By Neal Wooten
My dad could make some scary noises and he loved to scare me and my siblings. To this day I’m easily startled because Dad spent my entire childhood honing my fight-or-flight reflex by hiding behind something and belting out a blood-curdling sound of some kind.
He had an evil scientist laugh that was diabolical. I don’t know where he got it from or how he did it, but it was the most sinister laugh ever, and no matter how many times I heard it, it sent chills down my spine and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.
He could make a sound like a large cat, a mountain lion, or panther for example. One of his favorite things to do was hide in the woods at night as I or one of my sisters walked the one hundred feet or so to the outhouse way behind our house. And it fooled me every time. Thank goodness he did it while I was on the way back, because if he ever did it before I got to the outhouse, there would have been no reason to go… again.
He could mimic a police siren. I learned this as he was teaching me how to drive. Believe me, having my dad as a driving instructor was scary enough, but throw in a siren with no cars visible in my rearview mirror added to my anxiety.
After we had pinto beans or chili for supper, Dad could make some really loud noises, usually for the rest of the evening. Unlike the other noises, however, he never took credit for these. In fact, after letting one of these monsters rip, he always said, “That wasn’t me; that was your mother.”
Whether it was a specific sound or just a loud scream, clap, bang, or popping a bag or balloon, whatever it took to scare the living daylights out of you was what he did.
All of these scary sounds pale in comparison to the sound he made that was by far the scariest of them all. This one particular sound instilled the ultimate fear, and it didn’t come from his vocal cords. It was the sound created by the friction of his leather belt whipping through eight belt loops on denim jeans.
Dad could remove his belt faster than Bruce Lee could swing a pair of nun chucks and could wield that leather serpent better than Luke Skywalker could a lightsaber. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce and Luke tossed their weapons and ran at the sound of Dad removing his belt. I’d be right behind them yelling, “Luke, Bruce, wait for me.”