The Black Bag Archive

The Black Bag Archive. Number Five: The Horror.

< last week inscriptions, corrections, revisions

This picture was used as the cover illustration for a record album recorded by a garage band who called themselves "Dragonfly". I used to have a copy of this record way back when.

As I’ve mentioned before, the various “archives” of pictures and notes are the boxes, and bags of work that we took from Pete’s apartment and storage space. Some of these are collections that Pete assembled himself and packed away for storage. Other boxes are what we assembled from piles, and pieces of work that we found as we cleaned. The fifth archive is such a collection: several folders and envelopes gathered in a plastic trash bag. Of special interest was the Horror Stories envelope.

I want to start out this week by reminding my few readers that the stuff I’m writing about right now happened over fifty years ago. Of course, being engaged in this project, I have spent no small amount of time reading Pete’s notes, and most recently, seeing pictures that I haven’t seen since I was a kid.  I’m waking up stories that have slept for decades. I’m giving you my recollections as they arise. 

 But these accounts are just that: my sometimes patchy recollections from a very long time ago. They are only as accurate as memory.

 I met Pete in August of 1963. My family was visiting our friends, the Meade family, in California. The Meades had been our neighbors in Michigan. They moved to La Habra some time in ’61 or ’62.

As I mentioned, Pete lived a couple houses up from the Meades, and they used to let Pete pass through their yard to get up to the Heights. I remember thinking he was nice, for a big kid, and he could do frog sounds. 

 My brothers and I didn’t realize that our summer visit was actually a scouting expedition. We moved to La Habra in December of ’63. I was 11 years old, and in the 6^th grade.  Pete and I became friends during that year.

Pete was an odd sort of friend. The difference in our ages didn’t matter to him, but still, I was a kid, and he was an adult. As I mentioned last week, you didn’t invite Pete to go ride skateboards with your pals. But almost every time we visited the Meades, I’d head up to his house, and spend some time. One of the very cool things about visiting Pete were his scary stories.

 We’ve seen The Cone, and other monsters in “The Deep Dark Hole”.  Now we’ll get to visit The Terrible Thing, The Midnight Terror, and You Made Marks in My Driveway. Oh. and Mold To You! We’ll see Mold To You, also.

I recall, at least, the skeletons of these four tales. Pete used to love to scare the crap out of us kids with this stuff. He put on a one man show, starring as the creepy melodramatic narrator, all the characters, and filling in the tale with eerie sound effects, and flashing these pictures at us with a gargled scream. My youngest brother had nightmares over this stuff.

Actually, there was less in this collection than I had hoped. I had hoped to find more illustrations, and some written material to go with them. Perhaps it will surface in another box or folder. All of these pictures are sketches for horror movies, and they’re done on paper, cardboard, and even on the covers from spiral notebooks.

We’ll start with The Terrible Thing: 

 

Oilwell man pickup/ oilwell hills/Oilman telling me stories of long ago up there

1970
A weird dream In lower wash of oilwell/ of deserted oil machinery/ was a long dead man hanging [between] two transformer poles/ hanging [by] the neck bones/ maybe part of the "Joseph" story, "The Terrible Thing"

 

"Joseph!"  screamed mother- They said he was still alive when they left him by that old engine house./ A most unusual horror story ever- all about the oilwell hills- Drawn in 1961 by Pete Hampton

I heard of the accident and then I rushed to the scene by the oilwell. I didn't look, I already knew who it was. Joseph, my real husband. It was terrible poor Joseph..

Drunk Roy Parker: Ah hush, Mary. She never been herself since the damn accident
Ah, you're drunk, Roy...

Late one night we were sitting by the fireplace and then suddenly I heard a deep growling sound outside in the night.
"I never heard a sound like that before..."
"Roy, what... "

Martha sees Joseph in her room at night. A tapping in the dark-
A most realistic horrifying movie ever made we hope, but it will cost $1000. for right equipment- Actual sounds of ancient oilwell hills in show. This place is now gone to so-called progress. 



Next week: Mold to you, and other tales>