When I was very young and in my first years of Catholic school, I was taught by the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary that babies who die without being baptized do so in a state of original sin and cannot enter into heaven. They do not go to hell, however, but instead go to a place called Limbo where they enjoy an eternal state of happiness. Of course, like so many things in Catholicism, if one asked too many questions, one was told that that it was all a great mystery. Some years later when we moved west of Twin Peaks, I found Limbo, much to my surprise, located in my new neighborhood and that it was not a happy place at all. It was just the opposite. Its facade was a gigantic skull and crossbones, flanked by a hideous landscape of tombstones, blackened trees with clutching branches, alligators and vultures, severed human arms and legs and the staring, bloody-eyed waxen corpses of infant children in ragged lace nursery gowns. Above its entrance was mounted the upper body of an old and ugly witch, who swayed slowly back-and-forth above a stone plaque engraved with the words: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here. I cannot remember if, as a boy, I ever got enough nerve to take a seat in one of the little blue fiberglass cars where a safety bar had to be secured over one's lap before an old guy pressed the little button that sent one’s vehicle behind the black double plywood doors into the mysterious world of Limbo. For some children this Limbo was a rite of passage. Others could only speculate at what terrors lurked inside and dare others to venture inside. Some bragged about having experiencing Limbo and made up blood-curdling stories about what they had seen. It was said that some people who had ventured inside were never were seen again. And even those who would casually say, "It's nothin', it's just a ride" appeared to those more timid like me that they had to be lying. Now that I am older, Limbo no longer exists in my neighborhood. In its place, there is a huge modern housing complex built in the 1970s next to a Safeway Store. They should have, at least, saved that sign and rehung it over the housing complex entrance: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.