Once upon a time, when Papa was just a little boy,
he witnessed his Grandma Medvee do battle with a terrifying insect of death, his five-foot tall Grandma (at her very tallest she would stand five-foot two inches, but when Dougie knew her she was not a hair over five feet) not even breaking a sweat, as she accomplished what he remembers as sword fighting with a scorpion, the lethal bug wielding its two-inch whip-like weapon of a poisonous tail, and Grandma armed only with a three-inch nail. The scorpion was scarier than a spider, with its bloated claw hands and its whipping tail, striking and striking at Grandma. And Grandma, like a pirate, made brave parries and daring ripostes with her tiny sword.
"Grandma! What are you DOING!?" Dougie cried, eyes boggling.It was always obvious that Grandma was brave, even fearless, as Dougie knew even from the earliest age that Grandma Medvee had lived a very tough, rough life. She was the only daughter in her family, Irene Jacko, pretty and tiny, with seven boisterous Hungarian brothers, and at the tender age of thirteen she went out into the world to clean houses in order to help her parents in supporting her family (and even after she was grown and married she would continue this labor to bring in extra money for her family). Poor Irene, as her beloved brothers began to die at far too early of age. All of them, her seven brothers, had big, passionate, loving Hungarian hearts, but apparently their hearts wore out too soon as they loved too much, a few not making it beyond childhood, one dying in his twenties, one in his thirties. Only one brother, Julius, would make it all the way up into his sixties, but suffering heart problems all along the way, the last few years wearing an early-model pacemaker.As a young girl working for a rich but sad woman, Irene came to work one day and could not find the lady of the home. She looked all over the house for her, and then went out into the garage to seek her there, but something was blocking the door. Little Irene pushed at the door, forcing it open, and squeezed her body out into the garage. Something was up high, in the dark, some dim shape against the door, and Irene could not tell what it was, in the darkness. When she turned on the light she stood facing a horror no child should ever witness.Hanging from the top of the door was the rich, sad woman of the house, dead by strangulation. She had hung herself, and had remained undiscovered for several days so that her neck had stretched out during the meanwhile, too long, so long and pinched and narrow that neck, and her tongue was loosed, hanging slack, protruded from her mouth so that it hung down past her chin. And her eyes had bugged out onto her cheeks. Hanging there, dead, but seeming somehow animated, somewhat alive, dead but staring down at the poor housecleaning Hungarian girl.Irene, frozen, stood staring up at the rich, sad woman, who had committed suicide and now stood staring back at little Irene, with lifeless eyes. Irene never knew how long she stood there, staring up at the staring eyes, surrounded by an indescribably heavy-sweet stink, but she was always certain it was for a long time she stood there standing, staring and standing, rooted to the concrete step.She stood frozen, unthinking, unmoving, hardly daring to breathe.When she finally came to her senses she was even more terrified than when she stood in her semi-comatose state, and she had to squeeze past the body to reopen the door, pulling with all her small weight to swing the hanging dead weight away from the door, to escape the dark garage where the rich but sad woman of the house remained staring sightlessly into the dark.The story so scared Dougie and his sisters that they called upon that distant memory of Grandma's, whenever they wished to scare each other, or to scare themselves. In high, eerie voices, they would drag out the word:"The woooooooo-man! Oooooh! The woooooman is going to get you! It's the woooooooooooman!"Even when they were older, Dougie could say to Donna as she entered a dark room: "Look out Donna, it's the woooooooman!" And Donna would bolt out backward from the room, her eyes wide, to punch Dougie in the arm."Why did you DO that!" she would cry. But she always found a way to get him back, usually late at night, when he was almost asleep, he would hear Donna's voice whistling in the wind: "Dougie, it's the wooooooooman!" And Dougie would freeze in bed, instantly awake, eyes rolling about the dark room, expecting to see her, there, in the corner, hanging, with a three-foot long neck, her tongue dangling, eyes gooshed out upon her cheeks!The Woman was just a scary horror story to Dougie and Donna and Pammy, their version of the Boogie Man, the ogre, the scary thing waiting in the dark, the insidious witch ready to push you into the oven when you were plump enough; however, it was the terrible reality of what a young Hungarian girl experienced, in real life. A young girl who could stumble on such a horrific tragedy, and not only cope, but go on to thrive in her own life. Well, you just know that kind of girl is tough, strong, and will never give up.So what in the world kind of chance does a mere scorpion (I mean, scary looking sure, but it is still pretty much a bug, for goodness' sake!) stand against a woman like this? Not much.At six years of age, Dougie was terrified of the scorpion, which was scrambling about where he parked his bicycle in the garage, and Grandma just happened to be visiting, so he dashed inside the house and told her about the thing with the big crab claws. Grandma came out, looked about through her thick bifocal glasses, and found a three-inch nail in the dirt. She calmly walked over to the scorpion and stabbed at it with the nail. The scorpion stabbed at her with his dangerous whip of a tail. And for a minute or two, they fought, Grandma and the scorpion.Grandma won by finally piercing the poisonous bug with the nail. But the scorpion didn't give up, it kept attempting to stab her with its stinger. Grandma displayed the writhing creature to Dougie, as it continued to scramble and stab at her (the tip of its tail missing her by a mere half-inch or so). Finally, Grandma Medvee lay the scorpion on the cement of the driveway, and squashed it beneath her heavy, sensible shoes."It's just a bug," Grandma said, cleaning the wreckage of the scorpion off the nail by scrubbing it in the dirt. The deadly bug was gone, and Grandma had not even worked up a sweat, and the nail looked like a shining sword in her cool, capable, powerful hand.All Stories © 2009 Douglas Christian Larsen
important - FIGHT THE FLU WITH HERBS - important
