friday, december 1, 1978
daily nebraskan
page 5
oped
Columist conquers horror movies but nightmares stay
By Pete Mason
I stayed up late Saturday night and
watched a horror movie. It was one of the
Christopher Lee - Peter Gushing jobs. I
watched the whole thing without once
closing my eyes, gritting my teeth or put
ting my hands over my ears.
"You've come a long way, buddy," I
said to myself when it was over. I patted
myself on the back, went to bed and had
one of the truly great nightmares of all
time. I guess I haven't come as far as I
thought I had.
My lack of progress in the area of fear
dismays me. The fact is I can trace the
problem back to its origin, to an evening
many summers ago when I was ten years
old.
When I was ten I was afraid of only two
things, spiders and my mother. I guess you
could say I was a relatively normal ten-year-old
boy. That was before 1 met Jumbo
Foster.
Ghost stories
Jumbo Foster was senioi counselor of
Cabin 3 at Mrs. Mulberry's Country Day
Camp. I had been sent there as punishment
for putting unpopped popcorn up the
exhaust pipe of my mother's Rambler. For
the first couple of days I thought it was
about the best punishment I had ever re
ceived. I was considering short-sheeting
Mom the following summer so I could get
sent there again. That was before Jumbo
Foster started telling ghost stories.
humor
It probably wouldn't have been so bad
if Jumbo had started with the mild little
tales like ghost ships sailing into Casco Bay
or the ghost of a pirate who guards Cap
tain Kidd's buried treasure on Basket
Island. But, oh no, Jumbo had to start with
one of the biggies. Spontaneous human
combustion.
Stay near water
"Now, this is a true story, boys. There
was this lady in Freeport a few years ago
and she was just sitting at the dinner table
with her family one night and-voom!-she
just burst into flames. There are many
documented cases of this kind of thing.
Scientists are at a loss to explain what
causes this horrible kind of death. They
call it spontaneous human combustion."
That did it. As luck would have it I'd
letters
Continued from page 4
The V.F.SA. was established as a
mechanism to fund political and ideologi
cal speakers. The account, therefore, will
continue to exist after the Ellsberg lecture
to provide money for those programs in
eligible for student fee support. No polit
ical position or ideology is endorsed by the
V.F.S.A., nor are the contributing groups
asked to support an individual speaker.
Rather, those groups contributing have
done so with a few exceptions in support
of an open forum, not a particular speaker.
The All University Fund, Residents Hall
Association, and Innocents Society
contributed to the account with the under
standing that they were not endorsing an
dividual speaker. A statement explaining
their position appears on the publicity.
The Faculty Convocations Committee does
not usually sponsor programs, but rather, is
petitioned by academic departments for
funds to be used by the departments. In
the case of Ellsberg's lecture, the petition
ers and therefore sponsors of the event are
the Departments of Political Science and
History.
The need for the V.F.S.A. as a source of
funding for the Talks and Topics Commit
tee in light of the Regent's position on
speakers should be apparent. It is the hope
of the Talks and Topics committee that
groups continue to recognize the impor
tance of the account in the effort to
provide students with an open exchange of
ideas so important in a university.
J.B. Milliken
Chairperson
Talks and Topics Committee
Inaccuracies corrected
In the week and one-half that elapsed
between the time that my letter was sub
mitted and printed, I discovered that there
are two inaccuracies: one my error, the
other a printing error.
I spoke with a member of Kappa Sigma
the day after the bonfire and was informed
that the piano was stolen. This is not true
the gentleman I spoke with was mistaken.
Calling the house to verify my statement, I
was informed that a "couple of guys
carried it out", presumably Kappa Sigma
members. My statement accused no
specific individual or house.
The other inaccuracy was that a Centen
nial sign was burned, not a Seaton Hall
sign.
The other facts are true and may be
verified with the various and sundry law
officials connected with the incidents, as
well as the residents of Piper Hall.
My point still is that the Daily Ne
braskan should be reporting and inter
viewing on a wider basis than one view
from each side of the incident. Such re
porting leads to a baised outlook in the ar
ticles based on that reporting. I am not
"gung-ho" in favor of the police depart
ment, nor am 1 totally anti-Greek. I would
just like to read a non-biased article in the
Daily Nebraskan.
My sincerest apologies to those individ
uals or houses that I have offended; it was
not my intent to do so.
Jeanne Clark
Integrated Studies
Sophomore
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eaten too many helpings of pork and beans
that evening and I had a terrific case of
heartburn. Also as luck would have it, it
was raining. I stationed myself in the cot
next to the door that night so in case the
burning got too bad I could leap out and
dive into the nearest puddle. For months
afterwards I made it a point never to
wander too far from water.
Things unholy
That was the beginning. Occasionally,
right into my late teen years, other
incidents occured which reinforced my un
natural fears of all things unholy.
One night, when I was 13, I returned
home from a horror triple feature (I was a
masochist then too) to be greeted with a
note tacked on the back door informing
me that the family was visiting relatives
and wouldn't be back until very late.
I turned on every light in the house and
sat in the living room reading comic books.
I was doing my best to forget the unspeak
able terrors I had viewed on the silver
screen that day when outside it began to
thunder and lightning. Then the lights
went out.
Dark night
It's bad enough to be 13 years old, sit
ting in the dark in the middle of an empty
house, during a thunderstorm, after having
watched the Creature from the Black La
goon tear the arms off 25 people, the Blob
eat 400 people, and the Thing suck the
brains out of 1 ,000 people. It's even worse
to be in the aforementioned situation and
have the toilet flush-all by itself! It took
my family two hours to talk me out from
behind the couch.
Then there was the Tingler incident. I
went to a late show with my friend Bobby.
The movie was called The Tingler. It was
about a scientist who discovers that when a
person is really Tightened and is unable to
release his or her fear by screaming, a dis
gusting, lobster-like animal grows on the
spinal chord. The scientist called it a tingler.
The tingler
Well, to make a long story short, the
filthy thing escaped and crawled around
killing people left and right. When the
movie was over they opened a concession
booth and sold tingler buttons, little plastic
things that glowed in the dark and were
supposed to keep tinglers away. They were
doing a brisk business. I bought four of
them at a buck a shot. I went home and
put them in conspicuous places all over my
bedroom. Then I sat huddled in my blan
kets all night watching them glow. At 4:30
a.m. Bobby tapped on my bedroom
window. I'd forgotten we were going to go
fishing. He had to pry me off the ceiling
with a crowbar.
Well, I've gotten a little better since
those days. At least I can sleep now. If I
could just stop the nightmares. It scares
my wife to death when I leap up at three in
the morning and yell, "Damn you, Jumbo
Foster!"
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