Monthly Archives: May 2018

Baby Blue

Instructor: Can you guys think of any legends or ghost stories that you learned at home or from friends?

(There were multiple responses from varying students, however this post focuses on a single student’s response)

Angel*: Yeah! Baby Blue

Instructor: Whats that?

Angel*:

It’s like uhm you go into the bathroom and look into the mirror and uh fold your arms, and if you feel a weight in your arms its Baby Blue and you gotta drop it!

Maria : No no no, you gotta go into the bathroom by yourself and turn the lights off and cradle your arms like you’re holding a baby and say ‘Baby Blue’ in the mirror three times. If you feel a weight in your arms like you were holding a baby, you gotta pretend to drop it in the toilet and flush it before it gets too heavy.

Instructor: Or else what happens?

Maria: The baby will haunt your family.

Daisy : No if you don’t flush the baby, her mom will turn up behind you and scream at you to give it back and kill you if you don’t.

Instructor: So, who is baby blue?

Maria: It’s like a evil baby that will haunt you if you don’t get rid of it I think.

Instructor: And who is the women?

Daisy: Some kinda evil spirit I guess.

Instructor: Have any of you done this?

Daisy: I tried it once with my big sister.

Instructor: And did the woman show up?

Daisy: No, but I felt a weight in my arms and through it in the toilet so maybe I did it before the baby grew too big.

Instructor: Was it a scary experience?

Daisy: Yeah I guess, me and my sister ran outta the bathroom straight after flushing the toilet.

Analysis:

I found Baby Blue to be very interesting, becuase it reminded me a lot of games I played as a child. However, this had a different, darker twist on it. The idea is that the woman has most likely killed her child, at least thats what some of the children thought. However, a google search found that many of these stories are rooted in a much more srious topic. Some theorize that Baby Blue is actually about a botched abortion, or a mother who drowned her child due to severe postpartum depression. Although none of the children were aware of these deeper meaning, both the instructors of the class and the teacher were taken aback by the stories coming from these young kids. I likened this to played “Bloody Mary” in the bathroom as a kid, but upon further examination, i’ve realized that it most likely has a lot more to do with the political climate surrounding abortion and news cases that these kids have been raised around.

Pick-Up Beer for Truckers

Context:

The subject is a white man from Dallas, Texas. We were talking about his grandmother and his own personal family history when he told me about this custom. I live this custom because I was told it so far removed from the source culture. Modern day truckers may not know what this is, but some people who have never driven a truck in their life think of it as a ‘trucker’ thing. I think it could also be related to hobo culture which is also dying out.

 

Piece:

“There was a guy who used to live in St. Augustine, he was a drug trafficker and he had like connections to the mob, he was a scary dude. He ran a liquor store. He ran the St. Augustine liquor store, and he had um, ah I just forgotten the name of it. He would sell liquor and he had a cooler right by the door that was free beers for people going their way through you could take a beer. And there was a specific name for it, like a pick-up beer or something. Cause it was connected to truckin’ like truckers would go through there and like pick up a six-pack to make it through their thing. This was the old days, apparently this was pretty common on the roadside stops.”  

 

Hatchman Campfire Story

Context:

The subject is a white man from Dallas, Texas. We were talking about his family and his upbringing in Texas when he told me this story. Scouting groups are full of folklore and this is a pretty common story I’ve heard from others.

 

Piece:

“My dad did it, cause he was the cub scout leader for my cub scout troop. So when we’d go on camping trips he would always tell stories. He was great at telling like Native American stories. The best one is Hatchetman. Hatchetman was a thing he’d brought up every year and told the story every year, it was alway, it was a scary story. It was about a scouting troop that went to camp at a camp much like this one. And they would be doing thing and it would be, and this mysterious man in a rain jacket with the hood commed up [pronounced like come-’d, I think he means came as in his hood was pulled up] with only one hand, his other hand was a hatchet. [The next part, Jackson cresendoes his voice to a climax] He’d slowly sneak through as they were in the middle of a campfire all telling stories with each other he’d sneak up behind them and stab ‘em with the hatchet. It was always, when we were little it was always a joke, but then my last year there to uh become a boy scout, he was leaving as cub master, it was the big last campout. He told Hatchetman story and he had his friend, who was one of the dads, dress up as Hatchetman as he was telling the story. He was like “as they sat around the campfire, all telling a story, their eyes fixed up front, Hatchetman was creeping up behind” and like the guy was creaching up behind with the hatchet and he scared all of us so much. One of the kids pooped his pants.”

 

KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid

Context:

The subject is a white man from Dallas, Texas. We were talking about his family when he told me this proverb. I like this idea of the proverb being an engineering saying, an occupational proverb.

 

Piece:

“When my dad was teaching me, um, woodworking and we were getting into making. And that was the start of me getting into engineering there was an axiom that’s like everywhere in engineer but he specifically drilled it into me so I always think about him that is KISS which is Keep It Simple Stupid”

 

EmPHAsis on the wrong syLAble

Context:

The subject is a white man from Dallas, Texas. We were talking about his family when he told me this proverb. I’ve heard this dite a lot and wanted to collect it. It’s not too interesting.s

 

Piece:

“My dad would always say “put the EmPHAsis on the wrong syLAble” whenever he messed up saying something or I messed up saying something, so that just ran into me.