10500 Cielo Drive

It was  August, 1969.  Jason, Bernie, and Helen were on summer vacation from Walt Whitman High School. Slightly over a year ago was the second Kennedy assassination, and they were losing lots of friends in Southeast Asia.

 

 

Eagerly awaiting the imminent release of the Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ album, they were listening to the white album, and hoping to go to Woodstock in a week.

 

As they were enjoying songs like ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Helter Skelter’, a sudden knock came on the door.   Pam and Larry, stunned, asked: “Have you heard what’s happened to Sharon Tate and her friends?”

 

 

This summer saw the fiftieth~milestone~anniversary of the R.F.K. assassination, and tomorrow is the forty ninth anniversary of the Manson family’s murder of Sharon Tate, Leno and Rosemary La Bianca, and their friends.  Please join us for our weekly jaunt through Rochelle’s  Friday Fictioneers.  This week, Ronda Del Boccio

supplies the photo prompt.

Annunci

mass murderer

It’s late July,1966, in Chicago.

Muriel and Gloria spot a terrifying sight.

“I know they’ve got Richard Speck already,” cried Gloria, “but I still can’t help losing control!”

“He’s that moron who tortured eight young nursing students to death,” replied Muriel. “He was high as a kite.”

“You have to admit that is one odd sight!” stammered the former. “Do you think it’s some copycat bastard?”

“Do you have to bring that up?” Muriel went on. “That always happens.”

Trembling uncontrollably they go home and try not to dwell on their fear.

“Let’s stick together all day,” Gloria suggests.

Thanks to Janet M Webb for the photo prompt and to Rochelle Wisoff~Fields for her help each week in Friday Fictioneers.

four dead in Ohio

It was slightly more than a week after Allison Beth Krause’s nineteenth birthday. Early on the morning of May 4, 1970 she awoke, noticed in her homework assignment that it was the eighty fourth anniversary of the Chicago Hay Market Massacre, and prepared for the anti-war protest on Kent State’s campus.

“‘Bye,Mom, ‘Bye, Dad,” and she left for school.

She and her boyfriend Barry Levine were aggressively protesting the war. Barry went into shock as Allison was one of four who were killed by Ohio’s National Guard’s sixty five rounds of ammunition.

“That’s Governor Rhodes’ way of dealing with things?!” he stammered.

This week’s photo prompt comes courtesy of Roger Bultot. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields is our weekly fairy blogmother.

family thanksgiving

Uncle Aloysius and Aunt Filomena were preparing Thanksgiving dinner as always.

“Those Protestants think they’re such hot stuff,” moaned Aloysius.

“The first Thanksgiving, though, was really on September 8, 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida, before their time.”

Filomena happily humored him, knowing that he was harmless, as well as right.

“They beat those snooty Protestants by fifty six years.”

“Don Pedro Menendez proclaimed the New World for Philip II.”

“The second Thanksgiving,” he continued, “was in 1598”, and he proceeded to explain the details.

“The Indians and Spaniards were on friendly terms.”

Filomena continued listening, knowing it kept him happy.

Rochelle Wisoff~Fields is in charge of our weekly Friday Fictioneers, a hundred~word attempt at story telling. Sandra Crook has supplied this week’s photo prompt.

remember, remember, the fifth of november!!

“It was on November 5, 1605 that Catholic Supremacists plotted to blow up Parliament and to assassinate James I in order either to restore the Catholic monarchy or at least to have full Catholic toleration,” explained Dickens.

“That’s Guy Fawkes Day,” Fenster replied. ” Recusant Catholics were plum sick of being abused.”

“Yes,” Fenster reminded him, “But Fawkes wasn’t in charge. Robert Catesby planned the attack. Fawkes only planted the charges in Westminster Palace. He was caught and the rebellion is now symbolized by him.”

“Anti-Catholics rejoice like crazy on this day each year. Legend often tends to supplant reality.”

Thank you to Connie Gayer (Mrs. Russell?) for this week’s photo prompt, and to Rochelle Wisoff~Fields for being our fearless leader at Friday Fictioneers, a weekly collection of hundred~word stories.

carmelite dialogues

It’s July 17, 1794 in Compiegne. Sister Teresa and her fifteen Discalced Carmelite companions are on their way to the guillotine.

“Come, Sisters,” demands Teresa. “Out of fidelity to Catholic orthodoxy, to Jesus and Mary, and to constituted authority, we go to our deaths.”

Calmly they intone the Miserere, Salve Regina, and Te Deum.

Each is decapitated, after which her body is merely thrown into a common grave.

“Well, Citizen,” an onlooker is overheard to explain joyously, “We can’t have their God and Robespierre’s and David’s goddess of reason, you understand.”

“La Marseillaise” plays in the background.

death to throne and altar

The Versailles Palace, during the summer of 1792, was an absolute nightmare. The systematic anti-Catholic genocide in France’s Vendee Region, a precursor to the Nazi era, was in full force.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were in their chamber, busily attempting to affect a collusion with Pope Pius VI.

“God is on our side,” the king told his devoted queen, “But that won’t stop the forthcoming holocaust.” They stared at all the perfect architecture and fixtures, knowing that its beauty was pointless.

On January 21, 1793, the king was executed by guillotine. On October 16 the same year, his queen died the same way.

the hispanophile

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<!– end InLinkz script –> “Spain is my kind of place!” shouted Harold as the Crumbcakes enjoyed their first trip to the land he’d always dreamed of.

“It’s the land of Ferdinand and Isabella, ‘Los Reyes Catolicos’, he reminded his wife Dolores.

“The Dominicans were my teachers when I was a kid. I’ve studied Carmelite theology as an adult.  Sor and Segovia have always been among my favorite musicians.”

“Don’t forget, honey,” Dolores replied. “Even your beloved Spain isn’t perfect. They’ve been brought to the brink of destruction by everyone from the Moslems to Franco.”

“Et in Arcadia ego,” was all he could say.

johnny appleseed

“Harvey,” asked Shirley, “Have you ever read about Johnny Appleseed?”

“What makes you think of him?” wondered her befuddled husband.

“Today’s Johnny Appleseed Day,” she explained. “Jonathan Chapman was a famous pioneer nurseryman, Swedenborgian missionary and friend to the Indians. Unfortunately he had a lot of weird ideas. He had views that PETA would like, and was, as an adult, supposedly engaged to a ten year old girl.”

“What’s the good news then?” her spouse couldn’t understand.

“He’s quite a prominent figure in the annals of early American agriculture,” she pointed out. “You should learn more about him.”

the fregosi emerald

“Yo,Ma,” blurted out precocious sixth grader Stanley, “Is that the Fregosi Emerald or what?”

“Of course not, Stanley,” explained Mrs. Baggiagalupe. “That stone is in Spain where it belongs.”

“I don’t know, Ma,” stammered the youngster. “It looks a lot like it. Brother James said yesterday in class that Archduke Franz Ferdinand gave it to Sofia right before Gavrilo Princip assassinated them in 1914.”

The lad couldn’t get over the jewel, or anything else even remotely connected with World War I. His mother was happy to indulge his latest obsession. As they continued their shopping trip she asked him to remind his father to get gas.