THE CASE OF THE WEIRD FUNGUS

                                                          by Lucinda MacGregor

In 1966 I had a friend who lived in the French Quarter on Dauphine Street in New Orleans. The bad thing about it was that to get to it one had to walk down a long dark alley and up a tall flight of steep stairs on the outside of a big old house. The old French Quarter is plenty creepy in the dark. It was built back in the 18th century and the buildings look like they belong in Paris. They all look haunted and many have that reputation. It was a good thing he rented a small studio apartment because he did not like cleaning. I discovered this old wet mop sitting in the bathroom and it had a strange-looking thing, something like a ragged sponge, sitting on top of it. I approached it to get a better look. The weird thing seemed to be attached to the mop. I called out to my friend to come see what I discovered.

"It looks like some kind of fungus growing on the mop. I'll drag it outside and shake it off," he said.

I told him, "You had better soak it in that bucket with some of the cleaning stuff you have and then let it dry out."

The next night I went into the bathroom and the mop is sitting there and the weird thing growing on it is back! This time I told my friend to soak it again and leave it outside to try for a couple of days.

The mop was okay for a few days, but just when I thought I could forget about the mop the fungus was back again! I recommended my friend throw it away and buy a sponge mop which is much easier to keep clean and squeeze dry. So that was the end of the nasty old musty smelling fungus-ridden mop. Every time I remember that mop I still puzzle over how it could repeatedly grow a fungus as big as a cabbage! It was just plain weird!

I was relieved when my friend moved from that apartment several months later. Aside from the fact that I never liked climbing those steep stairs, the place was strange anyway. I always felt like I was being watched. 








                                                              WEREWOLF AT LARGE

                                                     by Lucinda MacGregor

In 1972 I lived on the second floor of a friend's bookshop on Royal Street in the old French Quarter of New Orleans. A couple of my friends came by to meet me one night. We planned to go to the Napoleon House for food and drink. It is a wonderful old building built sometime in the 18th century. Napoleon Bonaparte was to visit the place but he did not make it to New Orleans as planned. As we stepped outside, I noticed someone on a rooftop across the street. I could not believe what I was seeing! Someone made up to look like a werewolf! He was so convincing that when I yelled for us to run my friends did not lose any time in responding. We ran all the way to the Napoleon House several blocks away. We did not stop once but kept looking back to see if we were followed. When we reached our destination and met up with some other friends we told them what happened. None of us was sure about what to think. It could have been a hoax but it looked very real. We stayed many hours at the Napoleon House. We wanted to postpone returning for fear of what we might encounter. All of my friends walked back with me and went inside to check everything out before they departed for home. They did not encounter anything after they left. And I spent the night sitting up listening for noises and holding a gun.