Buried Religious Statues, Evil Plastic Trolls and Glass Jar Leprechauns

By Bill Knell

Just when you think it’s safe to buy a home, you find that the owners have buried a statue of Saint Joseph, upside down, in the yard. It’s bad enough that buying a pre-owned house means the previous owners used the bathroom for years before you came and, if they had kids, the backyard is probably filled with buried pet carcasses. Now you have to deal with people who think that a ceramic guy buried on his head will make you buy their home. Run, I say, RUN away from that place! And the upside down Saint is just the tip of the iceberg.

I wish I could explain the buried statues fad by saying that people are just getting crazier as the years pass, but they’re probably just getting dumber. Despite teacher testing, performance evaluations and an endless array of student knowledge assessment exams, children just are not learning as much about the basics of history, science and grammar as they once did. I guess they save all that stuff for college. If you can afford it, you can find out who we fought in what war, how to dissect a dead frog and the multiplication tables. They throw in the ‘meaning of life’ and ‘why America is to blame for everything bad in the world’ for free.

Until my junior high school aged kids started watching the History Channel, they thought that we fought the Japanese in Vietnam and the British during World War II (those no good Brits have nerve trying to take over the planet like that!). It’s just sad. Where’s all that Lotto money going that’s supposed to support education? Maybe it’s getting buried in someone’s back yard next to good old St Joe? More likely, it’s paying for parties in Washington where congressmen can chase their Pages around the cloak room in their underwear with roses in their teeth. O.K. I’ll try not to get too cynical.

Maybe dumb isn’t the answer. I mean, people did crazy stuff for good luck when I was a kid growing up in the 1960’s and 1970‘s. For the very Catholic, it was those Mary and Saint Statues glued to the car dashboard. That’s the flat surface just above the radio, between the steering wheel and window for those who haven’t been to college yet or seen episodes of Pimp My Ride. The real hard core religious folks added the medals, crucifixes and rosary beads hanging from the rear view mirror.

Protestants had an alternative plan for good luck and traveling mercies. They hung crosses from their mirrors, gave offerings to Oral Roberts and sent money to the PTL Club. Hey, someone had to make sure that Jim Bakker could take a bath in a solid gold tub and that Tammy Faye had more shoes than Imelda Marcos. Those that belonged to more traditional, mainline protestant churches prayed allot, made their kids take ten years of Driver’s Ed before they could get a license and tried not to raid the weekly offering envelope for money to buy beer and cigarettes just before pay day.

When it came to competing for the most religious symbolism in one vehicle, my next store neighbor was the winner. Her daughter was a friend of mine and was always inviting me to go to the store, town pool or park with her. That was fine and I loved going, but I could never see out the windows of her mom‘s car. The front windshield view was almost completely hidden with statues, prayer beads and medals. She had every saint known to Catholicism and the entire Holy Family stuck on her dashboard. A huge assortment of blessed rosaries and saint medals from every nation on earth hung from her always sagging rear view mirror. The noise of the jangling medals was deafening and I could still hear those noises echoing in my head for a week after riding in her car.

Obscuring the front window wasn’t enough for her. She managed to eclipse the view from the back and side windows of her car with big round stickers that proudly identified her as a Lifetime Supporter of the Holy Name Society, Knights of Columbus, Sisters of Charity, League of Catholic Women and St Vincent De Paul. Smaller decals that filed in the remaining space announced she had visited Lourdes, the Vatican, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and various religious festivals.

Her husband had his own car and would never let her use it. I can understand why. He had nothing hung from his rear view mirror and the only flair on his vehicle was a Let’s Go Mets! Bumper sticker. However, he wasn’t able to completely escape his wife’s religious passion. Every time he opened the dashboard storage compartment he found himself staring at a statue of Mary and five bottles of miracle water from Lourdes just incase he got in an accident and needed a miracle cure right away.

Now don’t get me wrong, Catholics didn’t have a monopoly when it came to religious symbolism on the road. Our other neighbor across the street was Protestant and had an equally annoying way of expressing her religious zeal to the world of motorists. Her son and I were good friends, so we were always riding in each other’s family vehicles. My parents were Lutheran, so the extent of their religious fervor on the road was keeping some extra offering envelopes in the dashboard compartment. My friend’s family vehicle was another story.

His mom used their car more then anyone else. She had a huge wooden cross hanging from her mirror. It was so big that I think she had to have a car door removed to get it in there, but at least you could see out of most of her windows. It wasn’t the huge cross that made her car a religious spectacle, it was the bumper stickers. She had filled almost every inch of space on her front and rear bumpers with big religious stickers that made announcements like HE IS COMING SOON; THIS CAR BELONGS TO GOD, I’M ONLY PAYING FOR IT; I’M A BELIEVER; GOD SAID IT, I BELIEVE IT AND THAT SETTLES IT; and FOLLOW ME TO HEAVEN. You don’t need a bumper sticker to believe in God (maybe someone can make a bumper sticker out of that saying?).

For all the religious signage, our neighbor cursed like a trucker with the windows wide open when traffic slowed down to lower than forty miles per hour. And I still hate to think about the things she used to scream out the window when some poor soul who didn’t know any better happened to get in her lane and block an otherwise clear path. She always tried to smooth things over after one of her tirades by quoting a popular statement of that time from comedian Flip Wilson. He used to say, “The Devil made me do it!”

Being someone who was brought up to respect people, their beliefs and God, I could live with all the crosses, statues, beads, medals and religious bumper stickers. They never really bothered me half as much as Trolls. I really hated the Troll fad. I’m not sure when it started, but it suddenly seemed like every girl in my neighborhood owned at least ten dozen Troll dolls and had them everywhere. And not just the dolls. There were troll pencil tops, magnets, rings, bracelets, necklaces and hair barrettes. Some girls actually glued them to the tops of their shoes and sneakers to create troll footwear. I guess the mass marketers of the day missed out on that idea.

For a while I wondered if Trolls had become a replacement faith for those who practiced their religion on an irregular basis or had no religion at all. Like the saints, crosses, medals and beads, some found their way on to car dashboards or were hung from mirrors by adults lacking any common sense or decency. Didn’t they care that people riding in their cars would be taken aback by staring at a naked Troll’s butt crack?

I found the Trolls to be an extremely annoying. They had big ugly smiling faces, weird colored hair and most were naked. For all I know, they helped to promote teen pregnancy. Children and adolescents might not have cared, but imagine teenagers staring at those naked little dolls with big fat smiles on their faces every day. They sent out a clandestine message that to be naked, is to be happy. The Trolls were supposed to be good luck, but I’ll bet they were really more like Viagra for teens. And there was another reason that I really hated these alleged good luck dolls. They followed me to school.

I had the good fortune to attend school on Long Island. Our school system was rated as one of the best in the country. We were learning things in sixth grade that students in other places didn’t get to until junior or senior high school. That was the good news. The bad news was that it took a lot of class work, writing and studying to keep up with the curriculum. Now imagine trying to concentrate on the teacher or read chapters in a text book while being surrounded by evil little plastic Troll figures locked in a constant stare. And lucky me, my desk just happened to be located between two of the meanest, tallest, biggest and most obsessed female troll fans in the classroom.

Those two girls loved to bump into me, push me and sometimes trip me. They shoved the troll dolls into my face and placed troll stickers on all my stuff. And what could I do? I wasn’t mean enough to stick gum in their hair and was too nice to kick their butts. Even if I was a rotten lowlife and tried to take them down, I would need more than the luck of the Trolls on my side. I would probably have needed a small army, high explosives and a machine gun nest. They didn’t need luck; the queens of mean had size and malicious natures on their sides. Sitting between them every day was like being around the Manson Family (Charlie, not Marilyn).

Despite all the evil forces that had allied themselves against me, fate was about to intervene. Having survived the attacks of the Amazon women and the curse of the Trolls through fall, Halloween and Thanksgiving, the winter holiday recess finally beckoned. And was I ever ready for it! No matter what I got for Christmas, it was going to be a wonderful holiday because my house was a No Troll Zone.

Christmas Day came and went. One of the presents I received from my parents was a Creepy Crawlers Thing Maker Set. You pour this gooey stuff called Goop into a mold and place it on the Thing Maker. That heats it up until the liquid turns solid. Then you cool it and end up with all kinds of bugs, flowers, worms, dragons, zoo animals, scary skulls and skeletons and even fighting men. It was a blast! But the set only came with a small amount of Goop. So a couple of days after Christmas, I headed off to the store with my Mom in search of more. After searching the toy aisles for a bit, I found the Goop. It was stuck in the middle of all kinds of Thing Maker accessories.

Looking over the various kits you could buy to make bigger bugs and all kinds of stuff, I noticed an accessory set called Creeple People. These were weird little creatures designed to fit on to pencils. As I took a closer look, I was aghast. They were TROLLS!!! I mean exact duplicates of those evil little monsters every idiot in the world just had to have. And just as I was about to reach the height of my disgust over the fact that these monsters had even had the nerve to infect my world of Creepy Crawlers, I suddenly had a great idea. Actually, it was more than an idea. It was a moment of clarity, a vision, an awakening! It was almost as if I had received a subliminal message from the Trolls themselves.

I labored for days on end with the Thing Maker and Creeple People accessory kit to get ready for my return to school. Feeling a bit like Dr Frankenstein preparing the monster for his first breath, I mixed colors, learned how to put the long, weird colored hair on those wicked hobgoblins and made little accessories for them. The kit came with molds and pieces to make tiny umbrellas, miniature hair bows and little flowers. My parents probably thought I was spending entirely too much time with the neighborhood girls. What would be next? A request to attend Fashion Design classes? No, it was all part of my plan to end the reign of the queens of mean and get control over the kingdom of trolls in my classroom.

When it came time to go back to school, I arrived with a big smile on my face. That was because I was about to hatch a truly ingenious plan more compelling than the troll fad itself. I clutched my schoolbag as if it contained gold bars, strolled into the classroom, hung up my coat and sat down at my desk. Then I waited patiently for the evil ones while smiling widely with anticipatory glee.

The queens of mean arrived a few minutes before class was scheduled to begin. After strolling around the classroom to share the latest gossip, they set their sights on me. Like demonic spirits come to mock the human inhabitants of Hell, they smirked at me and approached. “How was your Christmas, B-I-L-L-Y?” Oh, they knew how to get under my skin, but not this time! I had a secret weapon more powerful than any religious bumper sticker or saint in a jar.

Rather than answer their taunts, I managed the biggest grin of my life and reached into my school bag. Out came four examples of absolute Troll Perfection. I didn’t look down at my wonderful creations as I released them from the captivity of my schoolbag, but gloried in the stunned looks on the faces of my tormenters. With mouths wide open, they were finally speechless. Then came the moment of truth. I presented the daughters of darkness with two fabulous Creeple People pencil sets each. These weren’t just any Creeple People, they had been custom designed by my to be absolute Troll clones! They didn’t know what to say and seemed shocked at my generosity.

Needless to say, things changed. They removed me from their target list and were actually nice for the rest of the school year. Some might say it was because I gave them a bribe, but I prefer to think that the Trolls may have had some magic in them after all and finally decided to share it with me. I haven’t seen those girls since, but I’ll bet that they ended up as professional wrestlers or I.R.S. Agents. The end of the Trolls finally came about a year later, but they weren’t the only annoying little creatures that seemed to have power over the minds of the foolish during the days of my youth.

Leprechauns came out to play each and every year just around Saint Patrick’s Day. It wasn’t uncommon during the 1960’s to see people place ceramic Leprechauns in their windows, on their stoops or in gardens during the week of Saint Patrick’s Day. Most would place the wee folk back in storage the next day fearing bad luck would befall them if the statues were damaged, knocked over or stolen. As a result, there were always a number of neighborhood hooligans ready to challenge those taboos by knocking over or smashing them.

You didn’t have to be Irish to put a Leprechaun in the window. The idea was catching on and soon everyone was doing it. Leprechauns had captured the imaginations of most anyone hoping to grab some of the luck of the Irish. Otherwise sensible adults started placing tiny plastic Leprechauns in purses, safes, on desks and wrapping them with rubber bands around bankbooks. With a nationwide recession going on in the late 1960‘s, people trying to sell their homes placed the wee plastic figures in their mailboxes, basements and attics hoping for a faster sale. The Leprechaun cult grew. The influence of the little guys in green grew so strong that most of the teen troublemakers who got their kicks from knocking over lawn and garden statues stopped their nefarious activities for fear of being cursed by the wee folk. But it wasn’t just the wrath of Leprechauns being disrespected that brought fear into the lives of people in quiet bedroom communities.

Every neighborhood in those days seemed to have an eccentric. Most had legends bigger than their deeds. A thirty minute walk from our block brought you to a dark old house that reeked of spookiness. The lawn looked as though it had never been mowed. Windows were dirty and any interior views were obscured by drawn curtains and overgrown brush. The whole place was an eye soar, but there really wasn’t much anyone could do about it.

These were the days before a Home Owners Association could have you flogged for leaving your garden hose unraveled or see you deported to Cuba for flying an American Flag. It was a time before a local politician could look at your home, visualize a big box store and kick you out with the blessing of some Kangaroo Court.

When it came to this particular dark and foreboding house, the owner had a reputation that was equally frightening. They called her the Milk Maid. The nickname was based on a story that she had given poisoned milk and cookies to some children a few years back. It came as no surprise that this dastardly deed occurred on Halloween. Out of candy, she was supposed to have invited any children who came to her door in for milk and cookies. Everyone who accepted the offer became ill. According to my parents, the real story had more to do with the weather, then some evil deed. While it was true that a bunch of kids did get sick, it was also true that they had probably eaten too much candy and been out on a very rainy and unexpectedly cold Halloween without proper protection against the elements.

The next day parents of the children who fell ill flocked to the door of the creepy house and proceeded to question the woman inside after their kids told the tale of the milk and cookies. The police also investigated, but found nothing. There were plenty of sick children in the area who hadn’t come anywhere near the strange house. And as far as the Milk Maid goes, the police said she was just an elderly widow with some disabilities and an eccentric nature. She lived off of investments made from money she and her husband had earned when they sold off a few properties in the area before his death. Although hardly poor, she couldn’t bring her self to pay for house and lawn care. She had taken care of those kinds of things herself when she was young, so it was hard for her to imagine paying others to do the work now that she was older. Before the Milk Maid legend was born, neighbors chipped in and helped care for the house and lawn to keep their own property values in the black.

As if to snub her nose at the people who had branded her as the Milk Maid, the widow played a hand that set the whole area ablaze with fear and wonder. The one luxury she did allow herself was to receive the daily newspaper delivered to her door each day. Only the bravest of newspaper boys dared take on that duty. Well, I don’t know which brave soul delivered the paper to her on the day of the incident, but I do know that news of her deed spread like wildfire. Although I barely remember the whole mess, I do recall that the newspaper kid came up to leave the paper on her stoop and was suddenly faced with a glass jar. The jar was large, like a commercial-sized pickle jar. It was half filled with dirt and buried up to its waist in the dirt was a plastic Leprechaun!

In a neighborhood filled with folks of Irish Ancestry who all had their ceramic Leprechauns dutifully displayed in old-style, wood frame picture windows every Saint Patrick‘s Day, this was no joke. Actually, no one knew what it was. But with an almost instinctive reaction, people seemed to know exactly what to do. They gave the widow the same treatment they had given to some guy who had dogs that barked all night, kept biting kids and dug up neighborhood yards a few years back. A bunch of guys came late at night with paint cans and splashed brightly colored paint all over her house. They painted over her windows and drew upside down crosses on her door. But the glass jar remained. No one would touch it. She had placed it there and invited a curse on the neighborhood and she would have to be the one to repent and remove it. My parents and most of the still sane people left in the area just shook their heads when they heard about what happened.

The police were called and came by the next day, but they knew better than to get involved in a neighborhood dispute of this kind. Instead, they decided to get rid of the object that was causing so much discard. We heard that the police officers who responded to the call took the glass jar away. Despite protests from the widow, they told her that by leaving it on her stoop she would be purposely inciting people to acts of vandalism or riot. It was a technical point, but one which would probably have stood up in court.

The abominable glass jar Leprechaun went to some final resting place that day courtesy of the county police. A few months later, the widow moved from the Leprechaun obsessed suburbs to a big city condo where people worried less about the wee folk and more about being seen on the street and in elevators with just the right shopping bag. Even if you shopped at bargain stores, you always had a Macys or Bloomingdales shopping bag handy to put your stuff in.

It wasn’t long after the glass jar Leprechaun incident that the wee folk fell out of favor. Like the snakes said to be driven out of Ireland by Saint Patrick, the Leprechauns were driven from window panes, lawns, attics, basements and mailboxes everywhere by the changing winds of superstitious stupidity. As economic times got better, houses started to sell again and the wee folk were soon replaced in wood frame windows by sleeping cats, aggressive dogs, ceramic horses, frogs and vases filled with flowers. Gardens everywhere were again graced by big frogs, ducks and jockeys holding lanterns. But this time many were plastic. That helped put the neighborhood pranksters out of the ceramic statue breaking business.

Nowadays, people tend to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day at their favorite watering hole. While Leprechauns are still an enduring symbol of the day, they tend to be printed on cardboard and stuck to the wall. The few original plastic trolls and ceramic leprechauns that have survived from the 1960’s to the present by hiding in attics, basements and the backs of closets are probably being sold on EBay to buy Pokemon Cards, Beanie Babies, autographed Harry Potter first edition books or a ghost someone claims to have captured in a jar. So dig up your upside down Saint Joseph and stick him in the attic. He may be worth something someday. You can always sell him on EBay and buy a glass jar said to contain an upside down, partially buried Leprechaun once used to scare the wits out of some neighbors.

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