hairspray to the rescue

 

I was relieved when Siri took us to Shreveport  as we journey on to Natchez on our Sister Trip without us passing through Fouke, Arkansas. There are newer and better routes, according to Siri, than the ones we know and our accustomed to from trips to and from the area through the years. The reason for my relief is simple: the Fouke monster. Don't even try to tell me the Fouke monster is not real. I have seen the pictures. I have seen the "Legend of Boggy Creek. Back in the day, movies like the Gargoyles and the Legend of Boggy Creek were  way scarier than they are now. To watch them now, is to see them, perhaps, as awkward and unrealistic. But not in the day.

Back then, before places like Weta workshop and their computer generated graphics increased our ideas  of realistic looked like. At the time I first saw Boggy Creek it was scarey stuff.Like Gargoyles and Jaws, it was the stuff nightmares were made of.What made the creature particularly scary was the fact that we lived near Fouke, Arkansas and frequently drove through there.The closer we would get to Fouke, Arkansas, the more animated my sisters and I became.Mother came up with a solution. She convinced us that the monster could be repelled by hair spray. She used aqua net. She preferred the heavy stuff, sold  in a red can. We made sure she had it on the ready just about the time we crossed over into Arkansas, whichever way we were going.Now as an adult, I know this is all fiction. I haven't had a nightmare about the Fouke monster in years.But at the time I packed for our recent trip south, I was not sure whether or not we would take our old route through Boggy Creek. So I had a can of hair spray on the ready...