A tale of the macabre that jars a loving memory loose

The Blasi family gets spooked by a lurid tale told by Ira Glassman on National Public Radio's "This American Life."

Where there is no imagination there is no horror.

~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

AUBURN — A spooky story told over a radio is more terrifying than a slice-and-dice movie on the big screen.

Don’t believe me!

Orson Welles' broadcast of H.G. Wells’ "War of the Worlds,” which is a tale of a Martian invasion on Earth, drove the residents of New Jersey mad with fear on Oct. 30, 1938.

Listen to a story of the macabre over the radio and your mind wanders when an adept narrator scares the living crap out of you. Weird and horrifying images pop into to your mind when you hear about two kids who were nearly kidnapped by a bunch of psychos near a cemetery — or the guy who used foxhole humor to describe his working environment in a morgue. The narrator cracked jokes about mangled corpses and organs kept in glass jars. 

I couldn’t stop laughing.

TV just doesn’t cut it when it makes a sorry attempt to frighten us with ridiculous images of a guy with chain saw dissecting another human being. It’s all fake or worse — computer generated crap.

The mind is a scary place to be when tales of terror are spun over the radio. There are more horrible thoughts or weird incidents stored in a human mind than can be recreated on television. Real-life horror stories abound in the deep recesses of our fragile brain.

The three of us gathered around the dinner table as dark skies gave way to a warm sun on a quiet, chilly, autumn Sunday afternoon.

I tuned into WBUR, Boston’s National Public Radio station, on my Mac. I love radio, and my MacBook Air offers dozens of radio stations. I really hate TV where pathetic reality shows or 24-hour news stations like FOX, which features unfair and unbalanced reporting about all the crazies from the Republican Party, permeate the air waves.

We got lucky and found Ira Glassman, the host of NPR’s “This American Life,” airing a bunch of old horror stores. After all, the devil’s night is upon us — Halloween — which is a bunch of bull, but Beelzebub's favorite holiday gives retailers a chance to fatten their wallets.

I don’t believe in ghosts, and when you die, you are dead as door nail, to quote Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” You are not coming back to haunt a house or scare some poor bastard in a cemetery. You are worm food unless you decide to be cremated.

We sat like the “The Waltons” as we listened to one horror story after another, but instead of an old Philco radio, we listened to a computer. I wonder what Johnboy would think?

The first story was about a woman who was attacked by a rabid raccoon outside her home, and her nightmares when she tried to get treatment for rabies.

But the next vignette of horror was a story I heard before with my 10-year-old son in 2006.

Ten years ago, Anthony and I sat on the bed to listen to Glassman’s tales of horror. The story was about two brothers who hitched a ride with people who resembled members of “The Adams Family.” All I could think about a group of drugged-out, disfigured, dastardly people in the front seat.

It is a true story

As the two boys traveled with the occupants of the car, they began to realize these adults were up to no good and they wanted out. The boys plotted their escape and bailed out of a running car as as those crazies drove up and down a cemetery in the dead of the night looking for their escaped prey.

My son would leave the room as this tale of an abduction grew more terrifying by the minute. The boys in the car opened the door and leaped out and ran for their lives. They raced to a house lit up in the distance where somebody was having a keg party. The car and its ghoulish occupants followed in hot pursuit through the graveyard.

When they got to the home, partygoers heard the boys’ story and saw the spooky car off in the distance in the cemetery. A few brave souls from the party tried to get the car’s license number before the ghouls disappeared into the darkness.

Anthony is now a 19-year-old college freshman who sat at the table to hear the entire story. He was amused and no longer afraid.

But what is more frightening to me than this lurid tale of abduction was where did nine wonderful years with my son go.

Now that’s terrifying to parents who adore their son.

Funeral for a friend

Affirmation

To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything. 

Poet Donald Hall

Debra Ann Johnson's last visit to our home in June

PORTLAND, Maine — We buried a good friend and sister-in-law at Forrest City Cemetery on a Monday afternoon.

The clouds gave way to bright sunshine as a few mourners said kind words about Debra Ann Johnson. Dark skies returned as teary-eyed friends and family reluctantly left the cemetery to go on living without her. 

When somebody like Debra Ann Johnson passes, I feel shortchanged, even cheated. And please don't bother explaining the process of death, grief and the most overused and pathetic word when it comes to accepting death — closure. I will look the other way and ignore you. Closure doesn't exist. You just live with the pain that comes from loss. 

Being the last man standing in this fickle life really means experiencing the anguish of watching wonderful souls march into eternity, leaving you behind with memories and sadness. It can suddenly become an empty world when loved ones vanish over time.

Debra Ann stood up for me when I needed emotional support. And here I was standing beside her graveside to honor a mother who raised three fine sons and still found compassion and kindness to reach out to her sister, Terri.

I have only known Debra Ann for five years. It was a short friendship, but I know the bond will last a lifemine.

Debra Ann had a positive influence on our lives. She was a remarkable piece of nature's work because she found a way to move on despite her ups and downs. But Debra Ann was a woman of conviction and persevered no matter what life threw at her.

Her first priority was her family, and that is why I love and respect her. She kept it together for her family, and that says something about this woman who had the capacity to make her world a better place for her offspring.

Talk about courage.

My courage was waning as I waited for Terri to emerge in one piece from life-saving back surgery. Debbie and her family came to my rescue after making the long trip from Lincoln. They sat with me for hours in a waiting room to help me hold it together. Debra Ann had her own numerous responsibilities, but she put her life on hold for an entire day. She wanted to be at Terri's beside when she awoke. 

Sometimes, families drift away as the years roll along. Debbie Johnson brought us together, and our reunion continues to this day as I to meet the rest of Debra Ann's family.

Debra Ann Johnson, who was born Oct. 15, 1965 and died on Sept. 10, 2013, didn't receive medals or become a celebrity for making family her first priority in life. But she did have the love of a grateful family.

I won't say so long, Debra Ann. As far as we are concerned, you are alive and well in our hearts.