I am so not kidding! I have a 5th cousin Bob Jungbluth out in Cali who does the family geneology and asked me to visit the Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison and get him some photos of the last remaining relatives in his family history journey of years. I certainly agreed....So its Sunday and my house is all in disarray getting prepared for new carpet on Tuesday so leaving was an alright deal for a nice sunny day. I gathered up the traveling dog bed, harnessed the dog, knowing full well cemetery's don't usually allow them, but she is only 5 pounds..so I break the rule for my dead ones! I get there alright.... Find a map, start driving the winding maze of narrow roads through acres and acres of green grass and trees and grey stones of all sizes and shapes.... I have directional dyslexia so the map and I and reality before my eyes were struggling. It became somewhat like a show I watched as a child called The Twightlight Zone...a never ending road to nowhere. Finally! I see section 16. I drive around and around its imaginary wall all the time it's calling to me to get out and come on in. It like a triangle, hexagon, and rectangular piece of land, all mixed together. I wanted to park that car and walk around every stone giving them all the attention they have yearned all these lonely decades there. The five or six people I am searching for, one in an unmarked grave is a special spirit to me... Mary Jungbluth, whose father took her infant from her as she was unwed...she became depressed so he placed her in the Mental Hospital in Madison then to be moved to the Badger Prairie Mental Home where she died. No one ever came for her. I wanted to talk to Mary, acknowledge her, tell her I understood, thank her and possibly put her to rest, but I couldn't park and get out. Something was frightening me deep inside. Could have been the fact I was deep in a forest of tombstones and spirits with no human being in sight and had been any for over 30 minutes or so... So I left the callings of my dead ones. You see I also noticed the ding ding on my dash telling me "Gas Gone!" Considering my gas gauge is broken and I use the trip set, and I was terribly alone in this dense forest of tombstones...I was so outta there. After filling my tank I decided to go back... I can only surmise they were still calling to me. I said to myself, if there happens to be more people around I would walk Section 16 and find my people. No one! Still desolate and even more so. A terrible feeling something was amiss came over me when suddenly I see a man walking toward me very quickly. Then running. Oh my God! This is what happened in my dream.....I was so terrified I couldn't get the car back in gear...and which gear? R for reverse or D for drive and which way out of the maze? Did he know which way and I didn't? I threw it in D and screamed the tires to the left...SECTION 17-4. No time to look at the map..where was I? I could see my attacker in the mirror but the mirrors are backwards to me...So which way, which way? Adrenalin was pumping so far out of control it swallowed all my senses... Now I saw him, red jacket, dark pants. He was jumping over grave stones to catch up to my lost in death travel. If I went left and it looped back right over the hill, I was his! If it didn't loop back I might make it out...the main road had to be in sight soon...soon I wailed. I took the leap of faith and went left only to see him leap onto my car from the right side and hang on inside the window frame. This was it! I would die in the midst of the dead. But what about my dog? I couldn't leave my dog behind in this ghastly ghostly place of horror. I felt a sudden surge of strength...controlled strength from some unknown vista. Mr....you screwed with the wrong lady! Possibly my dead ones showed up because I can't imagine getting my wits back about me alone...they were too far gone at that moment in time and terror...but back with me they were. I grabbed a very sharp dart that I keep in my console for just this reason...seriously! I hacked his fingers and then as he screamed in anger and slid down over my drivers window I hacked his eye right out....he fell to the ground and under my back tire. The body thud and bump is a sound I may never be able to be free from in life... I had done one thing right and that was turn left which led to the main road. ...no one was in the Cemetery Office so there was no one to tell about the several markers I had overthrown with my Buick.... or the man laying around or about Section 4, Lot 8 with I presume...one eye hanging from its socket and a broken leg, possibly more. I pulled over into a BP Station and called 911... Cemeteries should have watchmen and camera's...especially when there are acres and acres for transients and or preditors to hide. But this time the ghosts of Forest Hill won out! So I thought. When the authorities arrived we went back to the scene of the incident as I could recall it. There was no body. No blood... No broken tombstones... But there was one eyeball laying near the exit of Section whichever where I left the body. Told ya I said.... Now I have to go back and get the photos for Cousin Bob! When do you think that might happen? In your dreams? Yes that is exactly where many things happen to The Happy News Lady.
