The Haunting, Part 2

Before beginning this narrative tale, I must advise that the events relayed here are 100% true as they were told to  me or as I experienced them.  I am taking the libetrty to change names of  some of the people with the exception of my immediate family. 

In the autumn of 1990 Anne, my wife, and I sold our home in the upscale Huntignton area of Easley and bought an older home near downtown.  The realtor had described it to us as an estate, and truely it was just that. The home we purchased was constructed somewhere betweeen 1920 and 1922.  We purchased the home from the heirs of its origional owners.  The house was constructed as a spec house by a local construction company and it was two years after its construction that the owners took up residence there.  It is believed that during the two year period, the house was rental property managed by the builders. That cannot be verified.  It was also used as rental property for a brief time after the death of the origional owners. I understand that the wife of the origional owner did die inside the home. I do not know of any other person who died there, though there are possibilites since they had rented out part of the origional house at times and also had constructed two additional structures on the property. 

The origional home was built in the arts and crafts style of archetecture popular at the time. Over the years the large front porch had been enclosed into a sunroom, a Florida room was added off that addition.  An additional bath was added along with enlarging the master bedroom and the addition of a breakfast room.  It appeares that these renovatons were probably made in the 1950s,

In 1938, the owner constructed a garage apartment at the rear of the house.  Underneath the structure  was room to park three cars, though one space was under the front prorch.  The purpose of the structure was to provide home for the owner's brother, his wife and two daughters who had been living upstairs in the main house which had been completed after the orgional construction of the house and made into an apartment accessable only through the stairway inside the owners residence part of the home. 

In 1947 another house was constructed at the rear of the main house.  This was a three bedroom two story home featuring hardwood floors, a Florida room, more than adequate closet space for a home of that time, a formal living room, and dining room. The house was built to serve as a home for the owner's only daughter and  her husband. I understand it was a wedding gift for the newly weds and was located in her parents' back yard.  

At some earlier unknown point in time, the owner and his brother dug out a basement under the main house.  It was a full stand up basement with cement outer walls and a cement floor. It was made accessable from both inside and outside the house.  According to the story, there was a substantial amount of rock under the house and the brothers had to use explosivdes to blast away to open space for the basement.  The dirt and busted rock was carried out by wheel barrow.  This basement covered almost the entire area under the main house.  Their daughter had used it as a dance studio at one time, and story has it that she held many parties in the basement during her earlier years.  The area featrued a large stone fireplace which had become inoperable by the time we bought the house. 

Although built at different times, the three homes all made of wooden frame construction and white in color fit together well to make an attracrtive compound.  Both the garage apartment and the daughter's former home were rented when we purchased the property.  We continued to use these as rental property for the sixteen years that we made our home there. During the time we were there we made extensive renovations to all three homes.  With the addition of property next door we made the estate into a show place.    We were able to do much entertaining there, and our guests always seemed to have a great time unaware of other events taking place on the property. 

For the sake of clearifiation, I will refer to the home we occupied as the main house.  The garage apartment will be referred to as the carriage house.  The home constructed for their daugher will be known as the guest house, though we never used it for guests.

THE CARRIAGE HOUSE 

Shortly after we moved in, the young  lady who live in the carriage house came down to our house to tell us she had called the police out the night before due to a noise she had heard under the house.  By under the house, she was referring to the first garage bay.  The garage area was open with no doors so anyone or anything could easily walk off the street into that area.  The garage opening was only inches from the sidewalk  on the street. She showed us what she, her boyfriend, and the police had found.  There was s small basin of very dirty water, some items of doll clothing, and the horrible stink of human urine.  An unlocked stroage area off this garage bay had shelving full of boxex of old clothes and household items left there by some previous occupants.  The following weekend I completely cleaned out this area and secured it with both a padlock and nailed the door closed. 

The next occupant of the carriage house was our friend Alex.  He moved into the house with his cocker spaniel and made it his home for several years.  Just after moving in, I visited him one evening.  I had not been home but an hour or so when he called.

"What were you doing under my house a minute ago"? he asked. "I know you were there in the garage. I heard you cough.  I know you are getting over a cold and you were coughing when you were here and I just heard you again!"

"I was not in your garage!" I replied.  "Ask Anne. I have been here with her watching television since I got home over an hour ago".

"Someone was"  he responded, "and I was sure it was you.  If you were, it is ok, I  just wondered why you would have been there"

"Get your gun and flashlight and go out your front door.  I will get my flashlight and go out my front door and we will meet outside the garage and go inside.  Don't shoot me" I cautioned him!

We met and searched the area thoroughly.  Nothing was to be found. Everything looked normal. All was quiet.    No sooner than I got home and my phone rang.  "I just heard it again, but i know it is not you; but someone just coughed.  I heard them clearly."  We decided to just let it go and not investigate any further that night. 

A few months later he was going on a businiess trip. He had asked me to come up daily and check on his dog and to check his computer for messages for  his home based  business.  As we were standing there inside his house talking, he asked me to check something in the bathroom.  Just below the mirror and above the sink were a few drops of a dark brown thick liquid on the wall.

"Every day, I clean this off, and the next day it is back" he said.

I realized there were no pipes or electrical wires behind that immediate section of the wall.  I could offer him no possible solution or answer. 

For the week he was gone, I would clean the wall each day, and the following day the substance would be back.  It was years later that I learned that there was a possibility of a chemical reaction between the old paint on the wall and the new paint I had added which could have been the cause of the mysterious substance. That was never confirmed. 

The next residents there were a young couple.  They were really great renters, always paying rent on time and kept the place really clean and neat.  All was going well, or so I thought.  One day while I was cutting grass, I saw the wife come down to our house and ring the doorbell. Anne answered the door and in a few moment the two ladies were waking toward me with a stoic look of concern just short of fear or panic. 

She was direct and to the point.  I listened and noded understanding but did not interupt as she told her story, " Is my house haunted? She asked.  "The window unit air conditioning will change temperature settings by itself.  I can watch the knob as it turns from off to on to high or medium or low. Nobody will be touching it, and the knobs turn by themselves. There are times, we hear people under the house in the garage.  We hear them talk but can not understand them. We hear them cough.  I have seen him. I have seen a young man standing at the window of our bedroom in front of the airconditioning unit.. He will fade out and disappear when we walk into the room.. He is young, slim, and has long brown hair."

"Are you afraid or do you feel threatened?" I asked.

She did not answer my question directly but went on to relay the story that she woke up one night to see her husband standing at the foot of the bed next to the baby's bed.  She asked what he was doing.  "I am praying that it does not hurt the baby."  was his response.  She went on to say that she got out of bed and started to go to stand beside him when she felt something on her back. I felt like someone put the palm of their hand on the small of her back and literally pushed her across the room.

Within a few days, they had moved out.

With the place vacanat, I thought it would be good to give it some attention.  Although they had left it in really great condition, I decided a coat of paint for the trim in the kitchen and bath would make it look better for the next occupant. After work one night I went up to the carrage house with a quart can of white trim paint, a paint brush and any other necessary items to get the job done.  With me were my cell phone and the cordless phone from our house in the event anyone called in response to my ad to rent the place. 

I was about midway through painting the door facing between the kitchen and a bedroom when I decided to take a bathroom break.. I put my paint brush on top of the can and went on my break.  When I came back a couple of minutes later, my paint can and the brush were NOT there. I retraced my steps to the bathroom in case I had taken it there. I looked over the entire house. Nothing.. No brush!! No paint can!!  Gone!! 

The cordless phone from our kitchen rang.  "Hello  (pause)  Hello,  Hello"

"Hello, You called?" Anne said into my ear.

"No", I responded, "hold on a minute".  I checked my cell phone and it said, 'IN USE"  My cell phone had called our home phone number totally of its own doing.

I closed up the house and went home for the night.

The next evening I took Anne and her Aunt Doris with me to look for the missing paint can.  We never found it.  While we were there, the cordless phone from our kitchen rang.  I answered it, but nobody was there.  Again I looked at my cell phone and once again it had called our  house phone all by itself.

While standing there discussing the weird phone behavior and the missing paint can there errupted from somewhere beneath the house the most God-Awful deep gutteral screem of some wild creature.  It only lasted for a split second.   I looked at Doris and she was as white as any new snowfall.  Both she and I had the look of pure terror on our faces.  Anne was standing there with us but she did not hear anything.    We locked up and went home. 

The following Friday night, my friend Jim and I decided to camp out in the empty house to see if we heard or saw anything unusual.  We stayed in the room with the air conditioning unit that had operated itself.   Early on Saturday morning Jim was preparing to leave to go dear hunting and I was gatering up our sleeping gear. 

"Shhh" he said.  All was quiet. While we had been talking he thought he had heard a cough from under the house in the garage but was unsure.   After he left and I was gettng the remainder of our things together I was lost in my thoughts about the whole situatoion and realized that I had just heard a cough...or thought I did. I was not sure.

A year or so later, a young lady was moving from the house because she was getting married and moving in with her new husband.  When she came by to give me her key, I could not resist the temptaton to ask her, " Can  I ask you something? "

"You want to know if anything strange ever happened while I was living there" she said.  Then she went on to tell of waking up from an afternoon nap one day when she sensed someone had sat on the bed with her.  She had opened her eyes and saw the print of someone sitting on her bed beside her, but nobody was there.   She went on to say that often she would be in the shower and the shower curtain would open a few inches by itself and while she felt as if she was being watched, she never felt fearful.  She beleved that whatever was there was a frendly force and no threat to her or anyone.. 

THE GUEST HOUSE

While driving home from Jim's home in Anderson late one night.  My phone rang.  It was Davey who lived in the guest house with his fiance Laura.  He asked me to come up there when I got home. He wanted to talk with me.  He went on to say he had called Anne, and she knew I was coming by there. Arriving home, I went directly to the guest house. Laura was not there.  Davey invited me in and offered me a drink.  Over the next twohours we finished off  a bottle of Canadian Mist mixed with Coca Cola.  

"How much do you know about this house?" he asked almost as soon as I entered the front door.  I gave him the history of when the house was built and of the people it was built for and that was about all I knew.  He went on to ask if anyone had died there. I knew of no one.

He relayed his story to me.  It was a Friday night.  Laura was working at the Occassionally Blues Club, and upscale dinner club downtown Greenville that Anne and I attended regularly.  Davey  had been working that Friday on a survery crew and was exhausted.  Normally he would wait up until Laura  got home, but that night he had decided to retire early. He went into the kitchen and a prepared a cup of ice water in a Wedgie's Pizza cup.  He applied chap stick, took a sip of water and went upstairs to bed. He has placed the cup on the table beside the bed. The table was actually an end table and not a regular bedside table so it was somewhat lower than it normally would have been. 

He slept soundly and did not even know when Laura came in and went to bed.

Just before noon on Saturday, he awoke to the sound of Killer, their big black cat screeming.  He got his eyes open to see the cat already in the air with back arched and hair standing on end.  The cat hit the floor running and was down the steps before Davey realized what was happening.

Then he saw it.  The cup of water he has placed on the table beside the bed was suspended in air about four feet over the bed. It was just hoovering there; then it fell spilling water onto the bed.
The water woke Laura.

Davey asked me if anyone living there before them had told me of any similar events in that house.  I told him that he was the first one to tell me of anything there. I did tell him about the things that had taken place in the Carriage house up until that time. 

He went on to say that neither he nor Laura had felt threatened. They felt as if it was someone pulling a joke on them. He had recently had an uncle to die in New York and thought maybe his uncle was paying them a vist before his spirit departed.   They continued to live there for some time and never experienced any more situations like this.

No other pesons living there while we owned the place ever reported any odd happenings taking place in that house.

THE MAIN HOUSE.

Jim had requested the loan of my pickup truck while his truck was being repaired from an accident he was involved in.  I kept the extra truck key in the front left corner of the wide center drawer of my desk.  I went to my desk to get the keys for him.  It were  not there.  Thinking nothing of it I gave him the key off my key ring with instructions to be careful and not loose the only truck key I had.   Then I emptied everything out of the desk drawer, threw away things which were no longer useful; and organized the remainder in an orderly manner.

A couple of days later, I was home alone.  I was about to leave for work, but before leaving I checked the drawer one more time knowing the keys were not possibly there.  Something in the back of my mind was telling me that if I asked whoever had taken the keys to return them that they would be returned.  Speaking to an empty room, I said something like, "OK, whoever took my keys, please return them to me.  I have loaned my truck to someone as a favor and if they loose the key, I will have the problem of havng one made".  I left and went on to work.

Returning home around ten pm that evening I went to the study thinking of the silly thing I had done of talking to the empty room and asking invisible spirits to return my truck key. I  opend the desk drawer.  In the exact spot where they should have been the day before, the front left corner of the wide center desk drawer, was the truck key. It was exactly where it should have been all along. 

It was approaching the Christmas season a year of so later.  We always decorate  elaborately for the Holiday season.   Our decorations were kept stored in the basement on a table in the corner  near the bottom of the stairway. It was a well lit area and easy to locate whatever we may need for the year.  We do not always use the exact same thing from year to year.

The previous weekend, we had decorated the house for Christmas with the exception of the Christmas tree.  Earlier that week, I had gone out to buy a tree.  It was cut, mounted in the stand  in the sun room, and waiting for decoration.  Anne was preparing dinner that evening. I went to the basement to bring up the decorations for the tree.  As I brought up box after box of Christmas ornaments for the tree I was aware that i was NOT seeing the box of lights for the tree.  Just a few days before l had seen them on the table with everything else but somehow they were not there now.

I called upstairs to Anne in the  kitchen asking if she had seen the Christmas Tree Lights.  She answered that they were on the table in the basement.  She had seen them there only a day or so earlier.  When I told her I could not find them, she stopped cooking and came down to help me look.  Together we looked over the table, under the table, all around the table and  around the entire basement. No lights for the tree were to be found.

Dinner was almost ready so we ate dinner, and I planned to go to Walmart or Lowe's to buy new lights for the tree.  Before leaving to make my purchase, we checked the basement one more time with no luck. 

As we reached the top of the basement steps and stepped into the hallway, I  reopened the basement door and simply announced, "It is Chistmas and I need the lights for the tree so I will  not have the expense of buying more.  Whoever has them, please put them back.  I will be checking in about ten minutes to be sure they are there."  I turned out the basement light and closed the door.

"You have lost your mind?, " Anne said to me. 

"Maybe so, but it worked for the truck key so maybe it will work now.  The lights are lost, so I may as well loose my mind too".  

After a few seconds,  I opened the basement door, turned on the light and started down the stairs to the basement.  Anne was following me.   Midway down the steps we stopped.  There on top of the table, and on top of the unused Christmas items was the box of Christmas tree lights that were simply not there only minutes or seconds before.

I have no logical or even illogical explaination for the missing truck key or the Christmas lights or for their return.  I am still mystified over those incidences. 

THE EXORCISM

Our next door neighbor there was a wonderful Christian lady who hosts weekly Bible study groups for a group of ladies.  My wife attneded the study groups.  Anne had relayed some of these incidences from all three houses to her.  She advised Anne that daily she goes around her house and yard and simply offers a prayer to God to cleanse their home of any evil spirits.  That is all that is necessary she said.

Sometime later while Anne was at the Bible Study and I was home alone and having nothing else to do, I followed the neigbor's advise.  I walked through our house saying a hurried prayer as she has instructed, asking God to cleanse our home of any evil spirits  I continued to pray the same prayer as I walked outside and made a complete circle of the property.  It was swift and simple.  As I neared the opening to the garage area of the carriage house, there was a full grown male adult robin standing on the sidewalk at the door opening.  I stopped and bent over and spoke to the bird. I do not recall what I said but I held  my hand down to it and he jumped up onto the index finger of my right hand.  I kept wanting someone, anyone to ride by or drive by and see the wild bird on my finger, but it was a private moment for just the two of us, the bird and me.  He turned away, stood on my finger for at least a full minute then flew away into the trees. 

We remained on the property for at least five more years before leaving there in 2006.  There were never any more unexplained experiences, no more missing objects to mysteriously return.  All was at peace. 


AFTER THE FACT

As we were moving out of the property I went over late one afternoon for a load of things from the basement.  Once inside the house I was overcome by a sense of uneasy dread.  I felt the  need to leave, and to leave quickly.  I began to quickly fill the truck with items to be moved.  As I started back into the house I realized I could not go back in that place then. I was actually afraid.  At no time in the past had either Anne or I felt any sense of fear.  Neither had anyone else expressed fear, but exactly the opposite.  The only other sign of fear had been with the young couple with the newborn baby in the Carriage House.

A few days later I retruned with a young man to help me move out the remainder of our things.  It only took a few minutes.  While we were there a neighbor stopped by to visit for a few minutes. When the neighbor left and the young man and I were in my truck he said to me,  "If we ever come back over here, I will not go in that house alone.  While you were outside talking and I was inside alone, I beame afraid.  Nothing scares  me but i felt afraid for my life. Please do not ever ask me to go in there again alone."

I have been able to do a minimal amount of follow up with both owners and renters who lived in the main house after we left.  None of them had seen or heard or experienced anything like we did. I would seriously question the limits of my imagination or even my sanity if it was not for so many other people who did not even know each other having had unexplained experiences there. 

If the opportunity presented itself, would I live there again?  With no doubt or no hesitation and with no reservation, the answer is clearly, "NO" !

As a  matter of record, we have neither seen, heard, or in any way experienced any unsusual or unexplained situatioions in our present home.  

The Hauntings... part 1

In all sincerity and honesty, there may not be a part 2 or part 3 or any more parts to today's blog. This is NOT the blog I had indended to do. It is not the one I told a friend I was to do. Maybe I am over-reacting a little bit but lets look at if for a moment.... that is if this blog can be completed.

In my sophomore year at Emmanuel College I decided to do a research paper on superstition.  One afternoon I went to the library and began getting sources together and making notes.  As dinner time approached I deciced to take a break, go home, eat, and return to the liabrary.  During my absence from the liabrary, dinner was delayed, I had a flat tire, the lights on my car failed to work, and the car almost would not start.  Upon my return to the library later that evening one of the first sources I found stated a warning.  If anyone tries to learn of superstition or the work of the devil, then the devil will do all in his power to keep that person from learning his ways.   Were my delays only coincidence or were they the work of the devil? You tell me.

At about the same time in my life I developed an interest in the Ouija board.  In the process of explaining it to a friend of my mom's I decided to demonstrate it to her.  She and I sat down at the board with a third person present. We began aksing questions about the third person. These questions were things which we would have no way of knowing ourselves.   The board answeres every question we asked about the third person present.  Neither the other person on the board nor I could have had any factual informaton that we were asking, yet we got near 100% correcrt answers.

Shortly after that I became engaged to the lady to whom I have been married for over forty years. While we were dating she told me of a dream she had regarding her grandfather.  In the dream she saw his casket coming out of the ground in the front yard of her grandmother's home.  He was burried in a local cemetery. A coworker who had some knowledge of the occult advised us that the grandfather was trying to communicate with her and advised us to visit her grandfather's grave at night.   We went to the cemetery where her grandfather was burried.  We went to the section of the cemetery where he was burried.. He was burried to the side of the only pine tree in that secrtion of the cemetery.  When we got there, we found the tree, but there was NO grave anywhere near the tree. We walked around and looked at every toombstone in the area, and could not locate his grave.. She kept telling me that he was burried right there and would point to a spot of grass near the tree, but no grave was there.. The next day, in the light of day, we returned to the cemetery and found his grave in the exact spot she had pointed to the night before where no grave had been. 

A few night later she and I took out the Ouija Board and started clowning around with it.  We got a few vague responses but noting of signifiance that could prove or disprove its effectiveness until it spelled out very clearly, "Get married do not wait".  Laughngly we both accused each other of manipulating the board.   I asked who was sending the message to us and the board replied, "Bill" neiter of us knew anyone named Bill.  Suddenly she jumped up and shouted, "Bill. I know Bill"  He had been a member of a church she had attened a few years earlier in another state. He was a young man who had died unexpectedly from complications from having his appendix removed.

The Ouija Board disappeared. Neiter of us would admit to throwing it away. You tell me what happened to it.

In 1983 we built a new home.  We were its first occupants.  I do not recall if it was a Saturday or Sunday afternoon she and I were in the great room of the house.  Almost at the same time we asked each other, "did you see that"?  We both had seen an elderly thin lady enter the front door of our home and move silently and quickly down the hall into the bedroom area. We both described her as wearing a white gown or dress with small pink or purple flowers and with long brown hair. By the time we had focused on her appearance, she had disappeared right before our eyes in the hallway of our new home. We never saw here again.   A few months later a new road was cut in our neighborhood for the building of  more houses in the subdivision.   People began to report sightings of an old lady at night in the woods just off this new road in an area about a five minute walk from our home.   We looked there many times but never saw her again.

From there, we moved into an older estate make up of three houses in a family compound. We rented out two of the house which were basically in our back yard.   Several residents of the houses there reported strange sightings and unexplianable events taking place there.  Earlier tonight I had started a blog exclusively about that place.  About midway into it my keyboard locked up and while my computer did not become non-responsive, it would respond in a different ways than i asked it to.  The command keys of the keyboard did commands not requested and would not do as I requested.  The blog completely disappeared from my screen. That brought memories of that night in north Georgia at Emmanuel college working on the research paper and the source saying the devil will do all  in his power to stop one for seeing his ways. 

At some point in the future I may get back to that blog. If I do, it will be part 2 of the hauntings or maybe parts 1 and 2 but i will make that decision at another time

Good Night, God bless, and Happy Halloween

Halloween

Halloween began as Celtic holiday to celebrate the end of the harvest season.  October 31 was set as time to to ward off the evil spirits.   Halloween is also the eve of All Saints' Day on November 1.  In the Philippines people visit the graves of their ancestors for the holiday and celebrate with feasts and parties to pay respect to the spirits of the departed.  Historians disagree as to if the holiday stems from Pagan cultures or if it is an actual Christian celebration.  Trick or Treating has a history that dates back to the 17th centruyScottland where people would dress in costume and go house ot house singing and asking for food.

Growing up in rural north Georgia in the 1950s gave little opportunity for Trick or Treating, but there was an annual Halloween festival at the local elememtary school which was the center of social activities for the little Vanna community. Baked good were for sale.  A hot dog supper was avaialale for a fee.  There was a house of horrors providing adequate entertainment for the students and people of the community.  There was music and other entertainment. Proceeds from the event were used to fund projects for the Parent Teacher Association.

On one particular Halloween when i was about 9 years old, a group of older boys in the community came to our house Trick or Treating.  They were the only trick or treaters I encountered up until that time.   They asked if I wanted to go with them as they continued their Halloween fun.  My mom agreed. Taking an old sheet she cut holes for my eyes so I could dress as a ghost, and i was off for a night of adventure.  I only remenber a couple of houses that we visited.  At one place an elderly couple came to the door and had no clue what we were doing.  One of the boys explained the Trick or Treat process to them. They gave us an onion because they had no candy or teats to give out.  At another house, no one was home.  They had left the kitchen window open.  At my suggestion, we took handfulls of sand and dirt and threw it through the open window.  It was the home of  my mother's cousin.  Years later, I confessed my transgression to the homeowner. We all had a good laugh about it.  He owned the local Ford dealership and he was helping me to buy my first car at the time of my confession.

In 1958 we moved from Vanna community to the nearby town of Royston.  We were in an apartment complex so for the following years Halloween presented us with more than enough trick or treaters to make up for my earlier years.

When our sons were children I took the trick or treating every year, usually with one or more of their friends going along for the fun.  On one particular year when oldest son was past the acceptable age, my wife took our other son and his girl cousin trick or treating.  I stayed home to give out treats.  Just for the fun of it, I dressed in a dark robe with a hood that covered most of my face as well as my head.. I sat on a dimly lit porch with my bowl of candy treats.  I was a bit disappointed that very few kids would even come near me because my costume and the erie music playing had scared them away.  Even our niece was skeptical of coming on to the porch. 

During recent years a custom developed with my son's former inlaws.  We visit them each halloween for a chili dinner and take all the grandkids trick or treating.  Now most of that generation has outgrown the custom as well.

A few years ago a family freind was invited to attend a Halloween party at a local private club.  He made a big deal out of the fact that he was going.  Since we had very few friends in common, I was not invited, which was fine with me.  At the last minute I dressed as the grim reaper with a costume that totally covered my face.. Yes, I crashed that party and  had a great time. I met lots of folks but never opened my mouth to say anything to anyone. My total silence drove them absolutely crazy.  While I could see fine through the covering on my face, I had failed to realize that I would not be able to eat or drink.  That did present a bit of a problem when I was offered drinks. 

To avoid embarassment to innocent people,  I will forego telling more of my Halloween escapades including last year when my wife helped a close family (male) freind dress as a Japanese giesha girl for an event he was to attend.  His dress now serves as the cover on the seat of an antique chair that I restored. 

We are three days away from Halloween 2013.  As of now, we have no speical plans beyond visiting with friends for the annual chili dinner.  But I have three more days, and I'm relatively sure that some opportunity will present itself before then. 

Television and Before

Television is one of the loves of my life. It is not an addiction as it is with some people.  There have been times in my life that I would literally go for months without television and dont think I missed anything significant.

My first encounter with television was at the home of a friend and co-worker of my mom's when I was about seven years old.  Her friend had a son about my age, and one day after work we were invited over to their house.  While the two ladies gathered produce from the home garden, the son and I stayed inside and watched television.  The television has a small screen by today's standards.  It was basically square but with overly rounded corners.  Of course it was black and white and with only an antenea mounted atop the house; and with the closest television stations being about 80 miles away, the recpetion was far from today's high definition. We watched the Howdy Doody Show.  When we returned home I tried as best I could to relay the experience to my grandmother who was well into her eighties.  Until then our only electronic entertainment has been a small white Arvin AM radio.  Every night we would listen to music from Cincinatti or New Orleans.  On Saturday nights we would listen to the Grand Old Opra from the Nashville.  Days of radio listening were filled with the closest local radio station in Hartwell, GA which presented local news and hours of various types of music. Afternoons were filled with the radio version of soap operas.  I grew up with Pepper Young, a radio soap akin to today's "Days of our Lives".   I do not recall which of the distant radio stations presented a nightly series of comedy entertainment featuring the likes of "Our Miss Brooks" with Eve Arden and the Jack Benny Show with his lovable black chauffeur Rochester.  Who could ever forget the Amos and Andy show featuring the antics of the two black somewhat shady characters always out to beat the system.

In the mid 1950's my  mom,  my grandmother, and I would go to my Uncle Loyd's house to visit with him and my Aunt Minnie.  Minnie would prepare dinner for us usually and we would watch television for couple of hours.  It was here that I encountered probably my favorite of all time television shows, I Love Lucy. Even today, I watch reruns of that show that I have seen probably hundreds of times.  One of the highlights of my life was to actually ride past Lucille Ball's home in Beverly Hills many years later in 1983. We made the weekly trip to Uncle Loyd's to watch television in my mom's old 1938 Chevy which was about sixteen years old at that time.  The trip to Beverly Hills in 1983 was a bit more stylish with my sister-in-law in their relatively new Cadillac Fleetwood Braughm.  Some other nightly television shows we would watch at Uncle Loyd's house were  December Bride with Spring Byington, The Real McCoys, and the origional Dragnet.

In 1957 when I was about ten years old, we bought our first televsion set.  It was a big 21 inch Admiral Floor model.  The television repairman made regular trips to our house to keep it going.  My afternoons were spent watching Dick Clark and the American Bandstand,  You Bet your Life with Groucho Marx, and the Mickey Mouse Club.

It was 1970 that mom finally got a color tv.  By then I had left home and moved here in Easley.  The next forty years of television is a blur that can be rehashed on TV Land or any of many similar networks the feature the oldies.

Television has come a long way in the past 40 years. Cable service and Internet service gives us hundreds of possibilites of prorams to watch.  With today's flat screen television sporting events are better on tv than in person.  We can not only watch tv on our tv's but also on iPads and iPhones as well as hundreds of other smart phones and tablets.  In our three person household, we have 5 flat screen televisions, 3 iPhones,  an iPad, and 4 computers all of which can receive any one of thousands of broadcast possibilites.. Wow.. what a difference from one black and white set that misfunctioned as much as it worked right.

Not only has technology improved but the types of shows have evolved.  Censorship is not almost a thing of the past.  The subject of programs is as diverse as the universe.   I would be neglegent if I did not mention two recent shows.  A friend has been after me for months to watch Scandal. At his suggestion I went on Netflix today and watched 4 episodes from the first season.  By every stretch of the imagenation, it is one of the most controversal programs ever. That the main character and heroine of the show is as black female who is a professional high ranking person is something that would have been unacceptable 40 years ago.  Sex, violence, cultural topics, homosexuality, rape, nudity, politics, and other items which are openly a part of todays culture are dealt with in the same open manner that they are in real life in the 21st centruy.  The other program, American Horror Stroy this season deals with witches in a manner as violent and realistic or should I say unrealistic as the Salem witch hunts.

Yes, times have changed and will continue to change as well.  We are greatly blessed to live in a time where such wonders are as common as the sand on the beach.

God Bless, good night

Who is Marc Adams?

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet"

             This quote from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet makes my point better than any thing else that comes to mind.  What is a name?  A name is only a label we attach to something for the purose of identification.  Whether I go by the name Marc or Lynn or Charlie or Alex or whatever other name, I am still me.  Nothing about me changes when my label changes.
              Why Marc Adams?  Why not?  If I could have chosen my name, I would have preferred Marc over my real name.  Actually, I would have preferred almost anything to my middle name which my mom or my aunt Lucy or someone decided to pin on me as a label.  Adams is my mother's maiden name.  She was married to a Hall, but I only have met one of the members of the Hall family briefly back in 1958 at a car dealership.  He was my mother's brother-in-law.  He was warm and friendly and referred to himself as my uncle. That was my only contact with anyone from the Hall family.  I know absolutely nothing about my biological father's family other than a name.  I do know he was a prominent business man in a small North Carolina town.. Whoop de doo! That never helped me any, nor did it hurt me either.
                  Just over two years ago a cute little gray kitty showed up at our door.  Someone obviously had told him that he was supposed to look lost and pitiful so some poor snock would feed him. We did, and he is still with us. I named him "Junior".  Dont tell anyone, but I did that as an absteact way of naming him for someone with similar charactistics and similar lifestyle as this little lost kitty.  The name of Junior never caught on.  My grandson who was 5 at the time named hinm "Little Jon" after himself.  My wife had a name for him, but somewhere that name was lost in the confusion of other names.  I call him "cat" now as his lable.  My wife calls him "Little Jon" sometimes and other times, just "Kitty".  He definitely is a "daddy's boy".  He will sit on my keyboard as I type.  He sits in my lap to watch television. He comes to bed to lay on my feet in the early morning.  He is not stupid, so he knows to give my wife some of his attention, but it is sometimes misdirected as he hides behind furniture to jump out and bite her on the leg often bring blood.  He does not fully understand the concept that he is a cat and not a little boy.  He tries to talk to us. He reaches up to try to turn the doorknob when he wants to go inside or outside.  He has never needed a litter box. He just comes to get one of us to come open the door so he can go outside.   Sorry did not mean to get carried away with him, but only to say that his name is.......What is it?  Cat, Kitty, Little Jon, Junior, or whatever anyone wants to call him.. Poor kitty has no real label other than Cat.
           Frankly I have little use for names or labels. I understand that sometimes they are necessary for identificatrion, but that is it.  Labels only cause problems.  She is FAT.   He is STUPID.  I am an OLD MAN.  He is GAY.   She is HISPANIC or LATINIO.  He is CATOLIC.  She is a JEW. He is BLACK.   He is a DEMOCRAT.  I could possibly go for hours listing labels, but for what purpose?  Think of what labels like FAT or STUPID do to a person's self-concept.  Why do we always tend to look for the negative labels in refernce to people?
              Do not get all upset with me now becuse I am going to deviate from what I am preaching here to use an application of labels to make my point.  Somewhere near the beginning of this blogging process I want to give you one of my philosophies based on my value system.  I am as open and accepting of other people as anyone you will find.  I have friends from all age groups from all parts of the globe in all nationalities, colors, religions, sexes, sexual orientations, and as diverse as you would ever find for anyone.  But I confess I have zero toleration for those individuals whom I will define as judgmental narrow-minded hypocrital biggoted ignorant assholes. (I could have used the work jerks, but i think assholes is more accurate... sorry if that offends you... just get over it).
                 As one would expect of an old man like me, I have won various awards in the work place throughout the years. I have three college degrees under my belt.  Of all of these, one thing for which i am most proud and honored to have recieved is an award from Ford Motor Credit Company from which I retired for Diversity in the Workplace.  Yesterday my wife described me as flexible or versatile. My prefernce is that of being able to embrace the diversity of people who come in to my life.  This acceptance brings peace of mind which brings peace which brings happiness which leads to a better world for all of us.
                  So, who is Marc Adams?  Maybe now you know and understand him just a bit more than you did before reading this.
                    Good night, and God bless !!                                                                   

              

The Mall

     If you knew me, you would agree that I am not the typical old retired man.  My wife says I am versatile or flexible in  my life.  A friend tell me I am active and detail orientated.  Maybe it was about thirty years ago when I was in my mid thirties and  teaching at the local high school a student came into class one day and informed me that her mother told her I was crazy.  After agreeing with her and telling her to thank her mom for the compliment, I asked why she had said that about me. The mom had seen me downtown riding my ten speed bike.  Today that would seem perfectly normal.  At the time is seemed normal to me also.  Obviously to that mom, it was inappropriate for a teacher to ride a bike in public wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  I told the student that being normal is boring and if riding a bike made me crazy, then so be it.  So I have established that I am versatile, active, detail orientated, and crazy...to me not a bad combination. I am happy with myself.
     Today I was sitting in an easy chair at the mall with a young friend of mine. We were commenting on some of the people walking past us.  People watching is a favorite past time of mine.  We were in agreement with one common thing we saw in the older couples there.  I am referring to what appeared to be husband and wife couples from age 60 and above.  None of them looked happy.  While husbands and wives walked together, they were not together.  With about half the couples the husband would be walking about ten feet in front of the wife. With the others there would be several feet between them as they walked.. None were talking.  None were even looking at each other.  Every single one looked as if they had forgotten how to smile.  Scowls and frowns were all they knew.
      Tonight at dinner I relayed my interpretation of what I had observed to my wife. She agreed with my possible assessment of what I had seen.  It looked as if they all felt trapped; possibly in a way of life that was  not "fitted" to them.  So  many people act or behave as they feel society expects them to do regardless of what would make them happy and fulfilled as individuals.  Simply, they had forgotten how to be "crazy" and to enjoy life. They may have been thankful to be alive, but appeared not to appreciate anything else life has to offer.  Living in their "cookie-cutter" life style to be like everyone else had, in effect, killed them; and all that remained were mall walking zombies.
      Yeah I am still crazy. No I do not still ride my bike downtown or anywhere, but I listen to my heart and follow what I feel makes life meaningful to me and to my friends and family.  I may be an old man by physical standards, but I am a young soul with a youthful spirit. I have almost, maybe no friends near my own age. My friends are people thirty to forty years younger than me.  Crazy?  Yes.  Happy? Absolutely!
     Something good happened to me at the mall today.  As I sat there in that chair next to my friend, I looked up toward the top of the mall.  The sunlight was coming through the line of windows around the top of the walls.  The Carolina blue sky was totally unblemished. Not a cloud was to be seen.  I realized that, even though our lives are not perfect, our lives are good.  We have a good life. We have what we need materialistically.  We have friends and family whom we can love and who love us.
     Life is good. I am happy!
     I will close this post with a note of thanks to two people today.  First, to my wife for understanding and sharing with me in the ability to not only appreciate the importance of staying crazy, but the ability to be crazy along side of me.  Secondly to my freind for being with me today.  I use the term "friend" because technically he is our friend. Today he introduced me to one of his friends as his grandfather.  Now I ask you, is he my friend or my grandson.  Does it matter?  Labels serve no useful purpose beyond just labeling things and people.