Month: January 2018

My dad grew up in Peters Township, near a small area in PA called Canonsburg. In Canonsburg, on a road called Hahn Drive, there was rumored to be a murder. Throughout his childhood, neighbors and classmates always chattered about the legend of Hatchet Jack. The story goes like this:

There once was a man who lived on Hahn Drive at a beautiful estate with his father and mother, who was sadly dying of cancer. In his mother’s last days, her sister moved in to help care for her. Upon her death, his aunt stayed there with his father. One day, as Hatchet Jack returned from a day of work, he asked his aunt for a glass of orange juice. She responded sharply and said he was way too old for her to wait on him, prompting his father to get involved. He told Hatchet Jack to pack up his things and be ready to move out in 30 days. Infuriated by his father’s words, he went upstairs to fetch his 20 gauge shotgun. Hatchet Jack came back downstairs, shot them both in the head, unloaded the rest on his father, and dragged their bodies to the basement. There, he used the chainsaw (ironically enough, not a Hatchet) to brutally cut their bodies into pieces. Hatchet Jack collected what was left of their dismembered bodies into twelve garbage bags, and buried them in the orchard.

My father works for the state Department of Environmental Protection, and has for quite some time. In his late 20’s, he was working in Philly when they hired a man named Sherman Richardson. They got to talking and discovered they had grown up in the same area and went to the same high school. Sherm, as my father came to call him, had grown up in Canonsburg on Hahn Drive. Because they lived within 15 minutes of each other,  Sherm and my dad would occasionally share rides back to Pittsburgh.

Eventually, it came time for my father to move back to Pittsburgh and work there, after my parents wedding. In the last weeks before he made the move, he made a couple trips across Pennsylvania, one with Sherm. Weeks before, my father had mentioned to Sherman that he was looking for a place to live with my mom, aunt, and uncle, and he had suggested my father live in the old house on Hahn Drive that his sister now rents out. It was a beautiful property, and of course, my dad loved the idea. After corresponding with Sherm’s sister, he found that the address and house described fit perfectly the description of Hatchet Jack’s haunted house. This remained in the back of Dad’s mind, however, he figured he would rent it regardless. Hatchet Jack must have just been an old renter gone crazy. So on the car ride, he asked, “So Sherm, what ever happened back there at the house? Didn’t some kid go berserk and kill his relatives?” Having always been pretty quiet, Sherman didn’t say much in response; he kinda mumbled something and looked away. My dad continued, “Some crazy renters, huh?” Sherm agreed. “Well I sure hope that guy doesn’t turn up while I’m renting there. It’s a good thing I’ve got some guns of my own, not afraid to use them if I gotta. Don’t need some nutcase showing up at my door.”

They drove the rest of way to Pittsburgh, and Sherm showed him the property, driving up the long driveway and locking the gate behind him. They walked around the house and the orchard, and my dad told Sherm, he would definitely be in touch with his sister. Meanwhile, my dad had requested that my aunt ask around town and find out Hatchet Jack’s real name. Later that week they were together, and he asked, “Cindy, did you ever find out who committed those murders?” She responded, “Yeah, I think his name was, uh, Sherman Richardson.” 

Everything my father had said and done with Sherm came flooding back to him. Everything from the many moments they spent alone, to the threats he had made in the car. Naturally, when my mom and aunt found out, they refused to rent the place. My father called Sherman’s sister and made a deal. He got the rent lowered, promised to do some work around the place, and asked for the number of Sherman’s parole officer. They rented the house for a couple months until Sherman wanted to move home. He even suggested that they simply become his roommates, rather than forcing them to move out, but my parents figured it was best to move out. My uncles hunt on Sherm’s property to this day.

When my father called the parole officer, he discovered that Sherm was a model prisoner, got out early on good behavior, and hasn’t had a problem since. Maybe he had a psychotic break, or just snapped under a lifetime of abuse, but he returned to a normal life after prison. He got work, married, and died years later of a heart attack while fishing. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome back for part 2 of our family vacation to Cancún. Break out the tequila and limes (or what my brother thinks are “unripe lemons”), its gonna be a wild ride.

My family quickly made friends in Mexico. Most, if not all, were staff members at the resort. We became particularly close with the activities directors. We met them bicycling a couple days into our trip, and they convinced us to join water aerobics later that day. Again, because of our competitive tendencies, it was easy for them to persuade us into participating in the activities. All they had to do was simply challenge us to any sport, and bet that we wouldn’t win. Of course, we couldn’t turn down a challenge. This got us wrapped up in quite a few games throughout the week. The kids participated in daily volleyball games. At the end of the week, Emily, Jack, Ellie, Paige, Matt and I,  played our Mexican friends in a championship. We won the game with ultimately nothing to show for it but pride in our hearts and sand in our eyes. Jack, Matt, Dad, and Uncle Chris joined the daily pingpong tournaments. Ellie, Em, and I judged the sand castle building contest. The whole family got involved when we were challenged to games of pool one night. Winner stayed on the table. Jack and Matt lost to Carlos and Cristian. Then Em and I lost as well. Then Jack and Ellie lost, and most shocking of all, my father and his brother did too. We all were repeatedly roped into other miscellaneous events, such as singing karaoke, making bracelets, and playing a serious game of beach soccer. 

In the last post, I mentioned the stroke of genius which resulted in Jellie (Jack and Ellie) sharing a room. This, of course, was only occasionally problematic. Immediately upon arrival, we all retreated to our rooms and proceeded to nap. All evening. When it was time for dinner, many of us began to awake. First our parents, then aunt and uncle, Maige (Matt and Paige’s newly assigned couple name), and then Emily and I. However, Jack and Ellie continued to slumber behind locked doors, and would not wake up to any calls, texts, or banging on the door. Eventually, they sleepily emerged on their own terms. To Matt’s surprise and disgust, when he asked how they had slept through his knocking, Ellie simply responded, “I heard you, it was annoying.”

On a similar wavelength, later in the week, Ellie decided to take a post-beach bubble bath. Emily and I were both showering, and Jack was getting ready for dinner. As I got out of the shower, I heard some hushed commotion from Ellie and Jacks room (which was adjoined to ours with a door). I exchanged glances with Emily, who gave me a knowing look and said, “You’ve got to see this.” I cautiously turned the corner into their room, and bubbles. Bubbles everywhere. Ellie was in the overflowing bathtub, desperately trying to figure out how to turn off the jets, and Jack, dressed in his dinner attire, was now covered in bubbles from the tiring effort of keeping them off the floor. Trip by trip, he took armfuls of bubbles of the top of the growing pile. After filling both sinks, he moved to the shower and covered much of that as well. It was then we discovered that Ellie had utilized half the bottle of bubble bath. Finally, Emily and I got the jets to turn off, just as my aunt and uncle walked in, finding the four of us entirely covered in bubbles and not even close to being ready for dinner.

Part 2 of our vacation went just about as smoothly as part 1. Mom successfully cut open a coconut with a Swiss army knife, only a couple of us got early signs of sun poisoning, and we narrowly escaped leaving someone in the Cancún International Airport. I can’t think of much more I could ask for on a family vacation. I can hardly wait to see what the next one will bring.

 

The newest Staley family endeavor took ten of us on an adventure to Mexico. In search of an affordable family vacation, my mom and aunt scoured the internet and found an amazing deal on an all inclusive resort stay in Dreams Riviera Resort. My mother, father, aunt, uncle, sister (Emily), brother (Jack), cousins (Matt & Ellie), cousin’s girlfriend, and I travelled south and spent the week before Christmas on the beaches of Cancún. Like always, chaos and consequential laughter consumed the majority of our trip. Bear with me as I take two blog posts to explain some of the many highlights.

Day 1. Travel. It would not be a vacation planned by my parents if we didn’t leave in the ungodly early morning hours. At 2 a.m., we packed up the car and headed toward the airport. Just so you know, this gave us literally four and a half hours to navigate through the Pittsburgh airport to our flight.  Boarding and take off went smoothly. Jack fell asleep, Emily starting reading one of her seven books, Mom took pictures, and my aunt held on for dear life. Little did she know that our small plane would hit the worst turbulence I have ever encountered. I’m talking plane shuddering, flickering lights kind of turbulence. It woke me up from my much needed nap (which is a difficult feat to accomplish considering my sleeping abilities). Regardless, we landed safely and our vacation began.

For lodging, we divided into pairs and moved into rooms. We encompassed five rooms altogether. Interestingly enough, we all thought it would be a great idea to allow my fourteen year old brother and fifteen year old cousin to share their own room which was adjoined to mine and Emily’s. Jack and Ellie (fondly nicknamed “Jellie”) took a particular liking to the room service. They made routine calls to the front desk and likely consumed more than the rest of us combined. Jellie’s relationship with room service proved to be resourceful when we were put in a tight situation later that week.

 

Easily entertained as we may be, we Staley kids often play a game similar to the “dare” part of truth or dare. It’s called “The Odds Game“. It goes like this. One person addresses another with “What are the odds of you doing (insert dare here) …?” Based on the absurdity of the task, the other person will pick a range, “One out of ten,” for example. A third person will count down from three. On one, the “darer” and “daree” will each say a number within that range. If they both say the same number, the “daree” must complete the task, or get willingly slapped by all involved parties. Jack is very often victim to this game. A couple nights into our trip, we were walking back to our rooms at the end of the night as we walked past the hot tub. My older sister dared Jack to jump into it, fully clothed, and sure enough, they guessed the same number. So he took of his shoes and socks, and cannonballed into the empty hot tub.

After floating around in there for a couple minutes, he got out, and walked back to the room sopping wet. About ten minutes later, after changing into dry clothes, we heard a quiet apprehensive voice from Jellie’s room say “uhh, guys?” Little did he know, in the pocket of his pants was his new iPhone. In a mad panic, he called room service requested, “raw rice asap”, which did in fact come. We did all we could to restore Jack’s phone to working conditions; nonetheless, it was too little too late for Jack’s already dead phone.