By Emi Gruender
The year is 1955 in Northwestern Beaver County, Pennsylvania. A teenager and his friends are rumbling down Route 351, Rock Around the Clock blasting through the stereo. The moon is high in the sky, and there’s nothing but the yellow shine of their Ford-Thunderbird against the asphalt to chase the shadows away.
“Be careful when you’re driving along that road at night,” his father had told him. “The Green Man might getcha.”
But this teenager and his friends couldn’t care less about his superstitious worries—until suddenly, a dark figure appears. What little they can see of his face is twisted and deformed, bathed in a curious green glow. The teenager slams on the brakes and swerves, but still hits the figure, which crumples to the ground. When the Ford hisses to a stop, he turns to his friends in wind-swept shock.
“Was that—?” he gulps. “Was that the Green Man?”
~~~
Not a monster or some night-stalking cryptid, like the townspeople liked to believe. A man, instead. An ordinary man subjected to horrifyingly extraordinary circumstances.
Raymond Robinson was born in 1910 in a small town in Pennsylvania. At 8 years old, he was terribly injured by an incident with trolley electrical lines. Miraculously, he survived, but paid the price with the severe deformation of his eyes, nose, and right arm. By day, he stayed indoors with his family (due to his ghastly appearance) and made doormats, wallets, and belts. But by night, when it was less likely for a passerby to gawk at his unusual appearance, he enjoyed taking nighttime strolls with a walking stick to poke his way around. Specifically, he favored peaceful areas of Route 351, where he was hit by cars several times—just like the little excerpt of flash historical fiction above. However, those who sought out “The Green Man,” (a nickname derived from the alleged “green glow”, a result of his radioactive skin) would meet the polite Robinson and learn that he was simply an ordinary man, victim to unfortunate circumstances. Often, his seekers would offer him a beer and a cigarette—to which he was partial—in exchange for a short conversation or a photograph.
As the years have passed, however, the “legend” of Raymond Robinson has ballooned into something much more theatrical and ghostly than the real man who inspired it. The tale of Robinson, Pennsylvania’s resident “Green Man,” provokes a thought: how many of these urban legends are really just wild tales of a misunderstanding?