Spiders

When I took photographs of this spider yesterday, I wasn't thinking of anything except taking the pictures. Tonight, however, I remember two spider tales from childhood.

Tale 1: A large hairy wolf spider sat in the middle of the basement steps, stopping me and my brother David (Billy, were you there?) from going any further. I think we were in Sunday clothes. My mother was impatient with our queasiness, so she strode past us with one spectator pump in her hand. She slapped the spider and kept going, missing the scores of little spiderlings flung in all directions into the basement. Unforgettable creepiness about which I have written.

Tale 2: During a TV commercial, I went into "my" bathroom next to the den and came straight out. A huge spider was in the tub. David said he'd get it, but he came out just as quickly as he went in, having done nothing. I have no memory of what happened, but I think we left the spider to its own, and by the time I went back in hours later, it had disappeared.

This spider was neither threatening nor threatened by my presence.

(Hmm. I just looked up wolf spiders on the Internet, and they look like my spider. I'm glad he wasn't aggressive. The bite is fearsome.)