Ghost Storytelling

This past weekend, I once again accompanied my mother to another storytelling festival. This one was labeled a ghost storytelling event so I willingly went. Because this event was in Cape Girardeau, home to my favorite antique store (more on Annie Laurie's here), we had to stop by there first.


I was able to introduce my mother to Annie Laurie’s for the first time and we ended up spending an hour and a half in the store. She bought jewelry to complete her Halloween costume and I bought another clutch/change purse and a fall scarf to accent my True Religion snake skin purse.




Inside Annie Laurie's Antiques

 With our lawn chairs in tow, we then headed down by the Mississippi River to hear ghost stories. They were serving hot apple cider and kettle corn so I thought this was exciting. It was the perfect October night.

Cape Girardeau

I had forgotten how theatrical storytellers could be (my previous storytelling adventure here) and how the stories wouldn’t seem true at all. The first storyteller was a guy who told a long drawn out story about a witch on a mountain. This story actually kept my interest for most of the time he told it. He played the guitar and sang a couple little numbers and then he was done. The next storyteller was a woman who entered the stage playing bagpipes. That was my first clue that she was going to annoy me. She proceeded to tell several short stories that almost sounded familiar. By the third story I leaned over to my mother and said “these are songs that she’s turned into stories.” One story was about a fiddle player who sold his soul to the devil (“Devil Went Down To Georgia”). Another story was about a dead husband who tapped his dead foot when he heard music and his foot turned to dust (“Dem Bones”...a song my mother was familiar with). At intermission, we were told that the second half of the “show” would be really scary stories. I anxiously waited for the next part to start, but was horribly disappointed when the second half was just as weird as the first.

The old man came back out and sang/told a story about what I can only guess was a vampire slayer. A majority of the beginning of this story was about how old the storyteller felt so he went on a hitchhiking trip. My disappointment continued when the lady came back and sang a song about a “scary” mother-in-law and a wax baby with glass eyes or something like that. I was so confused by the end of this story that my mother had to explain what had just happened.

Because it was late and cold, we left shortly after that story. This storytelling event was better than the last, although I would’ve liked to hear stories that were actually interesting.