Bug Tussle Chronicles—
My mother came home one day from teaching school at Fair Play and announced that if I even was seen with Cheryl Anderson she would either kill me with a stove poker and claim self defense or maybe, if I she didn’t have the heart to kill me, she’d sell the farms and move to Springfield and buy herself a nice house and I could join the Air Force and they’d grant me a 30 day leave each year so I could go visit her and pay for my college.
I said do you mean that freckled faced red head I went to 4-H with at Rose Bud Schoolhouse? Why would I even look sideways at her?
Mama said the Good Lord should have made all bad girls ugly, but in that He surely failed.
Cheryl Anderson could wink at you and you’d be helpless to resist. But she’s bought a hundred candles in her widowed mother’s name and she knew her mother would have to pay for them out of shame.
Her mother told me Cheryl has made her room into a sort of witch’s den and she’s burning a hundred candles she was supposed to sell for a cheerleader fund raiser.
I said she’s a cheerleader now, and Mama glanced at her stove poker and said yes, for the A team.
I filed that back in my mind, and a month or so later at the Humansville Pool Hall I walked in and the owner and two young waitresses about my age came up to me and said you need to be careful because Cheryl Anderson has been in here tonight looking for you.
I said why would Cheryl Anderson be looking for me and they rolled their eyes and all said
Go Home!!!
While you still can!!!
But I laughed and started playing pool with my buddies.
Soon enough I heard —
Vanny!
I haven’t seen you since Four - H at Rosebud!
There was a grown up Cheryl Anderson, looking extremely good, even better than I was warned she did.
She said is that your white 66 Mustang outside?
I said it certainly is, would you like to go for a ride.
And off we went, and she wanted to see the Rose Bud Schoolhouse.
Then she wanted to see Spout Spring Hollow that I’d talked so much about.
On the way there, she said oh, I’d like to go visit Miss Lois (my mother) and I said Mama isn’t home tonight we’ll have to visit her later.
Parked at the drive to Spout Spring Hollow, she said, before we go any further,
Would you die for me, if I asked you too?
I said Cheryl let’s not think about dying, and she said
If you want me, you must be willing to die with me
Paradise by the Dashboard Lights
I said Cheryl, I have to get up in the morning and serve communion at the Humansville Christian Church. I think it’s time we went home.
I dropped her off at the pool hall and went to my home, sweet home.
About three years later my mother called me at college and said-
Do you know how lucky you are?
I said about what?
She said Cheryl Anderson married a nice young boy who was employed as miking cows in Illinois.
But she then found a boyfriend she convinced to murder her husband and she dismembered him and she tossed out parts of him in Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas before they got caught.
And she’s claiming she was his hostage:
I gulped a little.
And Mama said I got one call when you left and another when you dumped her off again.
Do you trust my judgement yet?
You could be scattered across three states, or headed to prison for life.
The first man, Adam, had the entire world in his hands.
Eve, was not some bowlegged old Grandma, no she was not.
I thought about my mother when I heard about the Hannah Anderson case.
en.m.wikipedia.org
According to released warrants, DiMaggio received letters from Hannah Anderson which were found in his home by investigators, and exchanged over a dozen calls with her before the murders occurred.[34] However, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said Hannah Anderson was "a victim in every sense of the word" and did not willingly go with DiMaggio.[35] Gore also suggested that authorities may never be able to fully determine the reason for DiMaggio's crime rampage.[17]
Cheryl Anderson has likely been released a long time ago, on parole.
Men just don’t learn, usually.