Bois du Boise
Battle Park is a little forest area in Rocky Mount. As I remember it, there is a creek, or it may even be the Tar River, there are big gray craggy rocks, pines and black gum trees, walking trails, and several small waterfalls. My dad took me there a couple of times when I was a young girl.
Over the years, however, it's taken on an ominous atmosphere, at least in theory. "Don't go to Battle Park," locals warn. If you ask why, they'll look at each other and shake their heads, unable to even put into words the sort of wickedness that takes place there.
It's not just Battle Park. I believe that most towns, especially smaller ones, have the forest on the fringes of the settlement. It must be a very ancient and engrained sort of superstition or fear of the unknown. It has to be placed firmly somewhere. It's no good to have a general feeling of dis-ease, and so we find some dark mysterious place that seems like a good hiding place for anxiety. In my hometown, don't laugh, it was the little strip of wooded land that ran the back perimeter of the golf course. And the culprits of unidentified evil deeds were satanists. I remember clearly the stories. "Don't go out back of the golf course at night..." they lean closer and whisper..."satanists..." head nods and finger shakes. And, of course, I believed. Why wouldn't goat-slashing satanists hang out on a golf course? Would a soy bean field seem less ridiculous? Or the parking lot at the car wash?
But wooded terrain, as thin a strip as you may find, is still frightening to many people. There's still that element of the unfamiliar, the untamed. Werewolves, witches, cults, men with hooks for hands, where else would they spend their time? And I'm not making fun. I'm thinking in terms of Joseph Campbell and the idea of the collective unconscious in myth-making and of the myth of these shady groves of enchanted beings straddling our small towns and golf courses, always threatening to spill into the common areas and the greens, and of how much better we feel to shove all threats into these dark spaces rather than believe that the dark spaces are out in the town, that werewolves don't need a full moon and a tree for back-scratching anymore.
Over the years, however, it's taken on an ominous atmosphere, at least in theory. "Don't go to Battle Park," locals warn. If you ask why, they'll look at each other and shake their heads, unable to even put into words the sort of wickedness that takes place there.
It's not just Battle Park. I believe that most towns, especially smaller ones, have the forest on the fringes of the settlement. It must be a very ancient and engrained sort of superstition or fear of the unknown. It has to be placed firmly somewhere. It's no good to have a general feeling of dis-ease, and so we find some dark mysterious place that seems like a good hiding place for anxiety. In my hometown, don't laugh, it was the little strip of wooded land that ran the back perimeter of the golf course. And the culprits of unidentified evil deeds were satanists. I remember clearly the stories. "Don't go out back of the golf course at night..." they lean closer and whisper..."satanists..." head nods and finger shakes. And, of course, I believed. Why wouldn't goat-slashing satanists hang out on a golf course? Would a soy bean field seem less ridiculous? Or the parking lot at the car wash?
But wooded terrain, as thin a strip as you may find, is still frightening to many people. There's still that element of the unfamiliar, the untamed. Werewolves, witches, cults, men with hooks for hands, where else would they spend their time? And I'm not making fun. I'm thinking in terms of Joseph Campbell and the idea of the collective unconscious in myth-making and of the myth of these shady groves of enchanted beings straddling our small towns and golf courses, always threatening to spill into the common areas and the greens, and of how much better we feel to shove all threats into these dark spaces rather than believe that the dark spaces are out in the town, that werewolves don't need a full moon and a tree for back-scratching anymore.
posted by Autumn at 10:32 AM
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