Cliff Kurt’s Weblog

In the late 1970’s, the isolated road leading east off of the Michigan end of Flanders Road was dubbed “Spook Road”. We had our very own urban legend, before the world even knew urban legends existed.

As the story went, there were mutants living in the woods on either side of the dirt path. Unfortunate souls driving down the desolate road at night, particularly on a weekend night and especially under a full moon, risked running the wrath of these mutants. They’d attack your car, break out your windows and kill you and your occupants.

None of us claimed to believe the legend. But our trips down the dark road were spooky indeed. I personally never dared to challenge the legend with fewer than three people in my car. Not so much for backup. My friends and I weren’t fighters – we couldn’t box our way out of a paper bag. No, not for backup, but for witnesses.

One of the crowd we ran with is married to an attorney now, so I’ll refer to her as “Jane Doe.” Jane hadn’t heard the legend of Spook Road, and she, like the rest of us, claimed not to believe it.

Kids are intuitive. They sense things. We knew that each of us, though we claimed to disbelieve the story of Spook Road, was scared on those many excursions. Each and every one of us but Jane Doe. When we took her to Spook Road for her debut visit, she was fearless.

This was wrong. Although she was one of the brighter students at Notre Dame Academy and she would go on to become an architect, (not a George Costanza architect, a real one), she still had no right not to be afraid of Spook Road. This, I decided, must change. I devised The Great Spook Road Caper.

I wasn’t one of the brighter kids among the St. John’s Class of 1979. I did graduate in the top two-thirds of the class. But this was my one glimmer of ingenuity. Countless hours sitting clueless in third year German class, pulling gentleman D’s from Mr. Paderi, God bless him, were spent designing this scheme. I planned…the party.

About twenty people were at the party, all in on the secret except Jane Doe. At a pre-appointed time, I announced that we were low on beverages and was going to make a run to Joseph’s grocery store. Jeff and Lynda came with, and we asked Jane Doe to join us. She agreed.

As we left Joseph’s, we decided to take a quick, “impromptu” trip down Spook Road. By my calculations, everyone from the party should have parked their cars out of sight near Spook Road and should be waiting in the woods for us. They should all be in the white lab coats my physician father loaned us.

We arrived at Spook Road, turned east, and began the eerie 1/10th of a mile drive. As we drove, I saw the signal in my rear view window – three discreet blinks of a flashlight just off the road behind us. All was ready.

At the end of Spook Road, I turned the car around and ventured back. Midway, at the road’s darkest, loneliest spot, I allowed the car to stall. (It was easy to make a 1972 Ford Maverick stall. The challenge was keeping it from not stalling.)

The car did indeed stall, but Jane Doe remained cool. Until I rolled down the window. And the howls begun. Low and distant at first. Gradually growing. Jane Doe’s eyes widened, her body stiffened.

From out my windows I saw the mutants burst from the woods on both sides of the road. There were about 16 of them, all, oddly enough, wearing white lab coats. They moaned and groaned in the dark night, barely visible.

I looked over toward Jane Doe, but she was gone! It took me a moment to realize she was cowering on the floor under the dashboard. Bravo!

I pretended to try to start the car. Suddenly the mutants started rocking the car back and forth. “That’s it – I’m not putting up with this anymore,” I gallantly declared.

I opened my door and started to exit the car, ready for hand-to-hand combat with my mutant friends. That’s when Jane Doe, in a feat of super human strength, grabbed my shirt and violently pulled me back into the car. “Get in this car, get it started, and get me the hell OUT OF HERE – RIGHT NOW!”

Okay, enough was enough. Even misguided teenage pranks have their limits. I started the car and pulled away from the mutants.

I drove back Flanders Road to Monroe Street and pulled into Dunkin Donuts to “check the car.” I parked strategically so that only I could monitor the intersection of Flanders and Monroe. In a few short minutes, I saw the caravan of cars heading back to Merriweather Road. I waited another minute or two, and returned to the driver’s seat, declaring the car fit for travel.

We arrived back at the party and found everyone sitting about where they were when we left. As I started to announce that we’d just been down Spook Road, Jane Doe burst in and declared, “There ARE mutants on Spook Road. They attacked our car. It was Really Scary! And (pointing to Karen), one of them had long black hair JUST LIKE YOURS!”

We eventually came clean with Jane Doe.

During a recent trip home, I decided to take a drive down Spook Road, just for memory’s sake. At about noon under a bright Saturday sun. With two of my brothers. Why take chances?

A friend recently alerted me to the fact that there is a book called “ACT for Dummies.”  Thinking it might have been about acting, he picked it up and immediately realized it’s a study help guide for the ACT college entrance exam.

Do we REALLY want to be helping “dummies” scam their way into college?  Of course, many will say this is already happening, due to many reasons, including teachers’ fear of lawsuits preventing proper grading of students, and the whole “tenure” system which allows a teacher to be mediocre or worse if (s)he chooses.

But I just can’t escape the irony of a book promising to help a dumb person pass a college entrance exam.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against the “dummies” books in concept.  In fact, my early learnings of computers (DOS, Windows, Unix, etc.) were thanks to the dummies books.  When a relative purchased a Macintosh computer and began contacting me for “technical support,” the “Mac for Dummies” book came to my rescue. 

But some of the things the Dummies books cover are just mind boggling:

“The Historical Jesus for Dummies.”   Hmmm, I guess there isn’t enough written about Him in, oh, the BIBLE?

“Coaching Kids for Dummies.”  I really would rather someone who thinks himself more than a dummy be coaching my kids.  Unless it’s coaching kids on how not to be dummies.

“Healthy Aging for Dummies.”  I hope it comes in a large-print version.

“Type 1 Diabetes for Dummies.”  Can a dummy even know the difference between Type 1 and Type 2?  Doesn’t a dummy, by definition, have trouble counting?

And then there’s “Pet Monkeys for Dummies,” “First Pets for Kids for Dummies,” and “Cats for Dummies.”  (Okay, I admit, I’m a dog person.  But I’ll refrain from commentary on that last one.)

I’d like to see a book on “Brain Surgery for Dummies:”

Chapter Seven – All About Gray Matter:  By now, you should know that the part of the body inside the head (or skull) is called the brain.  If you haven’t gotten that yet, please go back and read chapters 1 through 6.  Another name for the brain is “gray matter.”  This is because the brain is gray in color, dummy.  When you open the skull with your Skil Saw (which we will discuss in Chapter 11: Removing the Skullcap) you will find some clear fluids and some blood, but mostly gray matter.  IMPORTANT:  You MUST resist the temptation to scoop out the brain at this early stage.  The results would be deadly.  (More on that in Chapter 14: What To Do When You Are Sued By Your Patient’s Family)  Occuring within all this gray matter are a series of “synapses” or electrical impulses which carry information into, through and out of the brain.  You can’t actually see the synapses occur, but trust me, they are there (if your patient is not yet dead).  You can test for the existence of synapses with speaker wire, both wires stripped at both ends.  Place two ends anywhere in or on your patient’s gray matter.  Hurry, for he will be dead soon.  Touch the other ends of the wire to the metallic coil of a light bulb.  If the patient is still synapsing, the bulb should glow.  If you were to do this with your own brain (DO NOT!), the bulb would glow steady but dim.  If you were to do this with most peoples’ brains, the bulb would glow much more brightly.

Hmmm – maybe I have a career in writing dummies books.  Everybody has a niche.