The Orange Monster Of North Shore

*This blog entry is not about Donald J. Trump

How far back does your memory go, and what would you say if I asked you about your earliest memories of the things you feared the most?

Everyone has or has had a boogeyman. For me, I’m not sure if you have read it, but something was in my room, and it terrorized me. I could even see it, and in my archives you can find the story.

But that’s not what I’m writing about tonight. It’s not a supernatural monster I’m referring to, either.

A web image search has provided nothing. The word searches, nothing. As far as the world is concerned, it never existed. But I know it was real.

In 1964, I remember it. By 1966, it had ruined my summer life. It came on a regular schedule, two days a week, but I don’t remember which ones. Its arrival was announced suddenly, no warning given. The monster was just there.

It was orange. Today I would know that color as Safety Orange, a color now reserved for certain brands of heavy equipment but replaced mostly by Safety Yellow.

The beast had a roar. It was fierce. And even if the neighborhood kids laughed at me for running indoors where my mother was closing windows that faced the street, I’m still here while some others are gone. Cancer, premature aging complications. Whatever.

This extraordinary writer has not only the best image I could find (it’s the one at the top) but he describes perfectly the same terror it induced in me. Please go read this excellent and humorous article.

The monster was a straight truck; that is to say, not a combination vehicle like a tractor-trailer rig. It was a truck with frame extended to house a flatbed deck. On this deck were a large tank behind the cab, then a huge drum sprayer that sprayed insecticide up at the trees lining the street, but it was so powerful that the droplets always went over the house and into the back yard, right onto the ground where our well was.

The monster’s sprayer was so powerful that I can still hear it, have never forgotten it, will still hear it as long as I live. The leaves and branches being blown as if some storm were coming is both a vision and a sound that still plays in my mind like a film loop. A horror movie in shorthand.

The deck had a seat for an operator to the immediate right. He was on the rear end of the deck.

Although he directed the angle of the sprayer, up or down, and could also turn the deck at shallow angles to his left or right, the deck could not be turned to face the left side of the vehicle. He always faced right.

This made it necessary for the driver to ride down the street, turn around, and come back to spray the side which was across the street. So far, we have two runs on my street. The neighborhood was not the one street, but almost some elliptic loop with a few side streets. And the street on the side of the neighbor’s house across the street from me was so close that he’d get us again. Then I heard the truck turn around at the top of my street (Dutch Ship Road) where it met that street (Edgewater Road) and go back down the other side. That’s four near passes so far. It terrified me.

But worse perhaps was the spray operator. He was the same guy, for years, and his weathered, expressionless face was washed of natural colors. Hardhat and gloves with his SHA uniform but no gas mask. I knew after a while that he had seen me running. I got the feeling he rather enjoyed it.

After writing about this in a Facebook group some years ago, someone commented that she was related to the Old Man of the Orange Monster of North Shore. I don’t remember what she said.

Being away for the 1970 Brood X cicada event, which I wrote about previously, made me think of why, on returning home, I heard none of the din that should still have been lingering. In other words, it should have been too soon for the event to have been completely over.

That made me remember the Orange Monster, which wasn’t grounded until a year or two later. And by grounded, that is exactly what I mean. Passing the SHA garage and yard in the autumn of 1973, I saw the decks with sprayers still attached sitting on the gravel, the trucks with their long frames either auctioned off or fitted with light dump truck bins.

Spraying the state had been outlawed.

During the terrible reign of the monster, yes, birds fell out of trees. Hell. Nests fell to the ground, knocked out after being dislodged by the beast’s dragon breath. Yep. They had pretty, delicate robin’s eggs in them. Dead bugs fell like rain. Moths, bees, caterpillars and other airborne or tree dwellers. You name it.

Sometimes bats would get all screwy and run into a house, then fall into the grass. People were afraid that these occasional victims were rabid, but bats can do things like that (maybe they’re extraterrestrial beings that have not adapted well).

Seriously, I don’t know the extent of damage to wildlife but the book “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson published in 1962 was a damning assessment of pesticide use and its consequences to the environment. Chemicals wound up in waterways, wells, vegetable and grain harvests and more, and ultimately affected us.

She was more right than any detail she may have erred on. Of course, she was promptly and savagely attacked by corporations and the political right, which combined were effective in reducing her credibility and in the process made her appear to be a crank scholar. Worst of all, she was a woman, and fair game for sexist behavior from those who opposed her conclusions.

DDT

One reason I did not hear much of Brood X on my return from Carolina was that one of the properties of DDT that made it appealing was that it readily got absorbed by insects through their exoskeletons. So cicadas, hoppers, crickets and all insects with exoskeletons were wiped out almost on contact. While it wasn’t as well absorbed by mammals through contact with the epidermis, prolonged or repeated contact was eventually found to potentially cause cancer.

The reason it was eventually banned in the United States was the possibility that it was a carcinogen, and retained for long periods of time in the soil or plants, with a half life of about 15 years, give or take, so it kept killing pests well after applications.

That kind of killing power made it highly desirable; it showed this power during World War Two in the efforts to battle malaria and even Bubonic plague. It eradicated bedbugs in the states, along with body lice and other nasties, and was sprayed on everything from cotton to tomato crops. It was effective at disease control in Germany in 1943-44 with typhus.

However, and surely Carson had done excellent research, DDT was impossible to use without repeated applications, and in a marine or freshwater ecosystem, where runoff accumulated, the half life turned into a staggering 150 years. By 1972, experts had presented Carson’s case, now backed up with a wealth of anecdotal evidence, to the effect that in the United States it was banned.

The Orange Monster’s roar ceased, and it was seen no more.

With such a half life, and with the fierce attack it inflicted on the central nervous system, I’m forced to think back to 1970 and I hear the words: “Silent Spring”.

I remember how ignorant I was. Naive. Cicadas were, to me, locusts. That’s what I was told. They brought plagues and were themselves a plague. I had a natural aversion to insects and that became a phobia because I saw the hysteria apparent in others when dealing with them.

For pity’s sake, you’d think they were facing off with snakes, and none of that helped me. My own phobia extended well into my adulthood but is mostly a memory now.

I’ve gone outside at night this past week to smoke. In the short time it took, up to five cicadas would drop from the tree, climb up my pants legs or down my shirt, and hitch a ride inside. There was a time I’d have been sobbing in hysterical revulsion. Now I just get rid of them. I release some outside, but opening the door risks more coming in. So I give them a ride down the U-bend to the stygian ferry. It’s a shame. They really are remarkable creatures. Fascinating. And with birds gorging on them, the food chain is a greased machine this year. Quite amazing, actually.

Yes. The Orange Monster was real. I hid from it. I had nightmares of it. And yes, the dangers off DDT were also real.

Now that the story is told, I ask again: what was your boogeyman? I challenge you to write about it. As a blogger, unless you have a specialized sponsor, you are free to explore your passions, your fears, your past. And why not engage? You have experience and insight no one else does. The world is a sick place. Make it better.