LEGEND HAS IT THAT … (PART 2)

By Larry Tyler

Columnist & Featured Contributor, BIZCATALYST360.com???????????

I often wonder why?these four short words always sounded sinister to me.?When my sister told us these kinds of stories she would set the mood.?We would put blankets on the floor and light candles.?She would get us to sit still and listen to the silence.?She would wait until she was sure that we were listening and start with a quiet almost whispering sinister voice, “Legend has it that …”.?These stories usually took us down a scary path where fearful things happen.?They usually involved darkness, old deserted houses, and lonely old people.?She would take us on a journey that involved facing our fears and in the end finding our courage.???????????

Facing Your Fears, Part Two

There were four frightening events that happened in my life when I was very young.?They forever changed the way I lived my life going forward.?Like the legends of old the stories’ outcomes are about facing fear and finding the way to walk life’s path with courage and confidence.?I call these stories?The Four Faces of Fear.?This is part two of my journey beyond fear.

Legend has it that?A monster rooster roamed the farm and after his morning crowing, he would perch on an old tree stump in our backyard waiting for the unattended child to cross his domain.?I had stayed up late reading Tom Sawyer and decided that I would play sick and not work in the fields today.?I would go on a great adventure.?We had a creek that ran through several farms with a well-worn path beside it.?I could go on my adventure and still be back in bed before the mid-day break.

The tobacco field was about a quarter mile from the house so the only way to the creek was across our backyard.??The backyard was the great rooster’s domain.?No one crossed his territory without him extracting a deadly toll.

I stood on the back porch waiting and watching him.?He was way over in the corner of the yard on his stump.?Oh yea, he was watching me.?I would take a step then back up.?He would go prancing across the yard.?He knew I wanted to cross the yard and he knew that when I did I would be his.?He wasn’t going anywhere.?It was his yard and sooner or later I would pay.

My dog, Cookie, sat on the far side of the yard barking.?She was not about to come across that yard and help me out.?She had felt the rooster’s claws on more than one occasion.?Sometimes Mom would throw scraps of food out the back door causing a feeding frenzy, cats, dogs, hens and loose pigs scrambled for the food.?In the end, they all fell prey to the rooster’s claws and brutal pecking.?Once he locked onto you, it was all over in a flurry of flying feathers and animal fur.?If one of the dogs or cats got lucky, if you can call it lucky and latched on to a chunk of food, the rooster would follow them relentlessly, under the house, through the woods or into the creek until he came strutting back food in his beak.?Who needed a boogie man when this clawed creature stalked us without mercy?