Even when I was little, afternoons tended to depress me. It was the time when the day felt  old and drawn on. I was out in the back yard one hot and hazy summer afternoon. The sun was low over the old sand pit across the canyon.

The long shadows stretching over the hills made the whole world seem mysterious and weird.

I went over to the little wash house to ask my mother a question. Inside we had a great big old fashioned tumbler washing machine. It was one of the first tumblers ever built, with a heavy gear box below. There was only one window in the room, and Mother kept it closed except for when she used the machine. I peeked in and called, “Mommy can I bring my trike in the house? Mommy…”

There was no answer, and then….“WHOOH”

My mouth dropped open, and I just stood there screaming.

A tremendous spider web stretched clear across the room, all the way from the side of the wash tub to the wall. An enormous dark brown spider hung suspended in the web, right in the middle of the wash house. I had never seen such a monstrous spider. It was almost as big as a California tarantula, and it was so close that I could have touched it. Startled by my scream, the huge spider scrambled back to its hiding place above.  

Now, I had seen many weird things, and been to strange places before. Due to the fact that I was lonely and very young, things like this popped up on me and I confused them with dreams. The things in the dreams were distorted and ugly exaggerations of things in nature. They made the most ferocious bird-like creatures of my imagination look like kittens.

Sometimes I would wake up screaming in the night.