Legend Has It

There are a lot of big old oak trees in my neighborhood so mounds of leaves flank the streets. I want to drive through them, watch them blow about and tumble through the air in the rear view mirror. I want to hear the sound it makes. But I don't and here's why--someone once told me a story about a kid getting run over because they were hiding in a leaf pile alongside a curb. Who knows if it's true or from where the story originated. So I was driving--hugging that center line--and it got me thinking about urban legends. I remember when I was little there was a weariness to trick-or-treat candy because word spread that some kid had discovered a razor in one of their treats. (Razors seem to be a popular theme in these legends.) I'm sure the story went something like this: "he bit into it and it cut off his tongue," because shock and alarm seem to be the hallmarks of urban legends. It's likely that the razor bit never happened, that it was born of some parent trying to get their child to stop eating candy. And just like that the idea spread spontaneously, morphing from a tool to curb a child's sugar fix to a thing of fear. So there I'm driving and I can't stop laughing about all of the urban legends I've heard over the years and how funny it would be to come up with my own obscure legends but with a totally different edge. I'm thinking more on the lines of "if you stare at a full moon on an empty stomach you'll start craving pancakes every day for the rest of your life," or "if you walk backwards while whistling you are my sunshine, an owl will land on your head and you'll forever have dreams that you are flying." Something sweet and funny. But I wonder, without the element of fear present in these would it spread with the same gusto? I wonder if the current legends hold weight because we let fear be our guide for living...