Just My Imagination

I once again am wide awake at 4:00 A.M with so much on my mind. The clock is ticking...the dog is once again stretched out here on the sofa...coffee getting cold in the cup as usual while my mind ponders these many things going through my head. For reasons unknown to me I am back in a quaint little town of Contoocook,New Hampshire. I see a big old New England style white Congregational Church, a corner General Store...and then my favorite...the covered Bridge. I remember standing in that bridge...I think I wrote my name in there once. I miss going to that quaint place where we used to go to visit two very special people who we called "Uncle Gerry and Aunt Elgie" although they were not actually that. Gerry reminded me of a little leprechaun and was always smiling and laughing until he got so sick he was in a hospital bed in the living room. Elgie was a bit eccentric and nervous and never failed to get out her accordion to give us a concert when we arrived for a visit. It was always quite a show...believe me. They had cats! Lots and lots of cat hair! They had a little dog named King whose little tail curled up like a pig's tail! They used their teabags about a gazillion times over and over...and would save them for the next visit! They lived very meagerly and miserly. They had a big old barn where they kept rabbits and I remember not really liking to go back in there...it was kind of creepy to me...I knew that was where Gerry killed his rabbits. I think they probably served us a few so called "chicken" dinners that were Not! if you get my drift. The house was an old farm house that had only one bathroom but three bedrooms up and two down and they had no children so always had room for us to stay when we visited. Up the steep creaky stairs we would go,my sister and I, with our Samsonite suitcases then to the left ..... to the door that was always locked! Why???No one ever knew for sure but my little mind as a kid had many theories!! For one...as you first opened that door that was always locked, you would see a huge bed with a metal frame..like something in an old horror movie...then there was the dresser and then ......the coffin!!! I thought it was a coffin!! Turns out later ...I found out it was not...but it took me until my late teens to be convinced! I think my sister and I used to spook each other into thinking there was actually a body in it!! I felt so creepy sleeping in that room and almost expected that chest to slowly creak open in the middle of the night with some creepy old lady slowly emerging with long gnarly fingers! Another one of my childish theories about this chest that looked like a coffin, was that Elgie secretly stowed away her millions of dollars in it and that's why she always kept the door locked...I liked this theory better since it wasn't quite so scary! The weird thing is...sometimes while we were trying to sleep... in the middle of the night, I would hear creaking on the stairs... one by one, slowly, coming up the stairs! I would feel that scary lump building up in my chest and throat and get the goosebumps and just hide under the covers! Then I would hear the footsteps slow at the landing and creak some more ...see a small glimmer of light underneath my door.... and a shadow of feet...Then, after what seemed like an eternity.... the creaking would begin again, but going the opposite direction...down.. down.. down... the stairs.. thankfully, for me,and my lump would soon go away in my throat and my chest would start to feel better! I would fall back to sleep.  As I got older I realized that what was actually happening in the middle of the night was Elgie using what old timers call a chamber pot ! She kept it right on the landing at the top of the stairs! Why? Well, that's another story for another day! Anyway, these two precious people were special to me in spite of their weirdness and they are both up in Heaven shaking their heads right now...Gerry probably getting a laugh...and Elgie just not sure what to think of me! But anyway ....it is funny how a kid can think... sometimes our adult minds do the same. We imagine all kinds of things that really are not So. It is especially easy to look at a situation and think we KNOW what is really going on or what is happening....but remember not all is as it seems!! Don't let your imagination get the best of you!

"Casting down evil imaginations".... "perfect love casteth out fear"..... "trust in the lord with all thine heart"... "I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me".  ....and there are so many many more.....