Happy Hour Twenty-Nine: The Hefty Bag in the Cemetery

Paranoia Happy Hour

What happens when Alma Rosa’s husband opens a hefty bag he found abandoned on a cemetery gravestone? Well, when your do-gooder hubby picks up litter to help the community, things can get a little hairy. This story involves a town on edge due to a recent murder, Alma Rosa’s folkloric Mexican upbringing, and the absolute possibility of witchcraft.

And for anyone curious about the murder of David Grubbs in Ashland, Oregon, here’s a link to September 2021 article by Medium on the still unsolved case.

Alma Rosa’s Boo Club: Obit by Victoria Chang
Description from Copper Canyon Press: “After her mother died, poet Victoria Chang refused to write elegies. Rather, she distilled her grief during a feverish two weeks by writing scores of poetic obituaries for all she lost in the world. In Obit, longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award in Poetry, Chang writes of “the way memory gets up after someone has died and starts walking.” These poems reinvent the form of newspaper obituary to both name what has died (“civility,” “language,” “the future,” “Mother’s blue dress”) and the cultural impact of death on the living. Whereas elegy attempts to immortalize the dead, an obituary expresses loss, and the love for the dead becomes a conduit for self-expression. In this unflinching and lyrical book, Chang meets her grief and creates a powerful testament for the living.”

Alma Rosa’s Shares Not Scares: Volunteer with St. Vincent De Paul!
From the SSVPISA.org site: The mission of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is “a network of friends, inspired by Gospel values, growing in holiness and building a more just world through personal relationships with and service to people in need.”

Members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (known as “Vincentians”) are men and women who strive to grow spiritually by offering person-to-person service to neighbors in need. Our members represent all ages, every race, and all incomes, and all are gifted with awareness that the blessings of time, talent, and treasure are to be shared with neighbors in need.

And some links to withcraft-y things mentioned during the story:

• Nov 27, 2019 - Santería or voodoo, they’re used to headless chickens at Tampa cemetery
• May 10, 2014 - Are voodoo rituals behind the growing number of decapitated roosters being dumped in Las Vegas streets?
• Feb 28, 2008 - Blog on TreasureNet: Found My First Cache, 2 Coconuts & 1 Dead Rooster !!