When I was growing up, people often made their own entertainment, playing music, telling stories, and sometimes doing impersonations. My dad would sometime dress up in his overalls and weird aviator cap and pretend to be Snuffy Smith. He would adopt an exaggerated draw and fill his lower lip with a big dip of snuff and entertain everyone with his tales of the mountaineer’s exploits. But Snuffy wasn’t his only persona…
In the early 1970’s, there was a Momo scare that gripped the country. Momo, short for the Missouri Monster, had been sighted by multiple people. Hair samples, plaster cast footprint, personal accounts, and scientific analysis established that Momo was a large, hairy, ape-like creature that smelled like something that had been dead for a while. The Burke County Momo was far scarier, and from personal experience, I can say the two creatures are definitely not related.
I have seen and heard Momo on several occasions. The Upper Creek Momo was short, maybe 5 feet 6 inches tall and wore sized 7 1/2 D brogans and blue or grey Dickey’s pants, eerily similar to the ones my dad wore. Often, the Upper Creek Momo also smelled quite bad, sweaty with a splash of eau d’pig manure. Momo would usually appear wearing a World War II gas mask and it was widely known that he preferred to hangout in the root cellar. Nothing in this world could strike more fear into me, my siblings, or my cousins like Momo. Some of my friends also met Momo.
My mom and Frances Church were closer than two peas in a pod and one day, Frances’s youngest son Bobby, came over to spend the night. Even though he had the personality of a dish rag, we were excited about having a friend sleep over. Glenn, Bobby, and I caught crawdads, periwinkles, and grampers down by the creek all afternoon. When bedtime came, we were still talking, wrestling, and playing. My mom had told us to quieten down, or we might wake up Momo. Nothing struck fear into our hearts like the name Momo and Glenn and I immediately recognized the gravity of the situation. Bobby, however, who was a couple of years older than me, was like a moth drawn to a flame. He kept messing around and was trying to jump from bed to bed. He had heard the tales, but he had never actually seen Momo for himself.
I was the first to hear Momo outside the house. He was yelling and growling and throwing things up on the tin roof outside our second story farmhouse. We heard him kicking at the door and trying to come in the house. We screamed for help, but none would come. Our obvious and well-placed terror had quickly consumed Bobby and he was trembling and sobbing in fear. Now, we could hear Momo in the house with his shuffling gait followed by an occasional stomp. His continuous growls gave away the fact that Momo was headed towards the stairs. Stomp, he was on the first step! Stomp, he was on the second step! We scrambled to try and find some place to hide. Bobby headed for the ghost room, the place where my dad kept all his clothes. Idiot! Bobby had just sealed his doom. I don’t know where Glenn hid; he was like a contortionist and could hide in a dresser drawer if need be. Even today, he can creep around quieter than a mouse peeing on cotton. Anyway, Glenn and Bobby were on their own now. When it came to Momo, all fraternal bonds and commitments to mankind were broken.
As Momo topped the stairs, I stopped breathing to figure which way he would go. I heard Bobby making a commotion in my dad’s closet. Idiot! Bobby was going to have to die for such ignorance. Momo headed towards the closet and all I could think of was making it to the stairs and escaping while Momo ripped poor Bobby limb by limb. I heard Bobby scream and he came blasting out of the closet, running back towards our bedroom. Idiot! He didn’t know the ways of Momo. Now, we would all surely perish. Bobby leaped for Glenn’s bed, launching himself into the air from a good 15 feet away. Bruce Jenner couldn’t have caught him that night. I watched in slow motion as Bobby missed the bed and his head went through the sheet rock wall and he screamed like a mashed cat. I thought for sure he might be on his way to the pearly gates. Momo must have been satisfied with the damage he had done and soon my mom was tending to the terror-stricken and concussed Bobby.
Bobby never spent the night with us again for some reason. The hole in the sheet rock remained for years although my dad did try to make a patch with screen wire. That didn’t do any good because the other demons that lived in the attic could now watch us while we slept. Between the devil, the ghosts, rawhide-and-skinny-bones, and Momo, I didn’t sleep for the next ten years. But those are tales for another occasion.
