Norman A. Rubin

Well, my friends, read in some news rag that we are having a spot of trouble in the far eastern countries; they are sending many ships, soldiers and guns in order to have a bit of peace. Now that isn't right. No siree! Real waste of money! Now, I'm a going to spell out a story how the Lord's good critters took the problem of having a bit of understanding between them. Now, I swear that what I goin' t'say ye can believe or not." Old Jesse hawked and his aim was true in the center of the spittoon.

Ancient sculptures, statuettes and figurines of wide-ranging artistic interpretations of the human form were a way in which man translates the revelation of his many gods. These representations, modeled in clay, bronze, bone, and stone, from the beginning of time, were man's conception of man-gods or humans endowed with divine or supernatural .power

"Once upon a time there was a blacksmith and a demon," uttered my venerable grandmother Alica in the slang of her speech as she told of the coming bedtime story to her adopted children, a pretty girl of six years and I a freckled faced boy of eight. The stories she told at our bedtime were not meant to be scary, but of the brilliant lore of her birthplace that contained a message. Off course they were rather unusual stories to be told to wee ones before the closing of the eyes but we enjoyed li

"Now I'm going to spell this h'yar hair-raising tale; it tells of a past event in my life with a mean and hungry grizzly bear. It was down-right fearful. And if there's any amongst you, who hadn't had the experience of being chased by such a critter, better listen carefully to the words. You could learn a bit from my affair with the beastie.

Many moons ago, during the reign of the great Emperor of the Eastern Peaks, lived Yotsu-ya, a cruel and tyrannical samurai warrior. Bushido, the way of the warrior, endowed his middling supple stature with sinewy muscles and knotted flesh. His features were hard and cruel, born out the code of his hereditary warrior class.

When sun sets down the Mountains of Kerry and follows the River Shanon to the mighty Atlantic, the Emerald Isle shines to the sparkle of the myriad of stars and the rays of the moon. Along the plains filled with peat bogs and heaths magic makes its appearance in the cool of the evening; sweet smelling grasses sway to and fro with the spirit of the faeries. Little people raise themselves from the mosses and lichens and go along their busy ways in gathering the gold for their crock.

A few years back beyond the beginning of the great depression my shrewd uncle decided to invest in real estate and it was a good thing too if! 'If' was the word that would be asked? 'If' the said property would not contain a haunting ghost in chains that scared the blue funk out of prospective clients interested in renting rooms.

Yet, through the air of superiority of the might of arms, there rumored a shocking report of a murderous act. The disclosure was revealed and gossiped in tongues. It spoke of an incident in the West County of death inflicted to its reigning Lord by the hand of one of the king's brave men at arms.

A legend had been told by wandering minstrels about the apparition of a screaming skull seen wafting in the mist at the dark of night above the shadows of the crags and hillocks of the Yorkshire moors. Fearsome as the screaming skull's terrible cry, its relentless horror persisted even when it was silent. The dome's apparition, grinning and hollowed eyed, had in the past years taken its grim toll from mortal beings it shared in death and in life.

This is a story about my grandmother Alica, a kind-hearted soul of the years past, who relived the literary greatness of her youth in the motherland through the telling of bedtime stories to her adopted grandchildren. The tale that was told was in the time when the grownups were children in their days.