Oh No

I was walking down the street minding my own business, when this poster in the window of a local shop stopped me dead in my tracks and made me laugh with Halloween-y glee. Perhaps I should attend my memorial service. I imagine few people have that opportunity. I wonder if they'll have cake.

This seems like a good time to tell you all about my adopted nom de blog. There's an old Appalachian ballad known around these parts as "The Knoxville Girl." It's thought to be a derivation of a 19th century Irish murder ballad called "The Wexford Girl."

The ballad begins pretty innocuously:

I met a little girl in Knoxville

A town we all know well

And every Sunday evening

Out in her home I'd dwell.

Unfortunately, the story goes downhill from there:

We went to take an evening walk

About a mile from town

I picked a stick up off the ground

And knocked that fair girl down.

To make a long ballad short, he kills her, throws her in the river, she floats down to Knoxville, and he's put in jail for her murder. This is Halloween material, to sing by the light of a full moon.

And yes, I knew this when I chose my name. Blame it on my black sense of humor. Or living in the town that brought you the Body Farm.

Now, where's that cake?