Member-only story
The Owl and The Terrible Green Insect That Attacked My Mother
A tale of terror from the early 1950s.
I know that I have told this story somewhere, but I cannot find it, so I will recreate from memory as best I can. I’m guessing that I was about five or six years old. I could not have been much younger because we moved into the house where this commotion took place when I was four.
You also need to know that I had and have very poor vision. Most of the world is a blur to me without my glasses.
We were all tucked in our beds: me, my parents, and my two older sisters. It was a summer night and I was asleep when something disturbed me. It might have been a bad dream, but family lore has it that an owl hooted.
I tend to doubt that, as we heard owls very frequently in the 1950s; that was a sound I knew well and miss today. I don’t think an owl hoot would have got me out of bed.
Something got me up, and I padded sleepily toward my parents room looking for comfort. I was not wearing glasses because I didn’t yet own glasses. Both my parents and the school were very slow to recognize my vision deficiencies.
My parents were in bed and my father was snoring. My mother was on the side closest to me, so I approached her. It was then I saw the horrible glowing…
