It's Freaky Friday!

...and I have a chemistry exam.  
Wish me luck.


Here's a ghost story to get you through the day...

A South Carolina Ghost Story

retold by 

S.E. Schlosser

There was something odd in the tone of the dispatcher’s voice when he called to tell me a person needed picking up at Bramlett Road late one summer night in 1947. I shuddered when I heard the name of the street. I did not want to go anywhere near that area, especially at midnight. But I drove a Yellow Cab, and it was my job to pick up a call when it came. So I swallowed and headed toward Bramlett Road and the slaughter yards.
    I’d been out of town when “the incident” happened. I call it an incident, but it was murder, plain and not so simple. A fellow name of Brown who drove a cab with our company was robbed and stabbed to death in his cab. Next day a man named Willie Earle was picked up by the police the very next day and put in jail for the crime, though he denied doing it.
     Then a bunch of hotheads who drove cabs for our company gathered together, passed around a bottle of whiskey and talking about “getting” the fellow who’d stabbed Brown.  One of the men went out and borrowed a shotgun, and the mob drove to the jail, grabbed Earle and threw him in the back of one of the cabs. The hotheads took him to the slaughter yards and they dragged Earle forcibly from the cab and started beating him.  A man pulled a knife and waded into the mob with it, and Earle shouted: “Lord, you’ve killed me!” That’s when the fellow with the shotgun put a bullet in his head, reloaded, and shot him twice more.
     When the mob was sure he was dead, they climbed back into their separate cabs and fanned out, each heading back to the city by a different route. Eventually word got out and thirty-one fellows were arrested for the crime. But they were all acquitted by a jury of their peers.
    After the incident, the slaughterhouse section of Bramlett Road got a bad reputation.  No one in the cab company much liked driving there, especially at night.  Folks claimed it was haunted by the ghost of Willie Earle.
      I shivered as I pulled onto Bramlett Road and slowed down to look for my passenger.  No one was there. I parked the cab and got out to have a quick smoke while I waited.
     All at once, the temperature around me plummeted. I froze in place, suddenly terrified, as someone moaned in terror from the other side of the road.  The sound scraped my nerves raw. I could hear the unmistakable thud of hammering fists and the darkness was filled with swirling black silhouettes pounding on something...or someone. I fumbled for the icy-cold door handle as a man shouted agony: “Lord, you’ve killed me!” I threw myself inside the cab as a gun exploded, cutting off the man’s cries.  The shot was swiftly followed by two more.
      I squealed the tires as I spun the cab around. A tall, battered figure that glowed just enough for me to see its lolling head, the blood-stained, dead features, the knife-torn clothes blocked the road in front of me.  I gasped, floored the gas pedal and swerved around it, heart hammering so hard it hurt my ribs.       I was still trembling when slammed into the office a few minutes later and told the dispatcher I was quitting. Then I grabbed my things and headed for home lickety split.  There was no way I was going to Bramlett Road ever again.  And I never did.





Have a nice weekend!


~A

St. Louis Cemetery #3

...I think. 

~A

Who's There?

Sorry for the hiatus, readers...it's called taking 17 credits at New Paltz, and there's no promising it won't happen again.  I've been busy reading about how as a woman, I inherently suck, according to British literature prior to the 21st century.  Gosh, can't wait for Shakespeare.  But without much further ado (about nothing), let us get back to the story at hand:  Adventures in New Orleans.

One night, we attended a ghost tour, courtesy of Bloody Mary.  If I was lazy, I would just put up a link to my Trip Advisor review and call it a day.  So, read it.


Some creepy things, incidentally, happened prior to this tour.  For one, I was staying in "the Creepy room" at my friend's house - named for the previous owner's Gothic decorating fetish.  Secondly, Beth lives right down the street from an old public cemetery. When she first moved in, there would be a knock on the door every day at 3pm.  She would go to the door, and no one would be there.  One particularly humid day, she heard the knock, and upon going to the door could actually see a hand mark in the condensation.  

Having some previous experience in living side-by-side with a New Orleans ghost, Beth wasn't going there again, and told the "knocker" that whoever they were looking for wasn't here, please don't come again.  It hasn't.

Finally, we experienced a strange incident on the second day.  After smelling a mysterious gas on and off outside, my friend left a note taped inside the locked door for pet-rescue (to be cautious) and we went out to the French Quarter.  

When we returned, the door was still locked - but the note was missing.   Upon further inspection, it was there, but sitting on a chair next to the window - and I watched her tape it to the door.  


Then we discovered Beth's main AC was turned off, and this is something that is never done from May to October.  She kept asking me, "Did you turn it off?  Are you sure you didn't turn it off?"  We checked to see if the power had gone out, but it was actually in the off position.  


Finally, I went into the Creepy room.  The AC was still running in there, but the closet door was wide open.  I'd never touched the closet, previously.  I closed it, and pulled it to see if it was loose and could have opened on it's own, but it was a very tight fit.  

Did the knocker come back to call?


~A

Just a few...

...yummy things in New Orleans:

We also went here for burgers and potatoes very late in the evening, and next morning I was introduced to home-cooked eggs in bacon grease.  It really doesn't get any better than this for eats, folks.


~A


P.S.  Correction - it's better when you don't miss your best friend's world class jambalaya, slow cooked all day.  This is one of my Top Ten Road-Trip Woes, which you will be entertained with at a later date.

The City that Care Forgot

Driving into The Crescent City was a picnic, if a picnic is driving over Lake Pontchartrain on the five-mile I-10 Twin Span bridge under construction with sudden unmarked lane changes, in the darkness and rain, lightening illuminating the orange cones and road divots.  I had to call mommy on the Bluetooth.

It was all very exciting, though!  Also, this is an opportune moment to talk about The Big Easy's roads and weather.  The streets are very suspect.  As my friend Beth explained (in a warning fashion), "You can lose a tire on these roads, so be careful."  There are potholes the size of lakes, one-way streets that are closed off at random, and in an apparent effort to gain some money to pay for the construction, speed zones with cameras (for no logical reason, like a school or "alligator x-ing").  If these streets were restored to near-perfect conditions, I couldn't navigate them anyway.  I got lost going to the local supermarket in broad daylight using not one, but two GPS devices.  The store was only 8 blocks from Beth's house.  

In certain districts, there are still traffic lights that have not been repaired since the storm (by "the storm", they mean Katrina).  Which brings us to the weather.  Humid subtropic seems to be the official classification on Wikipedia, and this is accurate according to my personal calculations.  I have developed a simple equation, for the common man.  Feel free to utilize as needed.

Palm Tree per FT²   

                                      ________________ = Chance of Hurricane (%)

                                         Bug Size in FT

Funny thing is, we had some "storm-warnings" (lightening, thunder, stuff blowing around in a circular fashion) for two mornings in a row, but Beth said it probably would come to nothing, and sure enough - she was right.

 I guess you don't live in N'awlins for a decade and not become pretty savvy about the weather (and in her case, the history, and the economics, and the politics, and the food.....this woman is pretty much a walking NOLA encyclopedia).

But the most interesting thing is how the people that live in the Birthplace of Jazz shake it all off, because as legend goes, the living is good here, and troubles are forgotten.  It might be hotter than a Dutch oven in the summertime, so come out at night and have a drink.  You might have some money worries, so talk to your neighbors, everyone's in the same boat and that's cool.  The people of this city have created some of the best music, food, and atmosphere in the world, despite a few centuries of conflicts and disasters.  The air here is heavy with living.

And now, I've run out of New Orleans nicknames.  Have a great day!

~A

Mo-BIL-ay....

...it must be Italian!

After the storm had passed, I traveled into Mobile, AL.  Without stopping to practice my pronunciation skills (honestly, sometimes it does feel like a foreign country in parts of this great nation of ours), I randomly drove through downtown Mobile, which was surprisingly beautiful.

Mobile is on the Gulf of Mexico.  It has a subtropical climate, and was very green and lush when I passed through after the storm.  It still retains that "Southern charm", and is very old - founded in 1702 as the first capital of French Louisiana (if I'd known the name was French, that would have cleared up the pronunciation problem weeks ago).  

There's a big-time-Metropolitan section closer to the water, but I didn't see it.  Instead, I found "Spanish Plaza", parked, and took a breather.  This peaceful little park has arches around a fountain, presented to Mobile by the city of Malaga, Spain, as the "Arches of Friendship".

The park benches have a lovely Spanish theme as well.  Spain occupied the city for about 30 years, during the turn of the 18th Century.  Otherwise, this city is a nice little intro to New Orleans...where I was slated to arrive in two hours...sharing much of its historical roots.

This little park was so peaceful, and traffic in this part of town seemed to be slow and quiet for now.  I took off my shoes and walked around, looking at the flowers, lounging on the benches.  I felt like I could be just another local, in the empty park, taking a minute to call a friend.  I wanted to linger here in the calm, despite my excitement of seeing New Orleans soon (the first stop on the road trip I'd never actually *been* to previously), and seeing my oldest friend on this Earth again.

New Orleans is intimidating.  According to the stories I'd heard, it is the Mecca of party-goers, filled with ghosts, vampires, and voodoo, the city that has struggled through disaster, a dangerous and very old place.  I looked at the quiet park and thought about how I am this place, and my friend's city is somewhere I will, most likely, feel out of place.  Then I took a deep breath, and drove off.

~A

~*VOLDEMORT SPOILERS*~

After watching the final installation of HP for the second time, I have a few items to share.

First: I am referring to my cat as "Nagini" from now on, because he is to me what the snake is to Voldemort.  As in, follows me around loyally, and hisses/bares fangs to everyone else.  Not to mention the whole split-my-soul-and-there's-a-piece-in-my-pet thing (hey, I said there were spoilers).

Timgini is always watching..

Second: Apparently John and I were not the only ones that noticed a) The goofy laugh Voldemort makes when he thinks Harry is dead, or b) The awkward hug between He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and Draco, two minutes later.  This s@#$ is all over the internet!!  Google it...there's even dedicated Facebook pages.  I have been talking about this hug to anyone who pretends to listen, and re-enacting it whenever possible.

So, without further ado:

The Voldemort Laugh

The Awkward Hug

Which do you think is better??  I can't decide.

~A