When we were kids, every now and then, my mother’s youngest sister, Mary, drove us to a tiny community in southeastern North Carolina. She’d park near the railroad tracks and we would wait in the dark to watch for the mysterious Maco light to come bobbing and weaving up the tracks as the old conductor Joe Baldwin continued his 100-year-long search for his missing head. Sometimes we’d perch on the hood of the car, but we never dared venture up that track in an attempt to be the first ones to spot the light. No siree!
I can’t say for sure that I ever saw old Joe’s light, although I’d have probably taken my own children to watch for it, too, had the railroad company not, in the 70’s, removed the tracks and the trestle bridge where the light emanated. Poor Joe Baldwin doesn’t even have a route to follow any more.
One dependable sighting in the mountains of North Carolina this time of year is this one:
Just when most bears are beginning to pack it in for winter, this one emerges for a couple of weeks when the autumnal sun sets behind Whiteside Mountain, a 5,000-footer near Cashiers and Highlands. My friend Birdie took this photo a week or so ago and shared it with me.
My blogger buddy, Mountain Woman has written about the bear too, as she also lives near that area. There is an overlook area where people may stand to wait for it to appear. You can even shoot it, but only with a camera.
Now for some of the seasonal delights in my neighborhood. . . . People around here are big on Halloween. Perhaps because I ride past them so often, the two houses one street over always grab my attention. Out near the sidewalk sits this pathetic scene:
What could be so terrible in the house behind them that these poor babes have been abandoned, obviously in a catatonic state, in this antiquated wheel chair?
Spiders. EVERYWHERE. . . a giant spider invasion!!!
Just a short distance up the street sits the Ghoul house. One of the Ghouls must be a surgeon, as the magnolia tree on the right is festooned with hanging body parts.
Happy Halloween !
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