memories #2

                                                         The Spider House

Black Widow

     Prior to the first grade, my memory wanes.  But some things really made a BIG  impression. The house we lived in was located in North Durango, a small house with a dark, dank basement. My grandmother Muir  was living with us so bedroom space was divided as to need or priority. Mom and Dad shared one bedroom, grandmother (we called her "Mother") and my sister got the other bedroom. I was given the room in the basement.

     To get to the basement, one walks from the front door through the house and, before exiting out the back door, takes a right-turn down a narrow set of wooden steps past an open, dark, dank crawl space to a tiny room with one window. The window is at ground level, rectangular in shape and can be opened inward. Anything crawling on the ground has a great invitation when the window was open. My bed was across from the window approximately 3 feet away. 

     This house was full of spiders and the ones most feared were black, with long legs, sticky webs in a red hourglass marking on their bellies. The Black Widow!  We were always on the lookout for, and usually found them, in the house. They seemed to really like the basement by the crawl space.. This was in the early 1950s in Hollywood had made a number of movies involving radioactive creatures grown to gigantic size. Of course a couple of them were about spiders.

Tarantula

     One summer night I had just gone to bed after a full day of little boy activities. Mom and Dad were out on the town and Karen, my sister, and I were left in the capable hands of "Mother", all 4'10" and 95 of pounds wonderful spunk and vigor. As I lay in bed with the last bit of light from the dying day, a movement by the window caught my eye.  I strained to make out the object and finally resolved to turning on the light in the room. Gasp!  A huge spider, at least 4 feet wide, had crawled through the window. (It wasn't really 4 feet wide but it was a tarantula in very big) I screamed! The tarantula stopped moving. I screamed again. And again. Mother came running down the stairs, past the dark, dank crawl space full of black widows to my room. One look at the window prompted an "Oh Mercy" (my grandmother's  utterance  instead of foul language) and a quick retreat back up the stairs. I was doomed!  Even
Mother had left my side. 

Mother and Cully

     Soon, however, my fears were put to rest. Back down the stairs, armed with a broom, Mother arrived.  A knight in shining armor couldn't have out shone this lady. With mighty blows and stabs, Mother took on the giant invader. Blow after blow brought the helpless spider off the wall to the floor where it was quickly pulverized,  swept up and discarded to the alley trash can.  Meanwhile, I vacated the basement and plopped down on the couch upstairs.  Mother brought me a blanket and I slept peacefully the rest of the night.