Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything … 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs … damned humans.
And another revisit of something for the season this last week of Halloween.
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February 21, 2025
Earlier in the week I came across someone new to me through Sadje, a friend at dVerse Poets.
She is GirlieOnTheEdge and offers prompts for Six Sentence Stories, an idea I liked, like some of the 144 word Flash Fiction prompts you can find at dVerse, though with six sentences allowed that gives me a bit more room. I also knew I liked Girlie from the get go as this particular prompt mentioned “The Alarm” as part of her inspiration, an old fave band reminded from my undergrad and then graduate school days (in the current season and for other reasons I suddenly longed for “Rain in the Summertime”).
The Prompt?
PROMPT WORD: WIND
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The Wind and the “Epistle”
Coming up from below deck after a lengthy search, top to bottom, of what appeared an abandoned fourth-rate named “Epistle”, Martins declared across bows to his Captain that she was indeed abandoned though he marveled that he had never seen anything quite like this ornate fitted construction, with nary a nail, nor some of the letters he had found in the captain’s empty quarters.
Captain Richard, with a curious though determined look, turned and directed the crew of “The Resolution” to board and see what could possibly be salvaged, if anything, just as Martins heard a voice from behind him saying “but I am here” though, on a turn’s look inspection, he saw not a soul.
Just then a sudden unexpected and fierce wind picked up and roiled what had, only moments before, been serene, placid seas below blue white speckled skies but those skies came to a sudden dark clouded anger, the sails filled flush, puffed out like the deep breath chest of an unnaturally sized, large winged vengeful bird to rival those of ancient sea beasts beneath the waves that seemed to stir with this wind’s dark cries of anguish and fear telling of stories warned.
Lightning crashed and stung about the tops of the sail masts, torrential rains drowned cries and pleadings of God, water beast tails as large as their own ship’s sails rose from above the waves only to dive out of fear, the heavens blackened loud and bellowed louder.
Captain Richard lost footing on deck, fearing his grip, slipping confused and disoriented, as did his crew, but, regaining his balance for a moment he turned to warn Martins to return only to find that he and the “Epistle” were no longer there and that the seas and skies, only seconds earlier filled with a storm’s rage, such as he had never witnessed in all his years at sea, came to a sudden calm again almost as if they hadn’t been changed at all, as if they hadn’t ever been anything other than what they were before in their calm, with skies returned to the blue of white floating speckles, as if in a languid painting, the sea flat again, but Richard swore, to his end of days spent in the throes of madness, that he saw the waters of the ocean drop off the edge of the world in the distance, off of a flat earth, and the Epistle be carried off into the heavens inside the belly of a great glowing flying sea beast and just as he heard Martins, faintly, in the wind implore “but I am here”.
Standing in uneasy stunned silence Richard took measure … before then realizing that they should turn back, quickly, pointing “The Resolution” towards home but also before the knowing of the court martial and subsequent murder trial he would face of a missing crewman, Ross Ignatius P Martins, upon his return.
Thought I’d spend this final week of the Halloween season revisiting some things of mine that seem to fit the mood.
When I first moved here to Schenectady, New York, a year ago August, moved in with my Sis and Nephews and some bonus cats, I was still doing a commute a couple of days a week down to the office in Beacon from up here until I could get to the point of being good with doing all my Beacon work remotely from Latham (2 plus hours on that drive by the way, so eventually getting to NOT needing to physically be in the Beacon office was huge and couldn’t come fast enough).
But there was this spot that I passed in my to an fro’s on this ride, along the NY State Thruway, what was once, surely, a vibrant, busy truck stop. It sat/sits vacant, boarded, graffitied, among all the other alive places I passed where you could grab some gas, a bit of shut-eye or maybe a bite to eat like you could here, just at another time.
A dead spot.
.
(August 17, 2024)
Exit 21B
It was raining dogs and devils
a night as thick as pitch
and thieves
of the day
but there was light …
Exit 21B
a promise of respite from the drive
that took so long to not quite survive
just yet
our destination
.
it shone, shimmered, sparkled,
harkened
Exit 21B
brighting our way
with promise
“Oh, that’s a place we could stay”
on this dark and stormy cliché
.
Truckers drank coffees
of known measure
two lumps or cream or straight
at a counter
ogling Mary’s offer’s weight
to refill a cup before return
to their trucks
dreaming in back bed sleep cabs
of another mug
.
We shook off the rain
just a wet stain
at our feet
in stilling puddles
.
“Do you have a room,
to escape soon now this horrid swoon
of weather?”
.
“Of course, just sign here Sir, Madame”
.
There were tables of chance
to win without even a glance
it was
easy
night was day
peasy
.
There were family and friends left to the wayside
justified
besides who are they
really
anyway?
.
We sang in bright neon lights
our day’s night might
wonder how we could have been so lucky to have lost our way
“You can take the themes of harvest or haunted literally or use them metaphorically in any way you wish. Harvest grain, organs, fish, or emotions; imagine the grim reaper with a scythe. Write about something that haunts you, regret, a long-ago love, thoughts of someone who has died, or actual ghosts. Explore a haunted harvest”.
You may also use the painting above “The Harvest Moon” by Samuel Palmer as inspiration.
Took a little bit of both of these ideas …
.
Third Eye Harvest Moon
He woke in a long field itching
of tall blades and short hungry bugs
chilled but not cold wondering of from where that single pocked light
hung high
had fell
.
“From my third eye” said a voice
.
he sudden colding and chilled now
as there was no from where for a lone voice to fall
no trees above nor craggy hills distance
far called with walls
to call back
friend or foe
score or none
to settle
or even from rock tall
smoke black
altars he may have been layed upon
in the stark
back
then
.
You are man are you not?
I am?
Yes, you are
Then from why where do you ask?
To see if you knew
But I just woke, food for bugs in tall grass in almost dark task
save for one light
high hung
just
right
.
Will you rise and pay threshed tithes
under my third eye
Why?
It is that time of harvest, of tall grasses wrapped with long blades twined
tribute
in the richness of grains
… and the harvest of souls
.
From why where must you have mine after such riches?
.
Because you are the first and quench a stronger thirst
Earlier this week I posted “Headstone” a fantastic video short voiced and built by a good friend and co-worker based on a flash fiction piece of mine, something for this spooky season, one that involves a graveyard’s groundskeeper coming across Death weeping at a long forgotten gravestone.
Well, that is not the only story I’ve written that imagines Death in one way or another (I’ve got a couple of tunes in that regard as well) so in continuing to keep with the season then, I thought to revisit this one from three years ago’ ””””p777777777777777777777777 (sorry, that’s Cricket the Cat Poet wanting to join in here with her own thoughts, again, and strangely, with this talk of Mr. Death, she has opted for a bunch of 7’s, interesting) but I wanted to revisit this one, one decidedly lighter than “Headstone”, from those three years ago, Spring of that year actually, not Halloween time where, on my ride home from work one night, I passed the Angel of Death standing in the middle of Route 9 in Poughkeepsie (some dude dressed as the Grim Reaper holding an hourglass).
But was he really just some guy in a costume?
Now, this one is one of my most viewed posts, period, over many year’s time spent here in the Attic, couldn’t tell ya why, though I am not complaining and credit to my discerning readers (yes, shameless flattery trying to get me everywhere with you all) as it just a pretty good post and a real favorite of mine.
Then a few months after the initial post I decided to do an audio version of it and play it up a bit. I know a number of you have already read and/or heard this, but, well, I just don’t wanna miss this time’s window to get it out there again for the others.
Here’s to the season my friends, my favorite time of the year.
Angel of Death: End Of Days, Route 9, Poughkeepsie???
(and a guy dressed as the Grim Reaper holding an hourglass in the middle of route 9 led to this …)
So I saw the Angel of Death tonight … on Route 9 in Poughkeepsie standing on the median between the North and South triple lanes, at a traffic light, near a T.G.I. Friday’s and a Mattress Firm and across from a new specialty soap shop, a new Sleep Number Bed place and a convenience store, among a number of other spots.
Tall guy dressed as you might expect of an Angel of Death/Grim Reaper type. Long black robe, oversized hood and he was pointing at things, menacingly, possibly specialty soaps and he seemed like he might even have been yelling though I couldn’t really hear as I passed him amid that damned rock n roll I was playing too loudly on a nice sunny almost Spring evening, finally, one you surely wouldn’t expect the end of days to arrive on, at least you’d hope not, though I’m afraid my Mom might feel vindicated now all these years later of her worries of, when I was younger, while I was playing that damned rock and roll too loudly back then as well and cutting up perfectly good heavy metal band concert T-shirts to have her sew them on the back of denim jackets, that some might think the end of days would sneak up on me because I wouldn’t hear it/them coming.
The only thing out of the ordinary for this particular Angel of Death though was that he was carrying an hourglass. Not that Angels of Death don’t sometimes carry hourglasses, they do, I’ve seen artist renderings, some pretty cool artist renderings as a matter of fact, but this was in lieu of the tall, sharp, pointy, violent looking scythe’s we’ve more come to expect in a clichéd Angel of Death kinda way which, truth be told, is probably for the best in this day and age that that wasn’t what he was carrying.
Tall, sharp, pointy violent looking clichéd scythe’s? Yeah, that’ll getcha noticed, and not in a good way, and possibly even get ya tased or worse. Hourglass? Much less threatening.
I did though think, if I could have, that I would have politely pointed out that this hourglass of his was a little small, not really of a size befitting his stature or one to really get him noticed in the middle of a busy roadway here in Poughkeepsie, and right at the height of an evening rush hour with people being lost in thoughts of get homes and dinners and dog walkings and sweatpants and checkings in on that show that you’re pretty sure your better half cheated on and watched the next episode of without you, again, and conversations/angers left open ended the night before.
I would have pointed out that he needed something a bit more dramatic, more theatrical, something oversized to really catch that thought lost eye. The hourglass he had was, well, a little on the Spinal Tappy Stonehenge side but with him being the Angel of Death an all, I would have been as deferential and as delicate as I could with this observation (plus, he most probably still had that clichéd scythe somewhere in reserve – and that shit looks like it would hurt … a lot, like in a death kind of way).
Now was there any reason, I thought, any significance to this specific spot of his as I drove past? I don’t know. Was this where the thunders and the lightnings, the great fires or floods, or great fires followed by floods to drown out great fires making people tread water in floaties the only thing they had on hand, damn the children, the pestilences and rivers of blood were newly ordained to happen, or was he just waiting on a pick up order from that T.G.I. Friday’s and doing what Angels of Death do to pass the time, what little time may be left?
Had he been maybe having some trouble sleeping recently (certainly possible as carrying the weight of his message has gotta be a heavy sleepless nights kinda burden) thus reason to be in between a Mattress Firm and a Sleep Number Bed store or was he really pointing menacingly at specialty soaps, a could be 21st century haven of witchcraft with all the witch-like curatives some of the soaps and maybe oils and creams inside can surely promise … plus Hell, you know there’s gotta be a crystal or two hanging in there somewhere right? Or maybe he was just waiting to cross the highway way to get to the convenience store for a pack of smokes thinking to his Death self, well, if I’m bringing word of the end of the world to the peoples, I might as well smoke up while I can.
I don’t know. Whatever the reason was for that location or whatever the reason wasn’t, all I really thought on my way home after passing this Angel of Death fella with his too small hourglass (you just need a big black sports hearse car to compensate my not friend) was “listen, if this is it tonight big guy, if this is the end of days, after you’ve possibly picked up your order at T.G.I. Friday’s could you …
“Hi, can I help you sir?”
“I’m here for a pick-up”
“Your name?”
“Angel”
“Angel? Hold on … hmmm, hmmm, hold on a sec, I’m sorry I’m not seeing that here for our pick-up orders right now”
“You sure … nothing under the name Angel? With an A?”
“I can spell Angel sir, thank you, and sorry, but no … could you have ordered under a different name?”
“Oh wait, you know what, I may have. Do you have one under the name Death?”
“Death … Death … Death … sorry busy night … hold on … oh, here we go … Death … burger, blood rare, locusts, frogs, extra cheese, fries and the apple cobbler dessert special?”
“Yep, that’s me. Sorry, I don’t usually use my last name, way too formal and can be a little off-putting”
“No worries Sir. Let me get that for you, Oh, and by the way? Cool hood”
“Oh, well thank you so very much”
“I would say though, if you don’t mind a little constructive criticism, that you get a slightly larger hourglass”
… and could you, after you’ve put a deposit down on a new bed …
“You’ll be so happy you chose our little slice of sleep heaven … (stop short silent stare) … sorry, my bad … probably not the best of selling points for you I’m thinking now … you’ll be so happy you chose our bed Mr. Death instead of something that feels like a bed of nails like from those sleep hacks across the street …”
“They have something that feels like a bed of nails?”
“What?”
“Bed of nails, those sleep hacks across the street have something that feels like a bed of nails?”
“Ummm, well yeah, that’s what we say … Ok, but hold on, I got ya. If you’d like, Jimmy, one of our delivery drivers, works at a small local hardware store and I’m sure we could throw in a bag of nails, support small business right, that you can toss on the bed, like scattering rose petals for you and the Missus …”
“There’s no Missus … I’m Death. It would make holiday family get togethers very uncomfortable.”
“Ok, well, bag of nails just for you it is then”
… and then after checking in on potential modern day witches …
“Do you have a soap or some oils that can just ease some tension, possibly transport me away to a better place? I think I’ve seen a commercial like that … a place like … HELL!”
“ummmm, Ok then, well?”
“Gotcha! I saw ya glancing over at that crystal … witch”…
… and after you’ve a grabbed a smoke outside the Exxon while you’re getting yelled at for your loitering could you at least let me feed the cats and have my dinner and maybe clean a litter box or two? I would SO hate to have to face the end of days, you know, the rapture or something, even if you all do the rapture, I’m not sure, or some sort of reckoning, with messy litter boxes and on an empty stomach.
“Will do”
Thanks.
Alright Bella, alright Ms Cricket … Last Fancy Feast “Savory Centers”
Eat up quickly girls, I don’t know what kind of deadline he might be facin’.
Was talking a little while ago with good friend and co-worker, Steve, about this current spooky season, a one still more “on the way” then when we spoke and he mentioned that he wanted to build something for it, a dramatic piece of some sort, a video short, with a haunting story as well as some music, effects, images and, of course, said story that he could voice and make a cool production of.
Besides doing what we do for our jobs, radio production, he is also a working voice actor and wanted to be creative with something as he had put together such productions in the past, plus, he also wanted to add another something to his body of voice work +.
Now when it came to a possible story I noted that he had liked some things of mine that I had sent his way in the past, plus some others I had and that a number were short, quick and might just fit into what he was looking to do.
So, I re-sent the few previously seen things and also some he hadn’t and he eventually told me that he liked a flash fiction piece I had done a year or so ago courtesy of a prompt from a writing community’s website that I frequent and collaborate at quite often, dVerse Poets, everything from poetry to fictions of one sort or another, a place that I will forever be grateful that I found and even more grateful that I was welcomed with open arms when I did join in even though, in some regards, I felt like I was sort of starting from scratch, especially with poetry.
Anyway, the flash fiction piece he liked was one I called “Headstone” and was a short story of a graveyard’s groundskeeper coming across Death kneeling at a “lost” headstone that the dVerse Poets flash fiction prompt asked to include a line from Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Sleeper”
I pray to God that she may lie Forever with unopened eye.
So a number of nights ago I noticed, as I sat at my desk workin’ stuff in my basement Attic, that I had some company scurrying next to my lamp and possibly sizing up whether he could lift and then beat me to death with it.
Now, possible ill intentions aside, I left him to whatever those intentions were, ill or otherwise and then, well, I forgot about him and them there possible intentions. And, after a few nights of making sure to sleep with my mouth closed, I forgot about him even more until he practically ceased to exist, like, sadly, a lot of things in the world these days.
That was almost two weeks ago.
Then tonight, as I was straightening up Bella and Cricket’s room, the one they let me share, while I did a load of laundry (because it’s a FRANKEN-PAR-TAY FRIDAY!!) I went to grab the garbage out of the small can I have next to my desk.
I opened the lid (with my foot on a lever at the bottom of it … I know, cool huh? – simple mechanical shit is still like magic) and on top of a paper towel napkin in said garbage?
“Dude!? Jesus!!”
Seems Mr Spidey Pants is still with me, just hiding on used paper towel napkins at the top of my garbage.
One: I don’t want to know how he got in there and if he was strong enough to open the lid on his own OR worse, strong AND smart enough to ACTUALLY step on the still cool ass lever first and then be fast enough to scurry to the top of the can and jump in. Well, he may, indeed, be strong enough to wield my lamp like a blunt instrument but now he’s added speed and smarts which becomes an additional, worrisome issue entirely.
Two: Is he somehow surveilling me and is part of the surveillance to go through my trash? And if so, who does he work for?
Three: What’s been on his mind lately, possibly something troubling him as he obviously has been letting himself go. “Seriously Man, your legs could use a bit of a shave” and could any of these troubles boil over to the point where my lamp becomes the murder weapon discovered in the early parts of a police procedural?
Four: There isn’t a four, three was plenty enough and well … whatever. I just know the many legged fella is “back” AND back from wherever he has been hiding, which is something I am definitely not going to think about, his possible lair, though we all do need some place to rest while devising dastardly plans I guess, but I will now be sleeping with my mouth closed again, at least for a few extra nights.
Note: I did make my Sister aware of Mr Spidey Pants just in case, ya know, in case his “lair” is somewhere above the stairs here and her cats have been as lax as mine in their supposed years told spidey-hunt catness … unless there is something even more dire at paw.
Note Twice: I have a friend who lives in Australia, the famed land of bugs and critters that all start, nominally, at the size of small dog and can carry away children to raise them as their own and take advantage of their opposable thumbs and that all could kill you, not with some possible super bug strength and a heavy lamp but with a mere glance who might read this and just say “Pshawwww! That ain’t no spider! Hell brother, our spiders all have leashes and are taken for walks.”
As I was working on the beginnings of this with an eventual thought coming to mind of current everyday nightmarish “Boo’s”, Cricket, my cat, who you have met here in the Attic before(one of my two, along with Bella, though obviously Cricket the more creative one) thought to get up out of my lap and involve herself in the writing process again with her own stepped thoughts which really are as they look in the first half of this.
All I did was finish it up for her (I think she may have even been offering to help cleanse this a bit with the 8’s after reading a little on the possible significance of 8’s ) and it is still 44 “words”.
Then I got to mine.
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Cricket the Cat poet
Stepping in tongues and Boo Moons
“Boo////////////////////////////////////////////////////8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8’” said the season
Well, with it being that time of year for these types of stories I thought to revisit a short bit from last year, one I have posted before in a couple of spots and one that started with a dVerse Poets “prosery” prompt from June of 2024 and also to liberally revise the second part to it that, truthfully, I had forgotten I had written …
A very short piece of poetry or flash fiction that tells a story, just one with a limit of 144 words, but, somewhere within your story, includes a line from a poem
Here?
From Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Sleeper”
I pray to God that she may lie Forever with unopened eye
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Headstone
In a graveyard nearing dusk the groundskeeper came upon Death, leaning heavily upon his knot gnarl anguish handled scythe as he knelt at an almost hidden, fallen stone, shunned, just outside the cemetery, alone, at the edge of a large forest. He wept quietly.
“Are you alright old man?”
Death was startled
“What?!” as he tried to stand
“No need. Pay your respects”
“Why don’t you shudder, cold, at the sight of me, cringe, run to escape who I am, maybe to you?”
“I know death. I have been here as long as you have searched … for your mother right? How did you know?”
“I had this inscribed in her stone, I pray to God that she may lie forever with unopened eye hoping she would never see my shame and what I had become and wrought”
The groundskeeper said “Let’s walk my friend” …
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Then I thought to continue the story …
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October 19, 2024 (revised) October 3, 2025
The Walk
The groundskeeper walked his headstone common with Death alongside.
“I knew her, I was there, she begged me not to, not just yet
I knew him too, he was an ass, he was having an affair and was found out with a jealous bullet … I assisted the trigger
This one wanted to experience the sadness of flying, I gave her a bit of a nudge while the crowd scattered below
He here? He was a case of life unexpectedly cut short … on a Tuesday I think, an unusually busy Tuesday if I remember too
Pointing “That one over there was an unfortunate result of small minds but …
This one was a way back where they marked doors and wore masks… some of those scared even me, I really had my bones full then
And whole sections in the distance there the result of religious fervor …”
“STOP!” as the groundskeeper came to a halt looking directly at and through Death with a chill
“What?” Death paused, shrunk a little, actually, finally frightened
“We’re just walking here, so stop.”
“But? …”
“You know all of them, of course, I, we all are well aware of that. Jobs are jobs. You have yours, though your glibness is wearing me very thin, and you don’t want that, you REALLY do not want that, but I have mine … look to the distance, the Lily fields that surround us here? This is my keep and all that lay in it away from you, at last, but also for all those who come now or have in the past, their memories just wisps scattered to the Lilies, to pay respects or seek absolution, to mourn or even rejoice in some cases, to just be seen or wish to only blend into and under the grass as well or to apologize for being late for someone’s birthday.
To come here, for most of them, is just to sit and wonder and talk to the wind as if their words can be carried, wisped away to other places by it to be heard somewhere in it
That is Angie, talking to her dad
Those are flowers left by Peter who feels better now even though he was an awful son and knows he hastened his father’s death
That is Bart, off to the left, who comes here only because he feels if he doesn’t he will lose whatever semblance of sanity he has left
That’s Michelle, after years away, who feels that wiping off the dust and grime and dirt of time will somehow make everything alright
Then there is Thomas, who I truly feel for, his loss that just destroyed him as that headstone is the last, only, thing he has left in whatever it was that tied him in this, his world. She was, under that stone, the only person that kept him safe in his differences.
Know that your job has consequences”
“But what are we to do?”
“Nothing, we can do nothing, but we can have a little respect. I take comfort in some genuine words spoke at knelt stone, when there are some, when loss is so profound that it brings a tear to even this old groundskeeper’s eye”
“This is what you do?”
“It is, but I don’t fault you for doing what YOU do. Now stand …”
“But I don’t even remember having knelt”
“… use that scythe for balance and stand up from your creaky knees and bony fingers and let’s go over to that corner and to Maribel”
“Maribel? Who … Maribel … is she?”
“No, leave her be, she has time, still has a daughter to come, but she sings, she even extols YOUR virtues”
“Me? MY virtues?”
“She sings of what is done and understands, as do I, though in a lesser chord, as I am no singer, and in such a glorious voice”
“Her loss?”
“It is of no matter, she just comes here, twice a week, sometimes more, to sing of all our losses, just sings along with the trees and the breezes and wisps of what was once of seas and suns and moons that drown and pass and of short lived birds sung in pretty flights above us all through the stones underneath her feet that look out over the hills at this place, all of these places, that are as one as they always have been, are here as intended to be stretching to the Lily’s”
“Oh my, is that heaven?’
“Could be, I don’t know, not sure”
“You said she still has a daughter to come?” Death remarked with a glint.
“STOP!! Were tears for your Mother back there even real?
“Moment of weakness I guess”
“ENOUGH!! You know, my expanse can include you, death can die, if I will it and then cover it in grass and Lily fields in the all encompassing distance, but for you? the Lily’s will wilt. There will be another to fill your shoes, if need be, it just won’t be you, gone at your own bones arrogance”.
Note: revisiting this one from last year, my first Fall here in my role as the Brother Uncle Troll under the stairs, one who doesn’t eat cats by the way (sorry, I know that’s kind of random) as some tails might go, but looks to them, instead, as friends and for emotional support and as somefur’s to defer to and claim to be talking with so as not to completely appear like just someone slowly becoming a batshitting nutter talking to the wind or chemtrails or RFK Jr or ghosts or Nelson (one of the extra folks in his head) … again.
Oh, Nelson? He’s quite nice in case you were curious.
Bella: (stretching) Hey dude. Did you say something?
Me: Just go along with it Bell, for appearances sake, Ok?
Bella: Sure, whatever. I’ve always been a bit iffy on this Neslon fella by the way, just to let you know..
My first Fall it was then, with my Sis and Nephew(s) and extra cats (see? I wasn’t going totally nowhere with that) and because, now, truthfully, I’ve just really been looking forward to calendars turning and to re-posting it for some fun as it’s one of my favorite posts. It is, though, a bit long so if do you take the time (much appreciated) I recommend a stand up and stretch in the middle and a stroll to the concession stand and maybe a pillow behind your back for when you sit back down.
It’s that time of year where we see our name displayed in all its sugary, questionably healthy, comically scary strawberry Frankenstein Monster goodness, any number of “essential” vitamins just an added bonus (See?! I told you Ma! essential freakin’ vitamins!! It IS good for us!!) on grocery store shelves and make sure to text each other pictures of our first sighting.
From Beck this past Friday “‘Tis the season!” and even with a new Jim Henson Muppet character design, well how ’bout’s that!?, though we need to find a store manager to discuss shelving priorities. On the bottom?! Really?!And Boo on top? Love him like a brother but there has never been a day where I didn’t have to open some windows and air out the smoke with this guy.
Anyway, from last year, one that also includes a post from a couple of years ago within it about the newest member of the Frankenfamily then, Carmella Creeper, Caramel Apple, nice change of pace and so much better looking than the rest of us, well in an undead, sweet Caramel Apple but eat your brain zombie-like kinda way.
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October 20th, 2024
When I got home earlier last week I said to my Sis (Beck) and Nephew Matt “So, how do you know when it’s October?” Pretty simple, the pumpkins adorning front steps, the Halloween decorations filling up lawns, sometimes to the extreme (oversaturation people!! Fun, but oversaturation!! And inflatable evil doesn’t really come across) football season already more than a quarter way through, the cool crisp nip to the air and the proliferation of hoodies and sweaters and the nagging sense of dread at the back of your head and taste buds of pumpkin spice (Pumpkin Spice is people!!!)”
I know, I said that last year, and probably the year or years before that too just because it’s funny (Ok, even if only I think so) but still, I didn’t yell that part all madly Charlton Heston-like as not to frighten the children so we’re good, but then I asked “How do you know when it’s October in this family though? When you see this particular display in the grocery store” … and I then showed the both of them the picture on my phone from my trip to Market Bistro (my new favorite grocery store by the way and I absolutely LOVE a good grocery store as any any old man should) in Latham earlier to grab something for my lunch (and no, I wasn’t grabbing Halloween time perfect cereal, Mom would not approve of such a meal, not now anyway) to which Beck said “Hell yeah!!!”
Though Beck immediately noted the lack of Fruit Brute or Yummy Mummy in the display … then it was a quick lesson of family history for Matt who had also chimed in with his Mom’s “Hell Yeah!!” but didn’t really know why.
“Yah see Matt … why don’t you sit down son. Way back in ’71, the Monster Family of cereals was born into a cereal age where sugar coated treats could be sold as a healthy breakfast option replete with whole grain and a varying number of essential vitamins and minerals and calcium (add milk) but also a laundry list of other ingredients you couldn’t pronounce that would cause pause years later according to science and could probably explain some things, but claimed with cartoon character spokestoons for legitimacy in a kid’s world and Frankenberry, Count Cholula and Boo-Berry were welcomed into the greater family fold of these cartoony sweet characters with hyperactive kids Mom sleeve tugging in the grocery store to buy “Please, Please, Please!”, Ok’d by Moms only because of the “essential vitamins and minerals” labeling bit and the need to get you to just shut the hell up and stop stretching her blouse.
Your uncle here was only 7 back in that day, Matt, a day where the internet was Saturday morning commercials of cereals and candies and toys that just happened to have cartoon vignettes placed between them of anvils and beep beeps and a wondrous company called “Acme” that provided myriad ways to blow shit up, Wacky Racers Wacky Racing, cat and mouse best friends trying to kill each other, a snarky rabbit in a rabbit hole “What’s up Doc-ing?” with a sarcastic smirk and a carrot, a That’s All Folks’ and before, shudder, the actual internet, where you had to walk uphill both ways in your bare feet over broken glass (Yes, a lotta broken glass back then Matt and folks without shoes … oh, and it snowed a lot, No, I don’t know why, it just was) to get information from a library or a newspaper and where you communicated with your friends through an ancient tradition of talking face to face or on a telephone attached to a wall in a kitchen that was only as smart as the conversation happening on it (which was often decidedly NOT, no matter who was on it, Moms and Dads included) but one that came with a timer as, back in that day Matt, the whole family shared just one phone, or more to the point, just one phone line even if there were other phones in bedrooms, maybe, for the hoity-toity wannabe’s who just wished to show off to friends and neighbors but which could get uncomfortable with your mother showing them into her and Dad’s bedroom for a “glance” at a new bedspread or curtains or something … “Oh that little extra phone thing on my nightstand?” but still just one line, so that if you picked up another phone you could hear someone else’s conversation.
So you had to learn patience and a respect for privacy (unless you thought your Mom had some juicy shit to share with her friend Marina or there was something you could hold over your brother and his friend’s heads to blackmail them with so you quietly snuck into Mom and Dad’s room and picked up the hoity-toity phone) or if it was a real far away friend you might actually have to send a letter as those long distance calls could be a cost so you sat down in your room and wrote a letter with words on paper, or parchment as you might think of it now, and then put it in an envelope with a stamp … what you might ask? … a stamp? … oh, a small square sticky paper thing with fancy edges that represented mail money with presidents on them or flags or flowers or whatever was the latest “this deserves to be on a stamp!” picture that you licked a gluey bit to stick them … yes licked … a gluey bit … with your tongue … and after some person at the Post Office had rolled or layed out however many you were looking for with their bare, possibly filthy fists across the sticky bit that you were going to lick … I know … how did we all survive and that stamp went on that envelope that you wrote an address on and put in the mailbox to then wait patiently for a reply until you died of old young age. And you can’t even imagine what a breakthrough stamps you could peel off of a sheet were!! Think of the DVR or the toaster oven or the wheel just in a stamp kinda way … and the public health implications? It was HUGE!
Anyway, I won’t belabor this as I’ve written something to this effect at this season for years, just know Matt, that I don’t change, nothing in the air at this time has me suddenly looking any scarier or sickly sweet as I do on a Sunday morning, after a sleepless Saturday night doing just this sort of overly wordy thing only with beer, for a pee replete with “Aaaaaarrrgggghhhhs!!” at a damp bath mat soaking my socks (dammit fella’s!! can ya dry off in the shower a bit more when you’re done please?! And I was gonna keep wearing these dirty socks I’ve had on since Friday!! They were practically, and comfortably mind you, pasted to my feet”) full moons don’t have me suddenly transform, that is a Fruit (Frute) Brute gig in his warewolfyness, I don’t float around all dreary eyed high-like wondering who I might be the blueberry spirit of (probably of some marketing guy who reveled the late 60’s too much), I don’t have a sarcophagus in the basement where all that overbought emergency toilet paper of recent years can come in handy, I don’t have to run from villagers chasing me with torches and pitchforks and poorly misspelled signs just at the mere sight of my pink self for sale on a grocery store shelf, like some sort of monster nightmare commodity replete with steam vent horns and temperature gages, clunky boots, knobs in my neck and sleepless night residual sugar highs (I swear some of that sugary stuff could sit in the system Matt … like all freakin’ day! … at least that was what could have been my excuse for a who me was then if I hadn’t been too young to think of it).
But do know, as you grab at crucifixes and lunge for holy water that that ain’t my monster domain either, plus poking me with said crucifixes while making a nice lemon butter and garlic pasta just makes me giggle, it tickles, and that is the Count’s purview anyway, plus he takes a pill now that helps him “Wow, I never knew how tasty garlic was!” which he says EVERY FUCKIN’ TIME WE TRY TO ENJOY ANYTHING WITH GARLIC AND IN HIS ANNOYINGLY OVERDONE ACCENT (he always wanted to be an actor). Yeah, we get it … you can have garlic now … sigh
But I should also let you know Matt that your Mom was remiss in her noting the lack of inclusion of some family members in the “family picture” display at Market Bistro as last year we Monster’s were introduced to a long lost cousin, and a pretty cute one too, well, as cute as an undead zombie that only wants to eat your brain can be cute, Carmella Creeper, but certainly a hell of a lot cuter than we ugly mugs, that’s for sure. Yes, that includes you Count. No, shut up, you ain’t “distinguished lookin'”
Carmella has fit in quite nicely and to tell you the truth it is nice to have a woman around, she freshen’s up our old guy monsters perspective and in Caramel Apple, such a tasty new addition to our old, tired flavors.
Anyway Matt, that is the story and where we stand right now in another Frankenberry Monster Family cereal season.
Matt: (looking up suddenly at the stares from his Mom and myself) “What … were you talking to me?”
Me: “You put your earbuds in didn’t you? Had them in almost the whole time?”
Well, anyway, next October will come around sooner than you think for more story time.
Before that though, this was the Attic introduction of Carmella to House Frankenberry Monster Cereal Haunted House of the Monster Cereal Family House.
Ok, I can work on that.
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June 10, 2023
A Welcome To A New Monster Cereal Family Member
A good friend of mine recently posted to me at Facebook of the arrival of a new member of the family of Monster Cereals, Carmella Creeper. (thanks Patty, I didn’t get the cereal text alert for some reason … thought for sure I was on the list).
Fixing up her room here in the haunted house as we speak.
For those that may not know my name is actually Frankenberry. It’s not a radio handle I invented somehow as some have thought on occasion over the years, that I may have decided, maybe drunkenly they surely had to have thought, that a pink strawberry flavored Frankenstein looking monster cereal character would be the perfect name to attach to a radio persona or to a Blog from an Attic.
No, Stephen J Frankenberry to be exact as my English mother would surely and adamantly have you note. And Stephen with a proper “PH” she would also add. Not some Americanized “V” as she always viewed it. Not that she thought less of anyone with that “V” mind you, though maybe silently thinking such of the parents, “It’s not their kids fault” she surely thought.
“I’m sure they are all very fine Stephens but just with a “V” … Oh, Bloody Hell!”
The cereal came out when I was 7, in 1971 (yes, I’m old) and inspired many the jokes then and ribbings on long school bus rides and also prank phone calls on the weekends that would drive my mother mad, in a “mad” monstery kind of way though.
“Hello, is Count Chocula there? (click)
“Hello, is Boo Berry there?” (click)
A few years later
“Hello, is Fruit Brute there? (click)
She, in her very English just off the plane only 8 years earlier, had no idea what prank phone calls were.
“Joseph Frankenberry!! You and this bloody name!!” followed with a “Hell’s Bells” and many other very English expletives that she would eventually get a bit more explicit with but in an English accent which just made them sound really cool and cute so you forgave.
Whatever and well, I have always been inextricably connected to a pink strawberry flavored Frankenstein monster cereal character and am quite fond of it, even have a tattoo on my forearm to proclaim Monster Family solidarity.
So, to find out that I have a cousin?
Well now, that was pretty exciting.
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Nice to make your acquaintance Carmella, and welcome to the family.
So, a couple of things. I tend to walk around the haunted house here in only my boxers, neck bolts and my big ass scarred head and head accessories clutching a one eyed teddy bear, the Count can be a little arrogant and is something of a night bat with his late night TV viewing of horror and Hallmark flicks (he finds it very amusing that somehow the two aren’t really all that distinguishable from one another), Boo is a sweetheart though a little flighty, and Fruit Brute is a bit unpredictable and will most certainly leer at you. Just remind him that we are family and that this isn’t the South … oh, and that you will kick his ass (he’s all talk). Yummy Mummy visits from Egypt on the holidays and has his own room with a sarcophagus in the basement.
Oh, I’m also historically, according to the TV commercials, a bit of a scaredy cat, so if you can keep the “Creeper” part of “Carmella Creeper” to a minimum I would appreciate it. Your room is all the way up at the top of the stairs in the attic loft bedroom with a great crow’s eye view of the graveyard in the front lawn. It’s a pain in the ass to mow and weed whack around all the headstones but is still quite eye catching (though the HOA are NOT fans and don’t find the same aesthetic in it that we do).
But again, welcome to the Monster Cereal Fam Carmella!! Lookin’ forward to October!!
Brute, seriously? What did I tell you about her being family?! Really Carmella, feel free to kick his ass!!!
Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything ... 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs ... damned humans.
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A personal exploration of autism from a brother’s perspective, including family relationships, philosophy, neuroscience, mental health history and ethics
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