I Think She Haunted Him

November 7, 2024November 7, 2024 / animar64 / 2 Comments

On my first trip to Fox Lake, Wisconsin by son took me to see a memorial dedicated to Bunny Berigan.

I love swing music so of course I was familiar with Bunny Berigan’s music. He was wonderful:

Photo A.M. Moscoso October 17,2024 Saint Mary’s Cemetery Fox Lake Wisconsin, USA

Last month I was back in Fox Lake to visit my son and his family for Halloween ( my FAVE HOLIDAY ) and he chose Saint Mary’s for me to explore and take photos of. He was determined to find Bunny’s grave . Eventually have walking around for a bit, we did we found Bunny’s well tended grave with a trumpet on his headstone.

But this wasn’t just Bunny’s grave resting that we found under a weather worn tree , this was a family grave site.

Photo A.M. Moscoso October 17,2024 Saint Mary’s Cemetery Fox Lake Wisconsin, USA ” Joyce “Jo,” Berigan Born April 22, 1936, and died on July 4, 2011

After I got home and started to organize my cemetery pictures, I checked the names on the headstones to make sure I had the relationships to Bunny down correctly.

His daughter Joyce was an easy one because her information is right there on her memorial. His parents were easy to verify too. His brother Donald is buried behind him.

Bunny Berigan and his brother Donald are being pulled by their dogs, Tubby and Rover. Bunny is on the left and Donald is on the right.

Resting at the foot of Bunny’s grave is his daughter Barbara Ann.

Barbara Ann died in infancy and she died on Bunny’s Birthday- which was November 2nd.

It was a sad thing to run across, sadder still is that when I put her name into Wikipedia, I got the message:

Barbara Ann Berigan does not exist.

Photo A.M. Moscoso October 17,2024 Saint Mary’s Cemetery Fox Lake Wisconsin, USA

Bunny Berigan was only 33 years old when he died in New York City.

His suffered from cirrhosis which had severely damaged his liver. He was told to stop drinking and to stop playing the trumpet and he did neither of those things. People have written about why Bunny drank hard- the stresses of managing his career being one. But I’m not so sure about that.

I think that little memorial at the foot of his grave may have made his life a little harder to live and a little harder to bear.

Barbara Ann may not exist in the Wikipedia Universe, but she existed in her Father’s and maybe she haunted him as children who leave us early do.

For Writober Halloween Photo challenge: HAUNTING

Happy Halloween

October 31, 2024 / animar64 / 1 Comment

A.M. Moscoso
October 31st.2024

Happy Halloween

from my home

and the best dog in the world

Mr. Hamish Macbeth

Hamish Macbeth
October 31st 2023
By A.M. Moscoso

The War On Halloween

October 31, 2024October 31, 2024 / animar64 / 4 Comments

Photo A.M. Moscoso
New Orleans Halloween

Every Election year here in the USA, we are treated to the totally false narrative that there is a ” War on Christmas. ”

The HUMONGOUS LIE is that you are not allowed to say, ” Merry Christmas “, that you can’t jingle your bells, that you can’t ho ho ho.

Of course that is all Hogwash and Poppycock.

There was only ever one outright war on a holiday- there was a war on Halloween waged by the Christians and guess what- the Pagans lost.

Halloween 2015
Photo A.M. Moscoso

The Halloween that we celebrate and that I do dearly and truly love bears no resemblance to Samhain. Regardless, there are people who celebrate Samhain and those festivals are pretty awesome, but the sad truth is once the Festival of the Dead was sanitized, the flavor and the spirit of that celebration were lost. It was stamped out, it is no more.

Jamie Wyeth ” Warm Halloween “

That being said, some Christian sects won’t say the ” H ” word. They call it Harvest this or Fall that and if they throw a party and invite you, there is a dress code. You can’t dress up as Devils or Witches, I’m not sure where they fall on Vampires and Zombies. However, I used to work in a Halloween shop and we used to sell halos and angel’s wings and clown costumes and cowboys to customers attending, ” Family Fall Festival Night ” or whatever the heck they called it. So you know, you could wear a costume as long as it was ‘family friendly’ and didn’t hint at S-E-X.

I’ve been to those Family Festivals too, I’m not sure why it is, but at the pot lucks, they always served Nachos with the works and it was always pretty tasty. Plus it was fun. No kidding. Also, most of those festivals played the same games as the ones at the darker versions of their party- which I found curious.

In the end this new version of Halloween, and it wears many masks ( which is fitting, when you think about it ). Celebrating it in the way you chose to really does speak to the spirit of the holiday.

But it would be fitting, on this night, to take a moment to spare a thought and light a candle to the long gone Ghost of Halloween.