I had something kinda spooky happen to me. Not scary like Sylvan's story.
About 15 years ago, I worked at a door and window factory.
One of the guys I worked with was named Joe Salisbury. Joe
was a retired school teacher who was working at the plant to
subsidize his income. In an odd sort of way, he was a real cool
guy to work with. Often times at lunch a group of us would
hang out and discuss all sorts of bizzarre shit. He used to bring
in poetry for us to read. One poem in particular was called
"The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service.
hers a small piece of it:
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold
The artic trails have their loathsome tales that'd make your
blood run cold
The Northern lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest
I ever did see
Was the night on the marge out on lake LeBarge where I
cremated Sam Mc Gee.
Sam was from Plumtree down in Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows
Why he chose to roam the pole, God only knows.
Thats some from memory. More on this later.
Often times we'd intentionally tell all sorts of gut groaning types
of jokes. Most often Joe's response would be him shaking his head
saying "I should've known."
In the plant, they'd play oldies and easy listening music over the PA system.
I remember two songs that got played over and over again. One was "The
Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tokens, and the other was"Hero" by Bette Midler.
Joe would ofter complain about those two songs. Mostly that lions are
nocturnal and therefore don't sleep at night. Thus the song made no sense.
You can't argue with logic...
Christmas was coming upon us and the plant would be closing for a few days.
The last day, we all left work to a snowstorm. This was one of my favorite
memories ! The entire shop had a snowball fight in the parking lot ! There were
60 year old guys throwing snowballs! The women from the office were into it as well.
No one, and I mean no one, was safe ! Everybody was into it. I was laughing
so hard, I could hardly breathe. It was so frickin awesome to see everyone having
such a good time.
After that everyone went home for the holiday. I had what I'd considder a normal Christmas that year. But, that was shadowed by a dark cloud upon returning to work
and recieving the news that Joe had died over the holiday. I was shocked.
Later I found out he was playing cards with his family on Christmas Eve,
and had a heart attack at the table. I sent his wife a sympathy card, eventhough
I've never met her.
