Munger Road
A couple miles from my house which is a couple miles from my parents house (which goes to show you once you go St. Charles, you never go back), there is a road. Well, if you want to be technical about it, there are lots of roads, especially since I a) do not live in a cow town and 2) roads = easier ways to get to my Uncrustables.
But back in high school, we didn’t have a lot to do, so we drove around. Sometimes we’d play “Summer Car” in the dead of winter, dressing up in our tank tops and short-shorts, cranking the heat to 11. Other times we’d play Pants Off, Drive Off and drive around with no pants. Even then, it appears, pants were bullshit. Sometimes we’d drive around exploring the less developed areas surrounding STC.
An old favorite, though, was to explore Munger Road. An urban legend – completely unverified – passed down through generations of squeally teens said that the three mile stretch of road was haunted. As the urban legend goes, a busload of kids were killed crossing the train tracks. If you sit on the train tracks, baby powder on the bumper, leaving your car in neutral, the ghost train would come through and a buttload of kids would push your car out of the way. Inspection of the bumper would reveal dozens of tiny hand prints.
I cannot tell you, Pranksters, how many times we tried this trick. Which, let me tell you, is a brillz one. I mean, sitting on the train tracks, car in neutral, is probably the smartest thing you can do, when you stop a POS clunker called the Fatty-Bo-Batty-Caddy (Cadillac from the early 1800’s, I think, judging by the shape of the upholstery) ON TOTALLY FUNCTIONAL RAILROAD TRACKS.
Anyway.
I didn’t die, obviously, because I went on to pop out some crotch parasites and become Your Aunt Becky. Nor did we see any tiny ghosticles. Once, I think, we saw a cat. (no, not a Laser Kitty, because OMG, how awesome?)
I’d mostly forgotten about our Munger Road antics until The Twitter informed me of a new movie. Shot in St. Charles, and NOT on Your Mom’s Camera. Like a real movie. In St. Charles.
What’s it about?
Munger Fucking Road*.
You should probably go see it. I bet there’s a scene with me accidentally in it all stumbling out of the bar like, “I fucking love you, street light. Will you marry me?”
*petitioning for a name change for that road, by the by.
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Did your town have any urban legends, Pranksters?
Well that movie looks creepy as hell. It would make me all paranoid to live in the town it was based in. You are braver than me Aunt Becky!
We do have an urban legend. It was in a graveyard. There was a brass angel grave marker. It was called the “Black Angel” It was said that anyone who slept on the grave over night the Angel would come to life and kill y ou and your hair would turn white. There was so much vandalism that the family, It was some related to the John Deere’s, had the marker removed. It now sits at a rehab facility in Santa Fe. I never did it. I was a chicken shit. But seeing the pics of that thing, even in its new home still creep me out.
There was another about a Monestary that was here. The priest knocked up a bunch of nuns and forced them to have abortions. The babies were buried on the property and you could hear them crying at nigh. I have friends who have said this is true. The place burned down a few years ago and a school was built there.
Did I ever tell you I live around the corner from the Exorcist house ? Like not where it was filmed (though I work about 4 miles from there) but the actual house where said haunting supposedly occured ? The house itself was bulldozed, then they built another house there, it caught on fire, they bulldozed that one, built a PLAYGROUND, that didnt work. So now there is a lovely gazebo there. That is surrounded by a cast iron fence that is always locked.
We have a restaurant, now a chain that *I think* made it to the States. Anyway, The Old Spaghetti Factory (the original in Gastown, an historic part of Vancouver) is totally haunted. Bent forks, broken dishes, spooky noises.
We ate there as kids and, no joke, I still order the exact same dinner that I did when I was a kid. As an underage teen I would go with a girlfriend and we would drink Mateus wine with our dinner. No one was ever carded in the ’80s.
When my first was a baby, we went for dinner with a friend one night. We were sat near the back, not an area we usually sit in, and my normally easy-going 6 month old was inconsolable the entire time we were there. She actually looked frightened!
Last week we went back (the way she cried so hard is a favourite story of hers now, at age 8) and we checked out that back room area. A waiter stopped to talk to us and told us more about the ghosts than my daughter was ready to hear: Apparently the back area had been a seamstress shop, and there was a young girl who was caught in the fire. She apparently is known to cry out for her mom some times.
Now. My kid has always been sensitive — at three she guessed that I was pregnant before I had told anyone, and out of the blue. She insisted she knew the sex, too (and was right).
So. co-inky-dink?! I ask you.
Cool ’bout your movie, though I couldn’t watch the trailer. Scary movies? Scare me. Even adverts for them. (shudder)
http://www.ghosthaunting.com/html/old_spaghetti_factory.html
Lord, I hadn’t thought about it in years, but we had our ‘haunted road,’ which for some strange reason was called the Troll Bridge. It’s an absolutely, positively true fact that a troll lives there. If you park in just the right spot at just the right time of night, you will totally see the troll’s flashlight as he crosses the road.
No, I don’t know why a troll would have a flashlight. And I never got an answer to the question “Why did the troll cross the road?” (My friends also did not seem to understand why I thought asking that question was so funny.)
But I have to admit, I did really see lights a few times. However, the only time I saw flashlights, they were not being carried by a troll. They were being carried by nice men wearing blue outfits with shiny things pinned on the chest, and were generally accompanied by something along the lines of “You kids wanna get dressed and get out of the car?”
Dude! That’s Randall Batinkoff in that movie! He’s the guy who knocked up Molly Ringwald in “For Keeps” and made it seem like gettin pregnant as a teenager was going to be awesome because he was SO DREAMY and loved her SO MUCH.
In the next town over from where I grew up there was a road where, allegedly, albinos lived. Crazy, man-eating albinos. At the end of the road. The only problem was that the road was actually a highway and the end of it was in another state. There were kids who refused to drive on that road, apparently never realizing that a highway, that goes into another state, wouldn’t come to a dead end on a town line.
I miss driving without pants on. I need to do that again.
Well, I guess I’ve got a couple for you then. I used to live in a smaller town south of St. Charles (well, by about an hour and a half or so) named Watseka. In the great town of Watseka which by the way is a cow town, lol, comes the “Watseka Legend.” It is like the first account of a bodily possession from a spirit. It seems as though the spirit possessed a little girl and this little girl actually went to live with her birth family for awhile. Yah, imagine that. Anyway, there is an actual book called the “Watseka Wonder” that you can read and you can tour the house which is still standing and they did some show on some channel on the tv about it, but, the show was CRAP.
Also, in Iroquois County there are a couple of other “myths” that carried from generation to generation. One is the never ending mailbox. You are suppose to be able to stick your arm in it and it never ends. I kind of ended up knowing the family that had the “never ending mailbox.” I never stuck my arm in it, but, this is also one of these things that it was never exactly clear where it was from.
Next on the list was Lantern’s Lane. Supposedly, during a snow storm, a gentleman went out to check on the cow or milk the cow or do something to a cow because a) it is cow town area, and b) farmers get lonely too?? Anyway, the wife was in the house waiting and a great amount of time elapsed and he still had not returned and she went out to check on him and they both died in the snow storm and now if all the “conditions” are correct, you are suppose to be able to see the light from her lantern as she searches for her husband. Thus the name, Lantern’s Lane Road. Everyone knows it as this, but, again, I have never seen the lantern.
Next on the spooky Iroquois County tour, there is a set of cemetery gates that are suppose to open and close on their own. You have to go through some ridiculous ordeal of driving past them and flashing your lights and such – never tried that one.
Lastly, there was a tombstone that supposedly moved. (*or moooooved because again, cow town – bad, I know). Alphonsoe’s tombstone was a popular place to drink (again, never went there) and after vandals destroyed the tombstone, it was moved by man made forces instead of supernatural forces. But, actually, the rumon had it that it was the way the tombstone was set and angles and lots of uninteresting stuff that made it appear to move when light was shined on it.
There you go, my long winded version of a few counties south.
P.S. According to your blog, I’m posting comments too fast – go me.
I bet the “bad guy” in the show is totally the guy with a hook that escaped from the nearby mental hospital (is there a nearby mental hospital?) that scratches the shit out of your car while you are necking and then you later find out that he left his hook in the door lock thing in your car but it turns out he’s really IN YOUR HOUSE and after he gets done calling you he licks your hand like your dog always does even though your dog has been dead for years.
That one actually looks like it might be good!
We don’t have any urban legends, but the kid who broke into my parent’s house and ransacked our bedrooms looking for money went on to murder the local ballet teacher. Does that count? UGH! Can’t people just plateau at batshit and NOT push themselves toward foaming at the mouth?
The Munger Rd train legend sounds like the Cuba Rd in Barrington legend. Or was that Rainbow Rd, I think that was Lake Zurich….anyway lol
Cuba Road in Barrington is correct. We use to drive down that road at night with the lights off going about 55. Back when we were teenagers that was a fun thing to do. Wouldn’t let my teenager do that now!
Seeing as I also live in St. Chuckles, your legend is my legend. But I didn’t grow up here, and please sweet Jesus, tell me that I can get the fuck out eventually! Anyway, I digress. The only urban legend where I grew up in Michigan was that Bob Seger had a house in one of the neighboring towns. Ironically he does now have a house a few miles up the road from my parents. But I don’t think it is haunted by ghost Chevy trucks or anything cool.
Coastal SC-I’ve got boatloads. Two of the most notorious are Alice and The Grey Man
Alice was a young lady who loved the wrong man. Her brother didn’t like him, found out they were engaged, threw her pink diamond ring in the river. If you go to her grave with a pink diamond ring, she will turn it, trying to either a)take it off or b)see if it’s her’s (story VERY condensed)
The Grey Man is actually from a town over, but still pretty cool. The story is he died on the way to Pawley’s Island to tell his fiancee there was a hurrican coming. Her house was destroyed, her and her family died as well. Now, if you live on the beach front and see the Grey Man before a storm, your house will not be harmed. People who have seen the Grey Man and evacuated have told stories of coming home and the beach towels left on the porch were still there, but their neighbor’s house was completely gone. (Again, story VERY condensed)
How odd. Tomorrow is the anniversary of my dad’s death, and he’s buried in Resurrection Cemetary (well, not buried per se – he’s in a masoleum). I don’t know if you’re familiar with the story of Resurrection Mary, but she’s supposed to haunt the road outside the cemetary. She was supposed to have been a girl who went to a dance and got in a fight with her boyfriend or something, and as she was walking home she was hit by a car. Now, she hitchhikes. We used to say that now that my dad was there, people would also start seeing Resurrection Jerry, who would be out bumming cigarettes from passers-by.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_Mary
Why can I no longer spell cemetery?
How weird- totally been to Munger, but in high school we always did Cuba Rd in Barrington… that shit is super creeps.
How weird- totally been to Munger, but in high school we always did Cuba Rd in Barrington… that shit is super creeps.
Oh how cool AB! That is totally creepy and awesome!
I used to live near an old abandoned insane asylum. It had tunnels underneath that were totally spooky.
http://northville-tunnels.com/
I would NEVER go there as an adult! OMG. I am so glad that my kids moved 3000 miles away from those things.
* shiver *
We had a few. The theatre (not movies but plays) was haunted by a ghost of a handyman, who helps with holding ladders and lights. If you stand on the stage and look out you will see a blue light, where none has been placed…that’s supposed to be him.
Another is in between two towns (big state, small towns), there is this old abandoned church. (Creepy thing) The church was supposed to be haunted by what we called the Chelsea Devil. I don’t remember the full story, but devil taunted the priests and one priest-trying to get warn the very far away neighbors-ran the church bell. The devil threw the priest out the window and jumped after him. The priest died and the devil landed on a rock outside the church that has his hoof prints in it.
Of course there is spooky/dangerous stuff that comes with the story. If you park on the highway parallel to the church and flash your lights three times…take off and drive like a bat out of hell…because you now have three miles to race the devil. You can’t look back either, because if you do, you’ll see the devil racing you and the next thing you know, he’ll be sitting next to you in the car and will make you wreck.
long island has a few. sweet hollow road is probably one of the better known urban legends. it’s this teeny like one a half lane road with no fucking curbs or sidewalks – the side of the road in most places is like 2 feet LOWER than the ground with all the trees and shit, no shoulder to speak of – that’s all twisty and windy and UNLIT. and the legend is that people used to go there to hang themselves from the trees that reach over the road. and if you drive down it at night (obvs) you can see marks on the trees or whatever. i was high a lot of the time we did shit like that.
but in all honesty? the scariest thing that EVER happened to me on sweet hollow road was when i was driving it in broad daylight, trying to avoid the fucking traffic, and this garbage truck came STRAIGHT AT ME. i was driving a ’77 cougar, also known as a ‘big ass boat’. i had to pull alllll the way over to where i was basically touching the dirt and shit on the side of the road, and the garbage truck pulled alllll the way over and slid past me with literally inches to spare. terrifying.
that was the last time i drove down sweet hollow road.
and, of course, on long island we have the amityville horror house. i had a lot of friends who lived around it when i was growing up. it’s mostly a normal house, it looks really nice, in a good neighborhood, with a canal as it’s backyard. and it’s for sale. you should buy it, aunt motherfucking becky, because then we’d PRACTICALLY be neighbors because i currently live two towns over! and on long island, ‘two towns over’ means ‘5 miles away’. seriously.
aunt becky — don’t let hollywood steal your childhood. or insist on a share in the profits.
That EXACT same tale exists in a small East TX town, not far from Houston. Not sure where, but I’ve heard a zillion people tell me about it… and some claimed to have experienced the tiny ghostly fingerprints. It was even a bus load of children, the same story, only south of your home town by a good clip. I’m calling Urban Legend on this one.
I heard the exact. same. tale growing up in Central FL. So I looked it up on snopes: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/handprint.asp
I got tons. First is the “Richmond Vampire” A whole bunch of people died while constructing some kind of tunnel but one guy made it out and got all burned up, skin falling off and his teeth were broken. He is apparently the guy who “lives” in Hollywood Cemetery off the James River in Richmond, Va.
The Richmond Aviation Museum located on a Civil War battlefield. Old Railway where the old man’s lantern is seen. Battlefield Cemetery. Tuckahoe Plantation and Pocohantas Parkway which was built over an old Indian burial ground. Indian ghosts haunt the highway.
Stupid Creepy Richmond. Yeah all these in MY city alone
Well I went down munger road today with some friends. They had claimed that they had already went down it and some finger prints appeared when they stopped on the railroad tracks but that was it. So we went up and down, it was incredibly dark and eerie and we were pretty creeped out. Anyways. We stopped, poured baby powder everywhere, then made our way to the railroad tracks where we stopped in neutral and waited. Nothing happened so we went forward and stopped to check for fingerprints. There was a tiny mark on the top of the trunk resembling fingers so we dumped more baby powder in that area, turned around and tried again. Once again nothing happened so we decided to try once more. We were pretty low and gas and scared of the idea of getting stranded out here but we did it anyways. We were perfectly on the tracks, not on a hill or anything and we started to roll backwards after a few moments. We freaked out as it stopped moving and sped away. As we checked for the prints later, there were markings literally everywhere. Everywhere. All over the trunk and even in the front of the car on the hood. Some were even full handprints and when we looked closer we could see actual fingerprint patterns in the markings. We tested to see if this could have been somehow our own hands by making marks on the car, dumping baby powder on it, and blowing it off, but we couldn’t get anything to resemble what we saw. We are going to test this again soon with baby powder on a normal road to see if this could have just been old handprints on the car. Will tell of that soon.
Oh. Also to add on to the creepiness of this, as we left we went down a dark side road but we went the wrong way so quickly turned around. In the middle of the road there were two people, one tall one in white clothes and a tiny one in black clothes. They appeared out of nowhere, walking out of the shrubbery and fields. This, of course, scared us shitless and we were soon to leave.