Feb. 2008

        "My goodness, what's all that laughing about?  What's so funny?  I haven't see you laugh so uproariously since you were a little kid.  Do you remember that day you saw the cat go up the tallest apple tree and knock down those three big macintosh?"

        "It's right here, right in this book."

        "What book?"

        "Where on earth did you get that?"

        "Grandpa was straightening out his desk.  I watched as he pulled everything out of the drawer.  When I saw this funny cover, I asked him if I could see it.  He said yes, but he told me to be very careful, because if was  very old.  See, it does look old, doesn't it?"

        "Holy smokes!  Old!  I guess so!  It was old when I was a little kid. I didn't even know that Grandpa still had it.  Let me see what's so funny."

        "Right here.  Look.  See the heading on this article?  It says, "Greenfield, Adirondacks Tall-Tale Hero, Once Shot a Bullet in Half-Circle"  How could anybody shoot a bullet in a half circle?"

        "Look at the headline of that news article again."

        "I'm looking. What should I see?"

        "See the words Tall-Tale?"

        "Yes, but what's that got to do with shooting a bullet in a half-circle?"

        "Everything!  Do you know what a tall-tale is?"

        "Well........I'm not quite sure.  A tale is a story, but I'm not sure what a tall-tale is"

        "It's a story about exaggeration."

        "What's that?"

        "Exaggeration means to make something seem larger than it really is; to make it sadder, funnier, longer, crazier.

        "Well, how does that go with this story?  And anyway, we'll never find out.  Look. This paper is so very old that we can only read down to where it says, 'One story she recalls hearing about Bill Greenfield is that once, while hunting he'  The rest is so worn, we can't tell what the words are."

        "Yes, I see that.  But you are in luck."

        "What do you mean?  How as I in luck?"

        "Because I know the end of that sentence.  Your grandfather, my father, used to tell me Bill's stories over and over, because I liked them so much."

        "Hey, that's great!  So.....let's go in the living room.  You can sit in your favorite rocking chair and I can get down on my favorite rug.   Come on!  Hurry up!  Let's go!"

        The rug was soft.  Father's chair was nice and warm because Grandpa had started a fire in th fireplace.

        "Are you all set to hear about Bill Greenfield and his tales?"

        "I sure am.  Begin with that last sentence we can see in the paper.  I really want to know what happened when he went hunting."

        "All right ---- here we go.  Bill told everyone he know that once, when he was out hunting, he bent the barrel of his gun around a tree, and then shot a bear while he was standing behind the tree.

        "Woah!  I see now what you mean by a tall-tale."

        "Yee, everyone in Town called Bill Greenfield that Tall-Tale King. He told wild stories about himself and he also loved to tell scary, spooky, alarming tales he'd been told by his garrulous Uncle Ned, who was always called "Spike" by all the townspeople.  I remember how grandpa and I used to get a great laugh out of John Griswold's story.  John lived three miles down the road from us, toward the west.  He was a very small man and sometimes, behind his back, even his friends would call him runt, pee-wee, or Tiny.  Anyway, John lived in an old, broken down shack and had a most peculiar habit.  Somehow, he always sensed when a thunderstorm was about to begin and he would start sneezing so loudly that people living a half mile away could hear him."

        "What a crazy story!"

        "It sure is, but Bill used to tell one about Daniel meeker what was even crazier."

        "Did Daniel Meeker live here in Town?"

        "He lived about a mile southwest of our corner on his very prosperous farm.  Everyone in Town knew him and everyone liked him.  He knew how to make excellent cider.  We always thought that was why he was so popular with all the folks in Town for so long."

        "Wow!  How old was he?"

        "When he died on September 12, 1830, he was 89 years old and had made his wonderful cider for more than 69 years."

        "He sure had a good, long life, didn't he?"

        "Yes, he did."

        "Was he buried in our cemetery?"

        "No.  The article in the paper after his death related that his remains were buried on a sandy knoll, about 40 rods east of his last residence.  It went on to tell about the marble headstone and marble footstone on his grave.  Since there was no fence, people cultivated their gardens right up to the stones.  And, all of his personal possessions had been stolen by strangers."

        "Oh gosh!  That's terrible!  Do you know any other tall-tales?"

        "I know one about Daniel Meeker."

        "Good.  Let's hear it."

        "Well.....for the past fifty years, many people have told about seeing unusual happenings around the grave of Daniel Meeker."

        "What did they see?"

        "Strange lights have hovered above his grave and always at the 'witching hour'."

        "What time is that?"

        "Midnight.  And weird objects have been seen stalking about near his grave.    Many people have declared in a loud voice that they saw ghosts there.  Others were sure they saw shadowy spirits in the 'sleepy hollow' part of hi farm where they were stopped by large, black-coated witches who would laugh with high-pitched, screaming sounds, touch them with a good, hard slap on their heads and scramble away."

        "My gosh!  What a scary place."

        "It certainly was and many of our citizens would laughingly suggest that these other-worldly creatures continued to gather around Daniel's gravesite, hoping to get even a tiny sip of the most excellent cider he made every spring for so many years."

        "Hey Father, I like these stories.  Do you know anymore of Bill Greenfield's tall tales?"

        Father looked down with an intriguing smile on his face, leaned back in the chair, put his head on the carved part at the top, closed his eyes and began to slowly rock back and forth as the old rockers on his chair squeaked in rhythm, like tiny mice joyfully squeaking around a big block of cheese.