slapping at bats with his T-shirt, or something. I remember my mom screaming until they discovered I was awake, then they made me turn around and look at the wall.
In the bathroom was a great big bathtub that stood on feet that resembled claws which gripped iron balls. I came downstairs one morning after a bath; I was wrapped in a towel and I was holding a rag doll. I opened the kitchen door and saw my mom chasing a bat that was zooming around the kitchen trying to save its life. I think my mom had either a flyswatter or a rolled up newspaper as her weapon, until she saw me, then she took my doll, and told told me to get outside. But I stood and watched as she beat the bat to death with the doll's head, then she threw the doll with the bat wrapped in its rag body into the wood burning cook stove. I must have gone outside then, because then she came and got me back inside and told me to go and get dressed if I was going to go outside!
I remember two men came to visit us, my dad wasn't very happy with them, so he invited them up into the attic to help him kill bats, and this they did! Using the ladder which was leaning on the outside of the house I followed them upstairs into the attic, but they wouldn't let me stay and watch.

5 comments:

Extrem4 said...

We also had bats in our house and it was much the same scenario with my mother hiding under the sheets while dad tried to kill them. We discovered that a tennis racket is the best bat killer and I took out many bats when i got older with the old tennis racket.

Diane T. said...

Bats in the house! Oh yes, I will never forget that. And than I married my husband. I found out I could kill a bat, because he was ready to move out.

Ethel said...

aaaaaaaaaah!! nothin better than bat stories and ghost stories all wrapped up into one nice little sonnata. or whatever. Now, you have me very fascintated. What in the world have you been doing all your life traipsing around the WORLD! Goodness. HOw many places did you live before you were even 5? BTW..i feel your mom's pain. COme to my blog sometime soon and I'll have some bat stories as well now that you have me thinking about them.

Anita said...

I died laughing over this one... and mind you, I've heard it before. You and your poor doll... I have nightmares about the bats in our house when I was growing up

Selena Slough said...

Bats are really frightening especially when they keep flying around your house. I hope the two men and your dad were able to kill those bats. It reminded me of my own experience when I was young. I also had the same frightening moment with the bats.