As I write this, it is Sunday at 7:00 pm, so Good Evening. When I was approximately (about) 9 or 10 years old, I discovered I liked scary stories. I was sitting on the sofa in my family's living room all by myself reading a collection of ghost stories. Some of them were somewhat (a bit) scary, but nothing that sent chills up my spine. Then I read one about two ghost hunters in New York that was quite good, and very scary. By the end of the story I was so afraid I picked my feet up onto the couch (sofa) because I was afraid someting would grab my feet from underneath it. I have liked horror stories and novels ( a short story could be 10 to 50 or 60 pages long; a novel is a story that might run anywhere from 150 to 1000 pages long) ever since. Some people like horror stories and some people don't. Those of us who do like them, well, maybe there is something wrong with us, who can say. Due to (because of) my reading scary stories and watching horror movies, I have scared myself upon more than one occasion. When I was about 16 years old I didn't have my drivers license, or a car for that matter, and I would sometimes hitchhike to get to or from a high school dance. One late spring night, probably close to midnight, I got a ride from big man in a station wagon. You don't see many station wagons anymore. People drive suv's instead. Back then, however, station wagons were very common. The man asked me where I was going, and never said another word. He picked me up in Norwich and took me to Baltic, which took about twenty minutes. He was so quiet, and being dark outside as well as in the car except for the glow of the dashboard lights, that before we ever arrived in Baltic I was totally spooked. He wanted to give me a ride all the way home, but I was convinced that once he knew where I lived he would come back later during the night and kill everyone in my family, so I had him turn onto a street a good distance from my house and drop me in front of a house I didn't know. I ducked behind it like I was going in the backdoor, and took off across a field to get back to the road that would take me home. From that point it was probably not much more than a half mile to my house, but on that last stretch of road there were onlt two street lights, so it was good and dark all the way. The entire time I walked that bit of road my heart felt like it was beating as loud as a drum, and I kept looking behind me for the lights of an oncoming car. I felt sure he was going to realize what I had done and come after me. Even after I got home, I did not feel relieved of my fear. Now I had to worry about the people in the house where he had dropped me off. Maybe he would go back and kill them, and it would be my fault.
After a couple of days when I didn't hear about anything terrible happening in the news, I felt able to relax. He was probably just a good samaritan giving some young dumb kid a ride home to keep him out of trouble, and I had completely made him out to be a crazed serial killer in my mind. Of course, I still love horror stories, and occasionally, I still scare the heck out of myself.
Goodnight, until next time.
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Your experience remind me of my experience which is about hitchhike. Since my son was 3-year-old, I took him to go to kindergarten by bike everyday. But if it rain or snow, we had to take bus or taxi. The problem is the buses or taxies were always not enough for taking when it rained or snowed at the time that people finished their work at afternoon. Because of there were 6,000,000 population in Shenyang City. We usually had to take about 2 hours home. We felt very cold when we waited for the bus or taxi outside. There were rare people own a private car in 1996. Sometimes I took my son to go to a restaurant for dinner in order to avoid the peak traffic. At a heavy snow day in 1997, when my son and I were waiting for the bus at bus station, a well-dressed woman drove a car and stop in front of us. She asked where we were going. I told her. Then she said she could give us a ride. I got surprise. On the way home,I knew she was a housewife, she often give a ride to somebody who bring a kid when it rain or snow. At that time, I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. In 2002, I owned my first private car and I always give a ride to somebody who take a kid at bad weather.
ReplyDeleteJohn, if I made mistakes, please correct me.
Thank you for your story.
Hong, that was very good. The little mistakes you made were mainly grammatical (grammar). I will print a copy & bring it with me on Friday. Thank you for your comment, and your story.
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