My dad once told us as we were driving over a bridge in Arlington (Texas), that the bridge we were on was called Screaming Bridge. According to him, legend had it that one dark night, while the bridge over the Trinity River was out, a car full of teenage girls speeding down the road plunged over the edge into the river.
(I just looked it up. Turns out Screaming Bridge is a bit of an urban legend/ghost story in Texas. But you never know. My dad made up all sorts of weird stories when we were kids.)
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My grandparents live on a golf course. Right around the time my dad told us about Screaming Bridge, we went to my grandparents' house for some event, and we tried to convince my Paw-Paw to take us for a ride on his golf cart. As dusk was approaching, my Nana told us she'd take us for a ride over the course, which had several bridges over the little fingers of the creek, if I'm remembering it correctly. We told her about Screaming Bridge, and she said there was a Woman Screaming Bridge on the golf course. It was the biggest, narrowest, steepest bridge on the course. Rachel and I screamed as Nana drove over it.
It was dark and creepy under the trees as the sun disappeared, but lightning bugs glowed between them every now and then. I love lightning bugs. They're so pretty to watch. I would never have tried to capture any of them.
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Matt was attending a conference at Virginia Tech the other week. He came home around dusk one evening and told me that on his way home, he'd seen a whole bunch of lightning bugs. I said we should go for a walk to see if we could find some. They glowed neon all over our neighborhood. The warmer it gets, the more I see them flitting in the dark. It's beautiful.
Does your city have any local urban legends? Do you like lightning bugs?
I love stories like this! There's one in San Antonio about a busload of kids who were hit by a train at a certain spot. On Halloween, people drive over the tracks and the ghosts of the kids are supposed to push your car over the tracks safely. I never tried it. And Woman Hollering Creek is in Seguin. You drive over it on I-10 on the way to San Antonio. La Llorona is a common legend in Mexico and south Texas, and Sandra Cisneros wrote a short story about the creek. I wrote about it in my thesis. :P
ReplyDeleteMe too! That train story is creepy, I would be too freaked out to see if ghosts moved my car!
ReplyDeleteI think people put powder on the back of their cars to see the fingerprints. Kind of creepy. And we sometimes see lightning bugs where we live. I tell the boys they are fairies with lanterns. :)
ReplyDeleteAw, that's cute!
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