In the event you’re studying this, you clearly survived June 13, the one Friday the thirteenth we’ll see in 2025.
However don’t get too cocky. We’ll face three such unfortunate Fridays in 2026, the utmost attainable in a calendar yr, in line with TimeAndDate.com, an astronomy web site.
In the event you’re like me, you gained’t see any of them coming. Extra possible, your partner or different cherished one will casually point out the day’s arrival throughout breakfast, a lot as my spouse did again in June. That’s once I predictably responded:
“At any time when it’s Friday the thirteenth, I consider Cuz Strickland.”
After which my spouse nodded silently, hoping I wouldn’t inform her but once more about bowhunting southern Mississippi with Cuz on Friday the thirteenth in November 1998. However I did anyway. I like reminding her of my decades-old friendship with Cuz, Mossy Oak Camo’s longtime media guru, TV character, and “Fistful of Dust” podcast host.
“Yep. Ol’ Cuz hates Friday the thirteenth nearly as a lot as he hates snakes,” I mentioned. “Heh, heh. Yep. Cuz and I ought to have stayed in camp that morning.”
My spouse’s espresso cup didn’t budge from her lips as she silently signaled me to cease. She’s heard the story almost each Friday the thirteenth for 27 years. That’s 44 retellings, in line with TimeAndDate.com.
I don’t assume I’ve ever written this story, nevertheless, and my spouse absolutely hasn’t shared it, so right here’s the story:
As Cuz and I ate our pre-dawn breakfast that heat day, he fretted about defying the well-known superstition of Friday the thirteenth. He wasn’t joking. I knew he would’ve stayed in mattress if not feeling obligated to videotape my bowhunt.
A half-hour later, we stood atop a steep creekbank, scanning eroded trails with our headlamps for a protected descent. Cuz — toting a state-of-the-Nineteen Nineties video digital camera, which matched the dimensions and weight of a transportable air-conditioner — stepped down first to prepared the ground.
Abruptly, I noticed Cuz’s headlamp — nonetheless strapped round his head — barrel-rolling down the 15-foot embankment, its beam flickering off tree trunks, and cartwheeling throughout branches above and the gurgling creek under. Cuz, being a very good Christian, seldom swears, however he made a number of exceptions throughout his speedy descent and bone-bruising halt.
After retrieving and reassembling Cuz’s battered and scattered components, we took inventory of his video digital camera and muddied gear. Amazingly, every part snapped again into place. The digital camera’s little inexperienced lights twinkled their assurances whereas Cuz blinked his.
We then climbed the alternative creekbank and pressed on, cautious to not communicate of Friday the thirteenth and ponder the knowledge of spending our morning 20 ft excessive in treestands. However we survived the morning, as did the deer passing by past arrow vary after daybreak. When quitting round 11 a.m., Cuz descended first after decreasing his pack with a rope. Then he unclipped his pack and slung it over his shoulder as I hauled up the rope to connect the digital camera.
Simply as I started decreasing it, I paused.
That’s odd. The place did Cuz go?
A split-second later, I noticed a blur of Mossy Oak camo busting via brush and trampling a strip of saplings, spewing bark and woodchips in its wake. It was Cuz! And I swear he was cursing once more, however louder and extra distressed than earlier than.
As soon as his churning legs acquired him on a flat airplane and in full flight, Cuz’s proper hand abruptly shot up, snatched his cap, and swung it wildly round his head as if swatting demons. Then he vanished, reappeared, and vanished once more via the creek backside, his shouts and snapping branches serving to me observe his route. Elevating my binoculars, I watched him cease twice to look again and yell, solely to shoot off seconds in a while a brand new tangent, his camo cap once more chopping air like a doomed helicopter.
Hmm. Pressed to guess, I’d swear one thing was chasing him.
Ultimately, the woods fell silent and Cuz cautiously returned, his head snapping backwards and forwards, eyes warily scanning. Lastly, he stopped at a prudent distance and yelled contemporary directions:
“Watch out while you decrease the digital camera and climb down. There’s a wasp nest within the floor by our tree. I lowered my pack onto it. Once I picked it up, they acquired after me.”
I did as instructed, decreasing the digital camera, my bow, and equipment on the tree’s reverse facet. Detecting solely scattered yellowjackets launching from the outlet, I descended, grabbed every part, and hurried towards Cuz, considering I eluded the lookouts.
Seconds later, the subterranean nest gushed one other demonic wave. We fled for Cuz’s truck, arms full and packs flapping, improvising a protection by by some means swatting and infrequently crushing wasps as they drilled our necks, noses, and noggins.
As soon as in camp, we pressed ice to our welts and washed and bandaged our wounds as Cuz commenced second-guessing.
“I knew we shouldn’t have gone out this morning,” he mentioned disgustedly. “I knew higher. I knew it!”
I knew Cuz was critical. Like most Yankees, I as soon as considered superstitions with extra curiosity than respect. Then I served alongside Southerners within the Navy within the late Nineteen Seventies, and discovered they decide superstitions as critically as they do grits, collard greens, and boiled peanuts. As Betsy Cribb Watson wrote in Southern Residing journal, Southerners deal with hand-me-down superstitions like issues of fine hygiene, “as routine because the outdated rinse-and-repeat.”
However they’ve much more superstitions than cleaning soap or washcloths. When searching from Southern deer camps, you shortly be taught to not lay your hat on a mattress or peer on the sliver of a brand new moon via overhead limbs. Each offenses convey dangerous luck. You grasp your hat on a peg, and also you stroll right into a clearing earlier than viewing a brand new moon.
Likewise, for those who’re driving out to hunt and a rabbit crosses the street forward from proper to left, you may as nicely return dwelling. While you first noticed that rabbit, he was in the fitting, however then he went fallacious. That heralds dangerous luck.
So scoff for those who like, however don’t say you weren’t warned for those who dare to go icefishing subsequent yr on Feb. 13. Or river fishing March 13. Or bowhunting Nov. 13, 2026. These are unfortunate Fridays, and flouting that reality is like ignoring a rocking chair that’s rocking by itself.
When empty rockers warn Southerners somebody is about to die, they don’t assume it’s another person.
