boogey man

South Louisiana is known for it's ghost stories and

it's boogey men.

When growing up our boogey man had a name,

ROY MEJIA

When speaking to my sisters on Sunday I brought up

the name of our boogey man.

For a period of my childhood when Daddy wanted to scare us

he would add Roy Mejia in the sentence.

I wanted to find out the history behind the legend.

Seems as though sometimes in the late 60's or early 70's

this Roy Mejia murdered someone, no one was sure who

and fled to the back woods of Golden Meadow.

It was said that he was living behind our street where at that

time there was a trash dump as well as a boat launch.

I guess Daddy found this disturbing for some time as we

weren't allowed to play in our favorite woods and dump

but he also used and dropped this name a long time

after Roy Mejia was no longer a threat to us.

"Don't go digging in that dump, if Roy Mejia finds you,

you will never make it home"

"Go to sleep if Roy Mejia hears all that talking he's going to

know there are little girls here and break in"

Yes, some may say this was a sign of mental abuse

but Daddy had his way of getting us to behave and

the Roy Mejia stories worked.

Rosie, Rosie was smart though.

When speaking to her about this certain story she doesn't remember

it the way I do but I insist this is how it happened

and because I am the author and it is my memory I get to

tell it the way I remember it.

Daddy used Roy Mejia stories to keep us from what we called

"The Back"

but he also loved his blackberries so if you told him you were going to pick

blackberries usually no Roy story followed his "be careful warning"

Around the same time of Roy, Rosie found out she had to wear glasses.

Glasses were expensive for my family especially because all of us

Collins kids had bad eyes and required glasses.

Rosie was beautiful and Rosie was vain and she did not want to wear

those glasses. She would always get fussed for not wearing them

and tried many attempts to loose or break them and so

was corrected all the time by Daddy that she had to wear them.

On this particular day she told Daddy she was going to

pick berries for him. The glasses were to accompany her picking.,

"Be careful" No Roy Mejia stories followed her warning.

While there, Rosie, who was made to wear the glasses, probably

was plotting how she could rid herself of this burden.

During this time she came up with a plan.

I remember her coming home that day hot, sweaty, short of breath

and dirty with a bucket of blackberries.

Daddy noticed right away she was not donning her glasses.

"Roseanna, How many times I have to tell you you have to

wear those glasses"

She answered,

"Daddy I had them on, really I did, but I lost them when I started running"

"Running, Roseanna, (he never called her Rosie, always Roseanna)

Why were you running and why didn't you stop and pick up your glasses?"

"Because Daddy, Roy Mejia was chasing me"

Now what could he do with that?

If I remember correctly Daddy stopped using his Roy Mejia threats

after that but he lives in my childhood memories.