Norristown PA, a scary tale...

How well I remember Norristown from my time in America. Norristown was just along the way from King of Prussia and the first time I drove through it I was frightened by its stillness and the emptiness of the place. I don’t just mean the lack of people; it was empty like a cupboard drawer that contains nothing but dust and maybe, just maybe, one large spider hiding right at the back.  

Norristown seemed to me to be just a little to the left of the twilight zone, the kind of place that Stephen King might write about. Empty rocking chairs on empty porches on empty streets, screened doors that looked as if something not quite human might slip through them out onto the street and disappear down the storm drain, and dirty windows with dirty curtains hiding even dirtier secrets.

In short, Norristown struck me as not quite wholesome and I was always happier once I’d passed through it.

Of course, the impressions of a stranger in a strange place are often wrong. But read the article below, it’s a report about a Norristown woman who was hospitalised after being badly mauled by a rabid skunk. Not only did the skunk calmly walk over to the woman - no doubt tipping his hat before beginning to devour her - but it seems that his friend the fox was involved and created a diversion. The Norristown police, whose best advice seems to be don’t trust the birds and squirrels, seem wholly disinterested in the attack (scared maybe) and the town skunk expert talks about a condition that is quite like rabies but isn’t…just what is it then? Then there’s that mysterious bite form. Do Norristown folk suffer so many bites that the town needs a form to record them? 

All very unsettling, disconcerting even.

If I were Stephen King I might think that something was out of sync in Norristown. If I were he I might think that some dark force was at large, a force that could make Norristown an even more unpleasant place to live…

Article from the Norristown Patch - 

"An elderly woman was taken to the hospital Sept. 19 after being bitten several times by a skunk that is suspected of having rabies, say authorities.

Soon after Norristown police heard a dispatch call about a fox on 1600 the block of New Hope Street in Norristown in the late afternoon of Sept. 19, they heard a more serious call—this one about an animal biting someone on the same block, say police.

Norristown police arrived at New Hope Street and spoke with a woman who had called in a complaint, according to a police report. The woman told police that she had seen a skunk in her yard earlier but was more worried about a fox that she said she had seen near her patio, say police. The woman was told that if she stops feeding the birds and squirrels, then the fox should stop coming around, according to the report. 

During that time, the county dispatch reported that a 90-year-old woman who had been in the same block of New Hope Street had been taken to a hospital by Plymouth EMS after she received several skunk bites, say police. 

Norristown police spoke with the woman’s son, who said that his mother had been in her yard when a skunk walked over to her, and attacked her, according to the report. The skunk had bitten one of the woman’s hands to the point that one of the woman’s fingertips had almost been bitten off, say police. The skunk also bit the toes and heels of the woman’s right foot, say police.

The hospital staff filled out a bite form that was to be given to the Montgomery County Health Department, according to the report.

The story reached Chris Heil, a Pennsylvania Game Commission wildlife conservation officer in the county.

“Every year we have numerous animal-human conflicts,” said Heil to Patch.com. “Sometimes these animals do have rabies, and sometimes they have conditions that are like rabies.” 

Heil cautions people to stay away from wildlife.”

Yes, stay away from the wildlife in Norristown, don’t feed the birds and if you see a fox smoking a pipe on a porch swing don’t approach him… run like hell!