Have you ever visited a place that you knew as a child and were surprised at how small it was? Sometimes, you have to experience circumstances and places in your life that seemed threatening as a child and reframe them in the eyes of an adult.

For instance, a few years ago, I attended an alumni luncheon at Conestoga High School. It was the first time I returned since graduating those many years ago. As a student, I was overwhelmed by Conestoga with its gridlocked halls, lockers and its intense academic pressure to get into the already over-crowded colleges of the 1960s.

Even as an adult, I had Conestoga nightmares about not being able to find my locker or remember its combination, forgetting my homework, or wandering the hallways searching for my classroom. So, before the luncheon, I strayed off the lobby, passed the main office and down the long first floor hallway lined with lockers and classrooms. I stopped, gazed around and smiled, realizing I was breathing. I was in charge.

I haven’t had a Conestoga nightmare since.

A few days ago, for some unknown reason, an old Disney movie popped up on my YouTube feed. It was “Darby O’Gill and the Little People,” filmed in 1959 and costarring a 29-year-old Sean Connery as the romantic interest of O’Gill’s daughter, Katie. Three years later, Connery, would film his first of seven James Bond movies.

But looking at the old marquee poster, all I could think about was the Banshee, a creature whose monster-like face has haunted me all these years.

In Gaelic folklore, The Banshee, known as "Bean Sidhe" or “Woman Fairy of the Otherworld” has been described as pale and ethereal, with garments floating around her. And like her German cousin, the Lorelei, she is combing her long, tangled hair in the moonlight. Later the name was changed to a more English banshee, as used in the sentence, "to scream like a Banshee.” And when the Banshee was seen or heard wailing outside a window, it was an omen that a family member was about to die.

So, it was one summer many, many years ago, that our parents took my younger sister and me to the Anthony Wayne Theater to see the latest Walt Disney movie, “Darby O’Gill and the Little People” with its quaint scenes of old Ireland and dancing Leprechauns. I hadn’t yet learned that Disney liked to scare the be-jeepers out of kids.

The idyllic plot turns when O’Gill’s daughter Katie falls on the jagged rocks while chasing her horse in a storm.

Back in the house with the priest and family surrounding the stricken Katie, O’Gill hears the high-pitched wailing and opens the front door only to be face to face with the hideously, grotesque and ghoulish figure of the Banshee.

My sister and I both screamed and covered our eyes.

A few days later, we were playing outside, when storm clouds began to gather, and the wind began to blow. We dropped our toys and ran into the house crying “The Banshee!”

So, I put on my big girl pants, watched the video and braced myself for O’Gill to open his front door.

Needless to say, the Banshee looked like my grandmother’s sheer nylon curtains with a Halloween mask, illuminated by green lights. It made me smile. I was breathing and in control again.

So maybe like Darby O’Gill, Disney is telling us to re-open those old doors and face any fears of our past that may be haunting us. Life is short.

Oh, and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Deprecated: Automatic conversion of false to array is deprecated in /var/www/vhosts/chaddsfordlive/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-postratings/wp-postratings.php on line 111

Deprecated: Automatic conversion of false to array is deprecated in /var/www/vhosts/chaddsfordlive/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-postratings/wp-postratings.php on line 1213