The Writer's Pen

When I was a young, single man, I didn’t believe in superstition.

I looked for black cats and purposely waited for them to cross my path. I walked under every leaning ladder I saw and then, just for the heck of it, I walked back under them again. I broke several mirrors. I didn’t really experience any bad luck from doing it, that is, if you don’t count the butt chewing I received for being so clumsy and careless.

I always figured that if the 13th fell on a Friday, all it meant was that the weekend was near. I’ve seldom used an umbrella, but I almost always opened it inside before going out into the rain. I don’t remember anything bad happening from that. Furthermore, if somebody died every time I’ve heard a dog howl at night, let’s just say there wouldn’t be many people still alive in my hometown.

As a Boy Scout leader, I saw numerous shooting stars while gazing at the night sky on campouts. I never bothered to make a wish because I remembered making a lot of wishes as a child after blowing out all of the candles on my birthday cake. None of them ever came true.

Admittedly, I have always subscribed to “knocking on wood” after a positive statement to avoid having things go bad. I’ve also crossed my fingers for luck in the past, but I can’t remember it doing much good. Now my fingers are a bit arthritic and it doesn’t seem worth the effort. Fighting over the biggest half of the wishbone at Thanksgiving and Christmas was malarkey, too. No matter how many times I won, my wish never came true.

I remember carrying a rabbit’s foot off one that I had shot and butchered in my pocket when I was a kid, waiting for it to bring me good luck. All I got was a scolding from my mother because it smelled so bad. After that, I always wondered if Mom had found out that I wasn’t a big believer in avoiding cracks “because you’ll break your mother’s back.”

Another one that got me in trouble was accidentally tipping the saltshaker over. It wasn’t the spilling of the salt that got me in trouble; it was throwing a handful of it over my left shoulder in the face of the devil to keep me from having bad luck that I got in trouble. My mother was not amused!

As I said in the beginning, I didn’t really believe in superstitions when I was single. But after I married, my wife had a few superstitions that I wonder about. She has found several four-leaf clovers, which is supposed to be good luck. If she spots a penny on the ground, she picks it up. That is supposed to be good luck too, unless of course, the penny is “heads down.” She also looks at the clock at exactly 11:11, which is supposed to make her wish come true. All I can say that if that’s working, she’s not wishing for the right stuff.

But one superstition that she has, I will never question again. She has always told me that it is bad luck if you put a shirt on backwards and then switch it around to be right. Well, the other day I slipped my T-shirt on backwards, turned it around the right way and continued to wear it. Things kind of went sideways. I picked the garbage bag, which was full, out of the garbage can in the kitchen and carried it over to the door. Unbeknownst to me there was a hole in it and there was something “juicy” inside that leaked a trail all the way to the door. As I was cleaning that up, I discovered that it had leaked all over the bottom the garbage can, soaking the three new bags we keep in the bottom to make it “more convenient” to change the bag. While cleaning this stuff up, my toast burned, my eggs got hard and there was no soft butter!

I took that shirt off, threw it in the dirty clothes and put on a nice clean shirt. Believe it or not, things got much better as the day went on. I’ll never chance that particular fate again.

Roger Stoner and his wife published the Peterson Patriot newspaper for more than 15 years. Since selling the newspaper in 2004 three of his books have been published. They are available on Amazon and at libraries throughout the area.