Author Archives: Laurel Goggins

Suitcase ’round the Cul-de-sac

Nationality: Peruvian-American
Age: 23
Occupation: Producer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant recounts a Peruvian tradition used to bring good luck during travel.

A: You run a suitcase around a cul-de-sac in order to have good luck while traveling. 

L: So anyone of any age does it?

A: Yeah. Not that I was the only one that did it by choice. I was told to do it. 

L: By who?

A: By my mother.

L: Do you know if it’s a family thing, or a cultural thing? Or is your mother fucking with you?

A: No, I think it’s a cultural thing. 

Thoughts:

When I first heard this, I thought my informant was messing with me. However, this is a very real tradition that is still practiced by people today. It seems like this tradition was born from people wanting to do something silly and fun before they travel as a way to bring them good luck.

Bomb under Omaha

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: UI/UX Designer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese, Latin

The informant grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. Here, he tells the story of the alleged unexploded WWII bomb buried underneath Dundee District in Omaha City.

N: Around where I went to high school. There’s a place called Dundee, in Omaha, it’s an old part of the city. And um, during World War II, there was a Japanese attack on Omaha– a bombing. And I think one bomb went off? Maybe other bombs went off. Uh, but, supposedly there’s a bomb that didn’t explode on impact that got buried underneath Dundee somewhere and is still an active bomb.  And so there’s a general, I guess, fear in the zeitgeist, that one project–one development project accidentally hits that thing and it blows up. 

I think There’s, uh, a park near my high school has, like, a thing about it. Like a plaque or whatever about the bombings. It’s also like a historical event. It’s one of the very few, actual mainland US attacks that Japan did. I think they used, like, balloons or something. I don’t know if that part’s true, but like. . .

Thoughts:

This urban legend has a very real historical event attached to it. There’s no doubt that the bombing on Omaha left a deep traumatic scar on the people of Omaha, and so, this rumor of an unexploded bomb has been born from it. Keeping the rumor of an unexploded bomb alive, is a way of remembering the trauma and pain of the bombing that took place during WII.

Heartbeat Bridge

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: UI/UX Desinger
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese, Latin

The informant grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. Here, he tells the story of how a bridge in Nebraska received the name “Heartbeat” Bridge.

N: There’s a place in Portal, Nebraska just south of the Pillar, called the Hatchet House. It was a school house and there was a legend that a teacher there went crazy and chopped off all her student’s heads and put them all at each desk. And then took all of their hearts to a nearby bridge and threw them into the river. And that bridge is called Heartbeat Bridge, and as you walk across it the boards thumping below your feet sound like heartbeats. And it’s supposed to be the heartbeats of the dead children.

Thoughts:
The informant also told a similar story as to why a local creek was named “Rawhide Creek”. It seems that in this region, it’s important to remember tragedies, and in order to do that, the areas that tragedies happened in are named after them.

The Pocono Devil

Nationality: Latino, American, Jewish
Age: 23
Occupation: User Researcher
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: May 2nd, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

As a child, the informant attended a summer camp in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. He tells the story of an urban legend that haunts the camp grounds– the Pocono Devil.

M: Pocono Devil? That is a story that I heard a couple of years ago when I went to camp in the Pocono mountains in Pennsylvania. There’s a story that I heard about a monster that lived in the woods. Basically, the story I always heard was that the camp opened in the 40s, and in the 50s, uh, there was a camper who got buried alive by his sister by the lake. 

And the story goes that that kid rose from the grave as the Pocono Devil, who’s a demon who stalks the woods looking for revenge on his sister. So you go into the woods, wearing, at night, wearing a Pine Forest T-shirt–Pine Forest is the name of the camp– the Pocono Devil will come after you thinking you’re his sister.

It might be a story that they told campers to make sure they didn’t go into the woods in the middle of the night, or something that older kids 30 years ago came up with to scare younger kids. 

There’s also this big, gnarled tree thing in the center of camp called the Ten Year Tree. Any person who’s either attended the camp for 10 years, or worked there for ten years, gets their name on a metal stamp bolted to the tree. And if you look for it, uh, right in the middle, there’s one for the Pocono Devil. 

Thoughts:

It’s classic for a summer camp to have haunting stories. Like the informant said, this story was probably either made to keep campers out of the woods at night to keep them safe or was made by older campers to freak out the younger ones. Either way, this story has very obviously become greatly entangled with the identity of the camp as they have a name plate in honor of it.

A story like this also helps increase the popularity of the camp. The name Pine Forest piggy backs on the story of the Pocono Devil, thus increasing the width of the camp’s brands reach as well as tempting kids to join next summer.

Rawhide Creek

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: UI/UX Designer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese, Latin

The informant grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. Here, he explains why a local creek from his home town was dubbed “Rawhide” Creek.

N: There’s a bunch of Native American–Native Indian– stories. Those aren’t technically my culture but– there’s a creek called Rawhide Creek. That supposedly has that name because a young man a long time ago, maybe the 1800s? I couldn’t tell ya. He set out to kill as many Indians as he could. And he killed a young girl. So her family, uh, to get revenge tracked him down. Found, like, the group he was a part of and said “You all die or you give him up” and they immediately gave him up. And so they took him to the creek, beat him to death, and skinned him. And there’s where you get the name Rawhide Creek.

Thoughts:
The informant also told a similar story as to why a local bridge was named “Heartbeat Bridge”. It seems that in this region, it’s important to remember tragedies, and in order to do that, the areas that tragedies happened in are named after them.