A Place of Repose and a Ghost

July was partially consumed with the first stage of a very large project. There were a lot of inspections in this stage and even more will be scheduled for October. One of the inspections was of this building.

This is the back side of the Columbarium at Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago. For those who don't know what a columbarium is, this is the dictionary definition: "a sepulchral vault or other structure with recesses in the walls to receive the ashes of the dead." The building was built in 1915 and it, as well as the entire cemetery, are on the National Register of Historic Places. I went here last year to research how much we'd have to inspect of this place.

It's exceedingly peaceful, although it's bounded by two heavily traveled roads. While driving around the cemetery, I discovered this was the burial area for most of the Eastland disaster victims. I talked about that in post from a year ago. In the west hallway of the main floor, there is a framed replica of the newspaper.

The building itself is two floors with restrooms and cemetery facilities in the basement floor. The dome, resplendent with its terra cotta tiled roof,

is adorned on the inside with painted plaster and gold leaf. 

There are 8 marble columns, two in each cardinal direction "corner".

While the plaster is cracked, the painted decorations around the dome area are still in excellent shape.

The building is not air conditioned and has suffered water damage from leaks. The dome shows signs of wear, but the original builders were very astute in designing and building a structure which has held up exceptionally well for over 100 years.

There are 8 stained glass windows around the dome. They are all the same.

I couldn't see anything wrong with the windows, although, admittedly, they were at the equivalent of the third floor from where I stood.

I've never been in a place like this so it was an honor to do the inspection. This is the entry to the east columbarium.

There were 4 areas inside the building where ashes could be stored. This is the oldest of the 4 locations.

Left side of the arch.

Right side of the arch.

I had to inspect this hallway. The west side is just like this but it doesn't have the ornate arch. The hallway is lined with carved wood "shelves", for lack of a better word. There are rows and rows of niches in which urns containing ashes are placed. Most had some other things in the niche with the urn; dried flowers, photos, death notice. There was a plaque inside the niche giving name, birth and death dates. The oldest urn was dated 1916, but I admit I felt it disrespectful to look at all the urns. A few were empty, leading me to wonder if there is a storage fee one has to pay, even on those long buried. What if you're the last of your family? Or were the urns removed because family no longer wanted them here or were moving and wanted to take great-aunt Bernice with them? Would those niches ever be used for more recent burials?

This particular hallway had etched glass windows.

As befitting the name "Bohemian", these panes represent eastern European fraternal societies. They were instrumental in getting the cemetery plotted and getting the columbarium built. As my mother and her mother's family are from the Czech Republic, I felt a particular kinship with this place. Many of those buried here were Jewish.

It's a gorgeous building.

It's one of those places where, if I could just win a very large sum of money in the lottery, I would approach them about an endowment to rehabilitate the building, add air conditioning, fix the leaks and the broken plaster that came with them, renovate the bathrooms and leave a legacy to keep this place functioning. It wasn't creepy at all to be in the place, even after I processed what happened as I was finishing the interior inspection.

I was in the room where the arch leading to the east hallway is located. This room has extensive water damage to the plaster wall behind me as I'm looking at the arch in the photos above. When we walk into a room, we start to the immediate left and work our way, clockwise around the room, giving walls a number and noting what kind of damage, if any, we see on the wall. I had progressed to the wall opposite the arch. I had finished the west hallway and had left the middle hallway for last, as it was double the size of the west and east hallway. It's also the main entrance into the building. You walk up these stairs,

through those doors visible at the top of the stairs, into an alcove and then into the main hallway lined with niches. This hallway is two stories tall with recessed and ambient lighting. I've set the stage here for what comes next.

I'm looking south, not that the direction matters. To my right is the entrance into this room. Next to this room is a wide stairway heading down and the ceiling between the entry and the dome area. There are columns at the east and west side of this area. This is the column near the room where I was.

The name of the donor of the column is on this face. You can see the intricate and beautiful painting on the column. The direction of this photo would have you looking into the dome area. You can barely make out some of the marble columns in that area. To the right, out of sight, is the entry hallway and the west hallway.

I was completely alone on this level. The head of maintenance had turned on all the lights and left. In fact, at the time I was doing this inspection, he said he had things to do in the cemetery and was I okay to be left alone. I rather prefer doing inspections without company. Sometimes people are not real happy when I point out things which are defects and which I need to document. He also would have been bored as ladders and other repair equipment told me they know what needs to be repaired.

We talk into a small tape recorder and describe what we see. I was was talking about the water damage on the south wall and turned, slightly, to the corner of the south and west walls. Out of the corner of my eye, although not really straight corner, I saw a white-haired elderly gentleman in a black suit walk from the main entry hall, make a right and head into the west side hallway. I saw him clearly; white hair, black suit with a white shirt. As my voice sort of echoed in the space, I dropped the pitch so as not to disturb him, and continued with my inspection. When I finished the room, I walked down the east hallway. There wasn't much to see. I documented the etched glass windows and the plaster damage to the ceiling. At the far north end, I realized there was a small alcove with doors leading to the entry alcove. I didn't remember seeing that in the west side. I probably missed it. I needed to make sure I checked it. The north room of the west side had extensive water damage to a corner and the ceiling. It wasn't exactly like the room on the east but there might have been an alcove and I skipped it. It had taken me 10 minutes to inspect this hallway.

I walked out of the east hallway and cautiously approached the west hallway. The last thing I want to do is disturb someone who is paying respects. Of course you knew there was no one in that hallway. The little old man was not there. I walked all the way to the end and discovered there wasn't an alcove on the west side. That's why I didn't remember one.

It seemed odd, though, that the man wasn't there. Perhaps, it didn't take him long to pray or whatever and he left via the front door or he could have gone down the west stairs. Ten minutes can be long enough for someone to pay respects and leave, particularly if he used the stairs. Whatever. I inspected the main hallway and then entered the entry alcove. The light wasn't on and the switch I found didn't turn the lights on.

After inspecting the wall with the front doors, I figured I'd crack the door a bit so the bright sunshine would illuminate the room. The doors were locked. This is the inspection photo of the left side of the front door, but you can see the heavy wooden doors on the building. The other thing is, when I went from the west to the east hallway, there was no one in that middle area. I would have seen them because I debated doing the middle hallway before the east but opted to save that since it had the entry alcove with it.

These doors were shut tight. I finished the inspection of the alcove and walked from the north end to even with the hallway. He had been walking not fast but at a good pace. It's possible that he could have gone down the stairs and I wouldn't have seen him leave. There was no sound because the floors in these hallways, are carpeted. I've heard that you can "feel" a ghostly presence because it manifests as a cold spot in an otherwise normal temperature room. It was hot the day of this inspection, so hot, that I'd had to wipe my face on my shirt several times while completing this. The place isn't air conditioned and the air inside was still, close even, you could say. There was no cold spot. There was nothing, other than the sighting of this little old man making a right turn into the west hallway.

I was never scared. It seemed odd, but I finished the stairwells and then did the exterior inspection. It stayed in the back of my mind and I puzzled over how fast the man had to be to leave without my seeing him. It never occurred to me to ask the head of maintenance when I checked out, if there had been anyone in the columbarium. If he was on the other side of the cemetery, he wouldn't have known.

In relating the story to others, I've had people tell me 10 minutes is enough time, even if he'd walked all the way down to the end in the west hallway, to pay a modicum of respect and leave the building via the stairs. It's possible I think it took 10 minutes, but it actually took longer so there would have been plenty of time for someone to leave. He could have been more agile than I think which would have allowed him to move faster. He would have known where I was since my voice, even dropped in pitch, echoed and I was embarrassed to disturb his contemplation.

Another theory is one advanced by a number of science-fiction buffs and which was explored in Star Trek: The Next Generation. This theory says there are any number of realities, all co-existing on top of one another. A ghost is not a manifestation of someone passed, this theory says. It is that person's reality intruding upon someone else's reality. This means that in another reality, this man is alive and walking into the columbarium through open doors to pay his respects to someone in the west hallway or to arrange to have someone placed there or any number of reasons he was in that spot at that time. His reality, for the brief 10-15 seconds I saw him, intruded upon my reality. He never turned to look at me although I find it hard that if he were "real", he wouldn't have known I was there; that whole "echoing voice" thing. When I saw him, he was walking, determinedly, toward the west hallway.

I'm down to Occam's Razor now. I've rather eliminated the idea that he went down the stairs, given that he came from the main entry. I also don't think he could have moved fast enough to get down the stairs without me seeing him. The only caveat would be if he visited someone in the very first room of the west hallway. Still, that seems an awfully short amount of time to say hello to grandma. I also think I would have heard him or some noise as the stairs were worn marble and not carpeted. Could he have been in the front alcove, which was dark, and I missed seeing him because he was in a black suit? Possibly, but why be in an area where the doors were locked. There would be no purpose to standing in the alcove. And no, I didn't see anyone come up the stairs the entire time I was inspecting the dome.

If my presence bothered him, he could have gone into the dome area and just sat or sat in the south or north rooms of the west hallway and waited for me to leave. He could have asked me to leave and come back at a later time. I would have said, "I've got stairs left and then I'll be heading outside. If you like, I'll wait on the west stairs until I've finished the exterior." I never saw him in that hallway.

So, [cue Twilight Zone music], ahead of Halloween, there is your ghost story for the month. I still ponder this even though I've decided I did see a ghost. I've since discovered that Bohemian has a reputation for being the least haunted of all Chicago cemeteries, even given it's the final resting place for Eastland victims. As I said, I was never scared and am not scared at the memory. It's interesting, to me, to feel that a man loved someone so much, he comes back to visit them even after he's passed on.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Stories

My job takes me into a variety of places. We usually meet maintenance guys and security personnel. I've come to see that these people, while respected, are sort of ignored unless someone needs something. They go about their business nodding at people going in and out of the building, but people don't generally take the time to chat. As my job involves getting into areas of buildings which are usually off limits to the average person, I've discovered that if I give these people 15-20 minutes of my time just to talk to me, I'm their best friend, for life. Indeed, I have gone back into buildings some 4-5 years after we were first there and encountered maintenance or security people who remember me. Plus, if I have to get into the building again, having listened to them talk about anything, means they view me in a positive fashion and my request to get into the room with our equipment isn't considered an imposition.

When you ask how they are doing or how long they have worked at their job or what's the best or worst thing they have encountered, you'll hear all manner of stories. I've heard about families. I've heard about pets. I've heard really interesting stories about jobs such as the $50,000 mice which are used for research. I was reminded of one rather interesting story while inspecting this warren of rooms in the basement of a building on this large project we're doing. Someone mentioned getting lost in the maze and running into a ghost, since the building is not quite 100 years old. I'd forgotten this story but it bears repeating.

We were working in this big building that contained machinery at one end and offices at the other. It's a brick building, built in 1935, solid as the day is long. The project we were on was adjacent to it so I had to inspect the half of the building facing the project. There were large pumps and other machines I don't know in a very large room that was 3 stories tall. The biggest of the machines was in a pit two levels below ground.

There was a security guard at the building because of what was done there. I don't remember what was produced in the building. I just remember the size of the machine/pump room. It was kind of dark, a bit dusty, with water leaking onto the floor in corners. It was really noisy, too, with pumps coming on and off and machines clicking and whirring and grinding. Whatever they did was important enough to require an alarm to be let in, a badge, and a sign-in sheet.

I don't remember her name so I'll call her Eliza. She was a short Spanish-speaking lady with a lot of energy. She had a couple of sons in the military, had been married to her husband, at the time, for 35 years, and had worked for the security firm for 18 years, 15 of them spent at this facility. She liked it because it was "quiet", in that the building wasn't busy. There were times when there were a lot of people there, but anyone in the building was someone she knew needed to be on site.

The guards provide security 24/7 so you have to work all shifts. She'd been at the building a couple of years when the first incident happened. It was about 1:30 in the morning, she said. She doesn't bring in music and there isn't a radio in the security office. She prefers to read. While reading her book, she became aware of piano music. It was very soft and quiet. This was odd, but maybe the electrician, who had an office one floor below her, had set his radio to come on at an odd hour. She left the security room and the music stopped, but she checked out his office, finding the door locked. It was a bit unsettling but she'd speak to him the next time she saw him.

It was a couple of weeks before their paths crossed. He told her he didn't listen to music. He listened to sports radio. Confused, she shrugged it off as being tired. A month later found her working nights again. It was 3 in the morning when she heard the piano music. It was coming from the machine area. She opened the door to her office, stepped into the main room and the music was loud, as if she was standing next to the piano. Terribly scared, she called the security company who had people staffing their main offices 24/7 to handle emergencies. They told her to get to the front door and wait. "They must have driven 90 miles an hour through Chicago because they were there in 10 minutes." She was sitting on the floor, completely scared and shaking like a leaf, next to the front door when they arrived.

One of the things the guards do at shift change is walk the building together. They make sure of who is in the building and that things supposed to be locked are locked. When she had arrived on that day, they'd done a sweep. She should have been the only person in the building. Loud piano music was not acceptable. The two people from her company went with her through the building. They could find nothing and, of course, there was no piano music. Seeing how upset she was, they called the police and the building's owner. Soon, there were a dozen people poking in everything, from lockers to electrical rooms to the unused stairwell in the northwest corner. Nothing. They could find no one. They decided that someone had parked on the street next to the building and cranked up their car's radio. They would make a note of it and add extra police patrols by the building. "They could say it was a car stereo but look where my office is. I know what I heard." Her office was in the middle of the building, down the main hallway. If someone had cranked up the stereo, they would have alerted other buildings in the area.

For the next few months, the piano music was soft. Sometimes, it was in the office. Sometimes, in the hallway outside the office. She started hearing it on her other shifts, as well. She could not figure out a pattern. It was played randomly and it was not the same song two times in a row. It didn't seem to be threatening but she was getting spooked by it.

Then, one day, the door alarm went off. Outside the door stood a tall, well dressed black man. "I will always remember how finely tailored his suit was, the tilt of the hat on his head and he had a red pocket square. I remember how bright red it was." The man stated that he had once worked at the building some 60 years ago, when he was 15. He wanted to know if he could have a look around. He just wanted to see the building where he'd spent his youth. She couldn't let him in without clearance. He was persistent so she had to get the electrician to talk the guy away. He returned the next day with his business cards and told her to run a check of him. She sent his cards to her boss and the owner. A check of records indicated he had, in fact, worked for this company some 60 years prior. The owner said she wasn't to let the guy in. "We don't give tours," was the response. Her boss, however, told her that if the guy came back, to let him have 15 minutes. "He's not going to hurt anything."

A couple weeks later, the guy returned. With the electrician accompanying them, they walked the main hallway. The man recalled names of people who were in the offices when he worked there, how the building had beautiful leaded glass windows and all the transoms over the doors, which were now wood, had been painted glass. Because the building was built in the depression, money was provided to put artists to work and they made the windows and transoms. He walked to the pit where the machines are and remembered sweeping up dirt and debris and helping the maintenance men keep the pumps in working order. He remarked how much quieter things were than when he was there.

Then, he looked at Eliza and said, "You know, two guys died in this building." She said she just stared at him. He nodded. "See the hoist. (There is a hoist spanning the building. It's used to replace the large machines in the pit.) They were replacing a machine and the guy moving the hoist had been yelled at to slow down. He was moving things too fast. Well, they had a machine on the hoist, all the way at the top and he was to move it toward the door where a truck was waiting for it. He started moving it fast and people were yelling at him. Then the superintendent yelled that the machine was tilting and people needed to run away. It broke loose, fell, and crushed two guys. They died instantly." She said he looked down into the pit with a very sad look on his face. Then he pointed to the southwest corner of the building. "The sad thing is that it killed a guy who loved to play the piano. They had a piano in the southwest corner over there, for him to play on his break or lunch or when he didn't have anything to do."

Eliza said her blood went cold. She shivered. She said she couldn't speak. The man nodded and thanked them for letting him remember his youth and left the building. She never saw him again. "I hear the piano player. I swear that's got to be him. I hear it more since that man was here. I hear him. I'm not scared anymore because I know he's just here to play his piano."

About a couple months later, she was working nights. She hadn't heard the piano since the man had been there. "You how you're reading or doing something and you just know you have to look up? You're not sure why, but you have to? I have that feeling. I look up and turn my head to the right. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a man's shadow come out of the locker room, turn left and go down the hallway." The employee locker room is located across the hall from the security office. It's always been there, from the time the building was built. She said she was angry that someone would still be in the building, so she jumped up, threw open her windows and was preparing to yell at whoever it was and, of course, because you know what's coming, there was no one in the hall. She stormed across the hallway into the locker room and, of course, there was no one there. She said she shook her head and thought maybe she was tired.

But, a few days later, it happened again. It was the same time, between 1 and 1:30 a.m. It was the same scenario. She would feel the need to look up toward the locker room and the shadow of a man would exit the room, turn left and head down the hall. If she turned to look at the shadow, it would be gone. "I believe it's the other guy going home. He's done with work and he's going home. Because I think this is what it is, I am not scared. They aren't here to harm anyone. The music is never at the same time and the shadow never appears on the same day as the music. It's those two guys." She was completely convinced in her experiences.

Now, I believe there are some things which we may never fully understand. I had one experience after my dad died that causes me to believe there is another world, another layer to perception, that is sometimes opened to us. Piano music provided by a person who died in a tragic accident? Sure. Why not? A shadow that is perpetually "going home". Sure. Why not? So many things are unexplained. Why can't they be a part of a world we can't always perceive?

I never did do the math to figure out when this accident would have occurred, to look things up in the newspaper. Something like this would have been covered so there should be a record of it. But with the memory of sitting in Eliza's office listening to her tell me this story, I'm tempted to do some digging. And then I wonder, what would I do if I heard the music? I wonder what he plays. I know a lot of music. Would I recognize the tune? I believe Eliza and I believe the place may be haunted, but not in a way that needs the Ghostbusters.

Beverage:  Dunkin' Donuts tea

Deb

Ghostly Books

After a flurry of books about battlefield ghosts, I'm back to the stack of magazines. I'm so close to having that stack gone, finished, recycled, that one of my goals to read books has sort of fallen by the wayside. There might be a dozen magazines in the stack now. I didn't count last night when I finished yet another one and tossed it into the recycling bin.

But I thought I'd do a book review of the three books by Mark Nesbitt on battlefield ghosts that I read around the July 4th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The first review is of this one to the left. I ordered it from Just the Bookstore in Glen Ellyn and picked it up Friday after the Jeep was fixed so it would pass emissions testing. On Monday, I finished it. 

It's okay. It's a fairly quick read with chapters that are 3-4 pages in length. The battles he covers are arranged chronologically from 1861-1865. The problem with the book is that about three-quarters of the way through, it feels as if the author felt he had bitten off more than he really wanted to write about.

When the book starts, there is an excellent synopsis of the major battles of the Civil War. Detailed descriptions of these battles are for other books. He's concerned with where the armies were, where they moved during the particular battle and where the deadliest fighting occurred. I found his synopsis, at the beginning, to be very well done.

The problem, if you haven't guessed by now, is that Nesbitt seems to lose steam or desire for the concise descriptions of the battles that he starts with. In setting the stage for the ghost stories he's going to relate, it just seems as if he decided he was being too wordy before and he needed to pare down the descriptions. While I didn't read the book for a description of the battles, they way he presents the battles early in the war help put the ghost stories in context. 

Plus, he leaves out the Petersburg campaign entirely. I cannot believe he has no stories from the siege that produced "The Crater" and which saw a black regiment severely decimated by Southern troops. They took out their anger about the war on those soldiers, killing any black soldier they could find even those who attempted to surrender. You would think the trench warfare of this campaign would produce all sorts of stories. Sherman's March to the Sea is also curiously absent. The emotions, which still run raw, about this march and what Sherman did to the south would certainly have produced ghost stories. If there are any, Nesbitt doesn't include them.

There are stories from Chattenooga and Kentucky. We tend to forget that the Civil War was fought from Gettysburg to Mobile, from Charleston to Texas. Iowans were in Arkansas. Every battle produced casualties and while a detailed battlefield book is not what this purports to be, I was quite surprised that he left out two major events. 

The ghost stories related are of the usual kind. They weren't particularly scary. If you want to be scared, you need to read his Ghosts of Gettysburg series. I had high hopes for the Ghost Trails books because of the other series. Nesbitt was a ranger at Gettysburg National Battlefield and knows that area extremely well. It shows in the attention to detail of the stories he collects. Some of the stories in the Gettysburg book made me shiver. 

There's the bed and breakfast across the street from the house where General Lee had his headquarters. One chilly fall evening, the owner went to the wood pile to get an armload of wood. He picked up the wood and heard sounds that could only be described as cannon fire. They were coming from the far end of the open field behind the inn. As he looked across the field, he saw shadows form and start moving towards him. They took on the shape of men. This would be Union soldiers who were routed from their positions and fled back into and through Gettysburg. He attempted to step aside as he saw a soldier running towards him but the shade ran right through him. At this point, he dropped the wood and fled back inside. When he told his wife what had happened, she said she had been in the back office doing paperwork when she saw what looked like men running past the inn. She couldn't see any detail on them. They were all shadowed but it was quite clear they were running through the side yard. 

With the ghost stories in the ghost trail book, there isn't this attention to detail. More space is given over to Nesbitt's attempt to communicate with reported ghosts than with the actual reports from people of what they have experienced. He uses a digital tape recorder set on voice activation. He goes to a battleground and asks general questions to the air and hopes that he gets something in return. I don't find these kinds of stories as chilling as the stories of people having encounters they cannot explain. I can't believe there aren't stories out there.

The only story from the ghost trails book that gave me chills was the story of the Carter House in Franklin, Tennessee. Tod Carter fought for the Confederate Army and was in sight of his boyhood home when he was shot 9 times. His men carried him from the field of battle into his home where he died. The Carter farm is now a museum detailing the battle and life on the farm. 

One day, right before closing, a thin man in wool pants, scuffed shoes and a cotton shirt showed up at the museum and asked for a tour. The museum director took him around. She became increasingly irritated when this man would politely correct her on numerous aspects of the battle fought around the farm and on the lives of the family who lived there. They headed to the cellar where she was to give a presentation on how the family stayed in the cellar during the battle. The young man became agitated and said they weren't allowed in the cellar. She assured him that it was okay. She turned on the light to go down the stairs and he vanished in front of her. A week later, as she was going through family photos for an exhibit, she found a photo of the man she had given the tour to. It had been Tod. No wonder he knew about life on the farm. 

Nesbitt has changed the focus of the Ghosts of Gettysburg books just a bit. He looks at these stories with a somewhat skeptical eye. There is no doubt, to him, that something is going on in places where life was violently removed from so many. For himself, as much as for anyone else, he wants some sort of tangible proof in this, that what someone experiences is real. I remain skeptical of the tape recorded sounds. Poltergeist activity; the moving of items, slamming of doors, touching, shoving, etc; can be more solid proof, as is auditory sounds of battle when there is nothing visible. People report the smell of rotten eggs, a remnant of the sulfur that was used in ammunition, or the smell of smoke. Nesbitt reports people who visit The Wilderness battlefield often smell smoke. The woods caught on fire several times during the battle which lead to many deaths as men who were wounded and couldn't move were burned alive. 

He mentions that only 10% of paranormal encounters are with full specters as the guide had at the Carter house. A full 60% are of the poltergeist nature and the rest are auditory or olfactory. He's not very fond of the ghost "hunters" on television. He believes you don't hunt for ghosts. You just happen to be in the same space as them. They determine whether they will reveal themselves to you. And these "hunters" are looking for a full spectral manifestation, ignoring how most incidents occur. 

He's even less happy with people who show up in packs with their meters and infrared cameras. Controlled, almost scientific, investigations are what he's doing now, what he's reporting on now and he feels these packs of would-be investigators erode the credibility of those who are trying to solve the mystery of what people experience in these locations. He was polite but not charitable to the TV program he found himself involved with because they did not show all the prep work he and those he works with do prior to an investigation. The TV program was disappointed when they didn't get a ghost on film and only got noises even though that's the way most ghosts manifest. 

If you are interested in purported real-life ghost stories, pick up the Ghosts of Gettysburg series. You can get them as e-books now, if you read on one of those devices. The Ghost Trails book can be summed up thus, "Battlefields can have ghosts. If you visit one of the Civil War battlefields or a house or building that was associated with the Civil War, you have the potential to have an experience you can't logically explain." Beyond that, it's really not worth the money to buy. 

Beverage:  Yorkshire Gold tea

Deb

Ghosts of Gettysburg

It's said that a haunting is the residual effect of someone's life force being attached to a location. This could be some place they were very fond of or some place where life was removed forcibly or violently. It stands to reason then that the men who fought so passionately over a cause they believed in to their very core would remain on the fields where they fell.

War, in 1863, was hell. The minnie ball was a round projectile made of lead. When shot, it expanded and could fell a target at half a mile. One of the most deadly cannon munitions was called grape shot. Small iron balls were wrapped in a bag and tied, making the bag look like a bunch of grapes. Fired from close range, the bag disintegrated spewing the shot on a wide variety of targets.

Now days, a bullet into an arm is usually survivable. In the Civil War, if you were shot by a minnie ball, your arm below the point of impact was, essentially useless. Bones and bodies disintegrated upon contact with these munitions. If you didn't die, you still faced the medical care of the time, which was akin to a butcher slaughtering animals. There were no anesthetics so limbs to be amputated were simply hacked off at the point of impact. If you were shot in the torso or head, they merely gave you palliative care until your wounds killed you. It's no wonder a Civil War battlefield is haunted. The violent way men died would leave their spirits imprinted on the land.

I can't say, for certain, that I've experienced a haunting. Things have happened that I can't explain. If we believe we all have a spirit of some form, where that spirit goes is a subject of huge debate and speculation. If you were severed violently and against your wishes, from your spirit, what's not to think that the spirit would still reside in that place. Time appears to be more than just linear and what's not to say that an event such as the Battle of Gettysburg would imprint itself on time. We speak of the "fabric" of time and couldn't that fabric bear the images, impressions, thoughts and feelings of the thousands who found themselves against one another in farms, orchards, hills and fields?

It's been said that Gettysburg is the most haunted location in the US. I stumbled across this series of books when I was looking for information in preparation for our trip in 2001. At the time, there were five volumes. Six and seven have been released but I have not read them. If you are fond of stories that will send shivers down your spine, the stories contained in this series will do that.

Nesbitt's writing style is quite folksy. He has a history with the battlefield so he has some credibility with regards to the stories and events he relates. This endeavor, collecting ghost stories, proved to be quite lucrative and his company runs ghost tours of Gettysburg. I don't remember why Carole and I did not take one. I think it might have been the cost and when they were scheduled. Gettysburg was our first stop on our battlefield tour and we wanted to hit as many parks as possible in a week, as well a fit in a visit to the Museum of the Confederacy for their Robert E. Lee exhibit.

What we did, instead, was read all the books and then pick the locations we wanted to visit. I know she was hoping for a ghostly encounter. I was certain that, if we did meet a ghost, I would faint dead away and I really didn't want to find myself face-to-face with a spirit who might not be in the best of moods. There is a story in one of the books about 3 women from New York who were driving in the park late on a summer's evening, when the park is open late. They stopped by the Alabama monument, got out and walked over to look at it. It's a big slab of either granite or marble and it's tucked off the road against some trees where a contingent of Alabama men made an encampment. As they walked around the monument, they started to hear male voices. They couldn't make out what was being said. Then, slowly from the trees, a handful of soldiers emerged dressed like Confederate soldiers. They stopped and looked at the women and one of them said, in a low southern drawl, "You ought not to be here. I think you should leave." The women did just that.

We found that monument, in the dark of the battlefield the last day we were there. We didn't see anything. Little Round Top was empty, save for tourists looking over the peach orchard and the wheat field below. Often, visitors report of seeing campfires in both locations at night.

We went to the Devil's Den and wandered amongst the rocks. It was warm, I remember. The rocks are naturally reddish which absorbs the sun's heat. Even with hard packed gravel paths, you could feel that heat through your shoes.

We found ourselves at the Triangular Field.

Some of the fiercest fighting of the battle was here. The field is not very big. It's boarded by trees on two sides and was fronted by a low stacked stone wall. The Devil's Den, which is behind me in this photo, was held by the Union. Confederate sharpshooters hid behind the wall and in the trees and were a menace to anyone trying to take the area. The path visible above, will take you to other battlegrounds.

Because of the huge number of casualties here, this is supposedly one of the most haunted places around Gettysburg. In reading Nesbitt's book and in subsequent reading of ghost stories, it is said that cameras will suddenly die while walking in the field. This goes for still as well as video cameras. They resume working as if nothing is wrong once removed from the field. Confederate sharpshooters will be seen standing up from their positions behind the wall, turning and running down the field to the trees but blending in with the light and shadow before getting there. Men are seen at the perimeter of the field as well as bodies lying in the field. There are unexplained lights and mists at night.

I know you're waiting for me to say we saw something, but we didn't. The camera worked just fine and because it was a hot summer's day when we visited, we walked the path to the bottom, turned around and came back. Ghosts are not like performers. They don't show up on cue.

If you are interested in ghostly events at Gettysburg, I recommend these books. They aren't very big, less than 100 pages total, but unless you are a complete skeptic, they will send shivers up your spine. If you're of the "delicate" sort, read them between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. so that, by the time you are ready for bed, the image of the statue of a young boy turning and facing people is out of your head.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Weird, Creepy, Eerie, You Label It

I finished my autographed copy of Chicago Haunts 3 on Friday night. If you've read the previous two books, Chicago Haunts and More Chicago Haunts, this is more of the same although the author goes southeast almost to the Indiana border and west as far as Cherry Valley. If you haven't read the first two and you don't know anything about hauntings in Chicago, this book will have references that you won't get. As is the nature of a serial, the author refers back to previous stories. In some cases, she provides a bit of a history. More often, she just mentions that you'll find the story elsewhere. This isn't a negative of the book, just a note that if you pick this up as your first exposure to ghosts of Chicago, you're going to come away disappointed because that's not what she's doing in this book.

Beilski has an immensely readable style. It's breezy and devoid of over-the-top moments. She reports the stories with an eye toward, this is what happened or is rumored to have happened. In her introduction, she mentions that some stories she collected left her shaken and you are warned. Being yet one more layer removed from the actual events, I wasn't scared by anything related in the book. There are some places she talks about that I don't think I would go alone, particularly at night, because the mind plays tricks on you and you can think you see something you don't. Orbs are a classic case of this. At night, a camera flash will illuminate dust particles in the air that we cannot see. People will jump on this as evidence of orbs, something associated with hauntings. Um...no. It's just evidence of dust in the air.

Cemetery "lights" are another thing. I used to think the Monona City Cemetery was haunted. Every time we passed it at night, I would see these flashes of light in the cemetery. It was only when I started reading about the paranormal that it was explained to me. Flashes of light in a cemetery are, more often than not, reflections of car headlights. Highly polished marble tombstones are the culprit here, not ghosts, yet your mind could tell you there is something strange going on because you want to experience it.

Now, I'm not a skeptic. I believe there are things we don't understand. There are enough ghost photos and stories of hauntings with no logical explanation that I believe there is something to this. Things happen that we just can't explain. Something falls off the shelf and there were no ground vibrations nearby which would cause it to happen. A photo shows an image of a person where everyone swears no one was. One of my guild mates felt someone stroke her hair while she was working alone during the day in an office in a building that was supposed to be haunted. I don't think I've had anything ever happen to me until Saturday. Now, I don't know.

One of these daily is part of the number of drugs and vitamins I take for my RA. They are large, about an inch long. I bought this bottle when it was on sale, buy one get one free, and I happened to be picking up the monthly drugs. It's a great deal. This is a 4 month supply so I have 8 months of vitamins with the two bottles.

On Friday, I finished the last pill in the bottle. I couldn't swear, at the time, but I thought I had only finished bottle #1 of the two, so I went to the bathroom to get the next bottle. I couldn't find it. These are rather large bottles so it's not going to fit just anywhere. I went through both drawers and under the sink. Nothing. I checked the shelves to the left of the medicine chest. (It's too big to fit in there.) Nothing. I opened the bin I have on the floor in the bathroom. It has sunscreen and Ace bandages but no vitamins. I looked around the microwave since I keep my drugs on top of the microwave so I remember to take them in the morning. Nothing. I even looked under the kitchen sink, although I didn't know why I would have put it down there. It wasn't there either. I picked up the old bottle and tossed it into the recycling container.

Oh well. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me. I may think I was on bottle #1 but, in reality, I'll bet I was on bottle #2. I went to the office and, over lunch, started a grocery list for the weekend, although I wasn't really planning on leaving the house. Item number 1 was "calcium + D 1000".

Saturday morning, I got up and lurched into the kitchen. Did I want to make waffles this morning? Nah. I'd go with peanut butter toast and yogurt. That will be good. I came to a screeching halt as I walked into the room. There, on the counter in front of the microwave, was the bottle. I blinked for a moment and looked at the back door. I could have sworn I pitched the old bottle into the recycling. Maybe I hadn't. Oh well. I'll just move it to the left side of the sink and pitch it later. I picked up the bottle and nearly dropped it. It was full. Not only that, the lid was unscrewed and the paper seal had been started as if someone had left it for me so it wouldn't be hard to open in the morning when my RA is most acute.

I set the bottle back down, backed away from the counter and just looked at it. This was not here when I went to bed Friday night. I will swear, on a stack of bibles two miles tall. It was raining when I got up and I wasn't looking forward to having to go to the grocery in the rain. Now, it was clear I didn't have to go, but where did this come from?

To the best of my knowledge, I did not have an unexplained black out Friday night. I can, mentally, account for my time from when I came home from work to going to bed. I'm not aware that I sleep walk. I would think I would have discovered other things awry which would cause me to wonder about somnambulism.

I dumped out all the pills and spent an hour looking over all of them. They look fine. My doors were locked so no one came into the house overnight. That would be creepier still; the thought that someone came into my house and gave me a bottle of the vitamins I'm supposed to take, particularly when I didn't tell anyone I was out of them.

So, dear readers, I got nothing here. If there was something awry with my house, I would think the girls would be restless as it's well known that animals can see and hear things we can't. It is entirely possible I found this in my sleep, opened it, and left it out for me to find the next morning. I just don't know.

I went on with my life but I have to tell you, every time I used the microwave this weekend and then, when I dumped out the morning's pill, I just had to wonder. Perhaps I should stand in my kitchen tonight and audibly thank the ether for finding it. Saved me money.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

I Have a What?

It was the Printer's Row Lit Fest this past weekend. It could not have been better weather for it. I went on Saturday. It was clear and sunny for the whole day with temperatures in the mid-70's. I have been down there, walking amongst the throngs, when it's been 90 so the fact that it was in the 70's seemed, to me, to be a talisman for excitement and discovery. The camera went missing the evening before. Of course, I found it in the pocket of my messenger bag on Sunday, so I had to take photos with my cell phone. It doesn't look clear but trust me, there was beautiful blue sky with nary a cloud in sight.

I like to get there early because a loathe the crowds that don't allow you to look. A book fair like this, in reality, isn't a place for someone like me. I go with a list of books I am on the prowl to buy. That list, this year, included Erik Larson's most recent which is, now, 2 years old with a paperback version out; any Discworld books I haven't read and given that there are upwards of 25 in the series and I'm really not half-way through them, I should find more than a few I haven't read; and anything by Flannery O'Connor. My best friend, Patt, (not to be confused with my best friend, Pam) sent me a brilliant article discussing some of O'Connor's work. I know 'of' her, but I never took "Contemporary American Literature" while in college so never read anything she wrote. After reading this article, I need to get something and add it to the stack.

Last year, I got a Godzilla poster which, sadly, remains unhung. I just haven't found the right spot for it. So, visiting places with posters is a waste of time. I have no wall space without removing something I currently have on the wall. I have a lot of things unframed that I want displayed, so I passed those booths by. With a list of authors I wanted, I was unmoved by the hardcovers at $5 or the paperbacks at $1. And the sheer crush of people means taking the time I want to browse mean inconveniencing people behind me who also want to see what's offered. So, I wound up doing a quick scan of titles and moving on. I also wish, but I'm sure it's quite impossible, that sellers would organize their offerings better. It would save time for me. I think they feel that if everything is jumbled together, it forces you to linger, to look and will, thereby cause you to find something you didn't know you needed.

I always, always head first to one tent, Lake Claremont Press. This small press is regional publishing at its finest. If you are interested in Chicago and its history, their extensive list of books are sure to have something you will like. My interest in this publisher stems from finding, years ago, a book called "Chicago Haunts" by Ursula Bielski. I get announcements from them and I'm always excited to see what they have on offer, so my first stop at the book fair has always been their tent...except...when I can't find them.

That was the case last year. I walked all over the fair looking for their name on the tent and it was nowhere to be found. What I discovered, the next day by checking out their Facebook page, was that they had been sandwiched into a tent with three other regional presses. I must have walked by them three or four times and never saw the name on the proper side of the tent.

This year was different. Viola.

There is the Lake Claremont Press tent. Four sides of literary goodness. I walked all around looking at the books. I did get "Wrigley Field's Last World Series", a book about the last time the Cubs were in the World Series, 1945. My dad often talked about this event. It will be an interesting read.

But what I really wanted was to check on the upcoming book, "Graveyards of Chicago". I have a copy of this. I've had it for years. It's in the stack to be read. In fact, I found it, pulled it out of the stack and brought it along to show them. I enjoy Ursula's books. I'm pretty sure there are two or three on the shelf in the basement.

As I was standing there, chatting with a gal, a woman came up and I was told to talk to her. So, I showed her the book and asked about the upcoming one.

She looked at my book and said, "Oh my gosh. This is a first edition. Do you realize this sells on eBay for $100 because it's out of print?"

I was floored. (A subsequent search reveals that my pristine copy, which I hadn't gotten around to reading, was worth $150, although it could go higher if I did a bidding war on it.) I have never owned a first edition of any book. I've seen them. I've drooled over the idea of having a first edition, but usually those books are, as this lady said, $100 and up, and I can't really justify spending that kind of money on a book. To possess such a thing, on accident, left me speechless. When I mentioned that I was embarrassed to admit I hadn't even read it yet, the lady said, "Oh don't bother. The new one is coming out soon. I'm really proud of it. We put a lot of work into updating it with more accurate information." That's when it dawned on me. (I can be, admittedly, slow on the uptake sometimes.) I was talking with Ursula herself.

I hope my subsequent comments were not too effusive. I don't run in the circles where the meeting of authors would be commonplace. To actually meet the author of books I have admired and enjoyed was a thrill. I wound up buying "Chicago Haunts 3". It's the next book to be read this summer.

What was also a huge thrill for me was to have Ursula autograph my books. Here's the "Chicago Haunts 3" autograph.

And yes, I had her autograph, personally, the first edition. That does diminish its value, but I am NOT selling it. This falls into the "prized possession" category now. I have a personalized, autographed first edition AND I met the author.

I didn't find anything else at the fair and, actually, I didn't really care. This was an amazing set of occurrences. This 15 minutes made my whole day. In the grand scheme of finding things to be grateful for, I can live off this event for weeks. That might seem like hyperbole, but it's things like this that make me really happy. Now I have to make time to find the other titles I own by Ursula and arrange all of these on a shelf where they are visible.

Beverage:  Yorkshire Gold tea

Deb

Day 21-A guilty pleasure book

This topic made me laugh. Define 'guilty pleasure'? An afternoon spent reading The Complete Calvin and Hobbes instead of doing dishes could be defined as a 'guilty pleasure', but is that what this means?

I read erotica. Some of it has been about as good as it gets. Most of it falls into the "huh", category. 'Guilty pleasure'? Not really. I haven't read anything in that genre in 15+ years.

I think my definition for the purposes of finding a book is the book is something people might snicker at if you read it in public, or something that is a bit off what people usually see you read. I couldn't find my copy of this book, but I think it fits both definitions nicely.

I love a good ghost story and the fact that these are set in the area I have adopted as my home makes them doubly good. The most recent poll I could find says that 20-25% of the population believes in ghosts. Some of the stories in this book, such as Resurrection Mary (the subject of the cover illustration), are well known but haven't happened in decades. Some, such as the spirit of Clarence Darrow appearing at the lagoon behind the Museum of Science and Industry, happen every year. You have to be in the right place at the right time.

Still, if you were reading this on the el, the famous elevated railway in Chicago, people would be bemused. You're probably reading it just out of curiosity or you're one of those punks who is going to show up at Graceland Cemetery and try to get in at night. (You can't, for the record. They have exceptional security.) It would not occur to people that you might be interested in the paranormal or that you're looking for a spine-tingling read.

This could be considered a 'pulp' book. It's just a collection of stories and the follow up book was even more so. There wasn't anything really spine-tingling. But this was a great read, nonetheless. Some night, on the night Dillinger was killed, I'd like to gather my nerves and stand by the Biograph just to see if anything happens. There's a great industry in Chicago Ghost Tours. Wanna go with me? I'm too chicken to go alone.

Beverage:  Pepsi

Deb

Day 18- A Book You can’t find on shelves anymore that you love

You won't catch me at a horror movie and I don't read horror writers either. I am not enamored with Stephen King, Clive Barker, Christopher Pike and that ilk. Edgar Allen Poe is often deposited in this group and if you've ever read The Telltale Heart, you can see why that theme has been used over and over and over. (I remember when "Cheers" did an episode on it.)

But I like to be scared on occasion. I like my spine to tingle. I like that feeling to come from a book because I can set the book aside, go out on the deck and breathe in reality, away from ghosts and axe murderers and devils. The more "real" the potential for the ghost to be, the more spine tingling the reading experience.

Today's theme is difficult. Walk into any mega bookstore (although not Borders, sadly) and the shelves and stacks are lined with books, one and two copies of tomes by authors who, if this was a record, would have "a medley of their hit" on the shelf in front of you. Type a title into Barnes and Nobel or Amazon and chances are very good, an image will appear and you will still be able to buy a fresh copy of whatever you're looking for.

I read through my book journal for something, anything, I could use as the book for this topic. "That's still in print. That, too. I think that one is, as well." Then, I stumbled upon a listing for The Screaming Skull and Other Ghosts, the book that's referenced under the author's name in the illustration. "I wonder if the one I have is still in print," I thought. No, no it is not.

I bought The Midnight Hearse from a school book fair back in the early 1970's. My copy has the same illustration as you see in the photo. I didn't get around to reading it until the summer. After doing my morning chores, I curled up on my bed, cracked open the book and started reading. I don't think, prior to this book, I'd had any experience with "true" tales of hauntings. Ghosts were limited to "Caspar" on Saturday morning cartoons. O'Donnell is a masterful story teller and it is thought that most of his stories benefited from his literaray prowess.

But that doesn't make them any less scary. I remember being so scared by what I was reading that I had to stop reading at 2 in the afternoon. The opening story is about a bunch of friends at a college in England who decided to play cards one night. One of the friends was on a lucky streak, winning hand after hand. His friends decided, after several hours of this, they needed to take a break but the winner didn't want to. He said he'd continue playing cards even if the only person he played with was the devil. The friends laughed him off and went for a walk. As they left the building, one of them commented on the tall man in black who was walking toward the dorm where their friend was.

They returned to the dorm about 30 minutes later to see an old fashioned hearse parked alongside the building. As they approached, a man left the building by way of their friend's first floor window. He was carrying a casket on his back. He mounted the horse-drawn hearse and the vehicle moved away. One of the friends suddenly realized there was no sound coming from the horse's hooves on the pavement of the drive. The hearse itself seemed to melt into the shadows of the dorm.

They ran to their friend's room but the door was locked from the inside. They ran to the window and saw him lying on the floor. They couldn't get in because the window was locked from the inside. How had that guy been able to leave via the window if it was locked? They had to break a window pane to get in.

Of course, the friend was dead. He had been playing cards with someone because there were two hands on the table. Whomever he had been playing with had won all of their friend's chips. What really got them was the frozen look on their friend's face of abject terror.

There are some 30+ stories in this vein in this book. O'Donnell's books are not in print anymore. If you want to read them, a library or a used bookstore is the place to find them. I didn't think The Screaming Skull was nearly as good as The Midnight Hearse. Embroidered tales or not, they make for some terror-ific reading if you are so inclined.

Beverage:  water

Deb

The Next Read

I finished the ghost book last night. As it turned out, the end of the book was an unabashed advertisement for the religion of Spirituality. Instead of staying with ghosts and legends, it dived into Spirituality and mediums. Perhaps those can be aligned with ghosts but when it started touting mediums as a way to contact your dead ancestors or loved ones, the author's credibility in my eyes tumbled. Take out those 3 chapters and it would be a mildly entertaining read. I'll add it to my collection of Scottish literature to go on the table at Highland games.

What to pick after that? The stacks are tall, about 4 feet tall. There's everything from autobiography to science fiction in the stack. After looking at each book's spine, I chose this.

If you are keeping track, this is book number 4 for this year. It's hardly the pace I would have normally consumed books, but I did finish 5 magazines last month after only reading 3 in June, and I've finished one magazine already in August.

I remembered last week how, earlier in the year, I would come home, grab the paper or a magazine and sit down in the living room to read. Pilchard would jump into my lap and we'd have "us" time. I got away from that but resurrected it last week. She loves it and I do, too.

It really is the purr-fect way to end a day.

Beverage: Huckleberry tea

Deb

Late Night Reading

Mija and I have been reading at night. I log off the game earlier than I usually do, turn out the lights in the rest of the house, prepare for bed and grab the book. Mija follows me into the bedroom and curls up next to me, motor at full throttle.

This book is a very quick read. I finished the chapter on castle ghosts last night. It's the longest so far and contained the names of castles with which I was familiar and others I'd never heard of.

I've discovered that this isn't so much a "spine-tingling" book as a collection of stories. Unlike some other ghost books, it doesn't seem as if the authors have experienced any of the ghosts about which they have written so far. I'm a third of the way into the book. Maybe there will be personal experiences later, but this has been just a collection. Some ghosts I am familiar with, such as Major Weir and the ghosts of Glamis Castle. Others, such as the fiddlers who played for fairies and the black crab are new. I might have the book finished by the weekend.

One thing has struck me as quite curious in the write-ups of the castle ghosts. The male owners of the castles have been described, by and large, as being "cruel", "mean", "vicious", "hot-headed", "prone to violent temper" and usually often drunk. The wives were "long-suffering" and bore their husband's mood stoically and without comment. What invariably happened was the husband did something stupid which caused a haunting.

One man humiliated his wife in front of his drinking buddies by saying he'd sleep with the devil's mistress instead of her because she was so ugly. He became embroiled in an affair with what turned out to be a witch. When he figured out who she was and attempted to end the affair, she flew into his bedroom at night and strangled him. His ghost is said to haunt that room.

Another laird wanted to play cards and his wife and servants did not as his game playing was heading into the Sabbath. He flew into a rage and said he'd play cards with the devil himself. Yup, at that moment, a strange gentleman arrived at the castle and the two of them played cards until the a servant tried to peep through the keyhole and was blinded by a ray of flame. The laird flew into a rage at the servant eavesdropping but when he went to continue the game, the devil was gone and so was his soul. It is said sounds of raucous card playing is heard from that room.

I'm trying to understand if the unexplained phenomena of ghosts gives rise to the man being a horrible tyrant or if this is a magnification of personality quirks or if these men really were terrible people. Generally, the castle hauntings date from the 16th and 17th and 18th Centuries. This was a time of great upheaval in Scotland. I've encountered 3 stories that date from 1900 upwards and those are from the early part of the 20th Century. Was life abnormally hard on land-owners during the 1500 to 1800's or did they believe they could do whatever they wanted to those people who lived on their land, pledged them fealty or passed through? I just find it curious that most of the stories so far have involved men who are described in very poor terms. Maybe, as I read more, things will change.

So, that's what I'm doing before bed this week, curling up with a cat and a good book. Yes, I am sleeping well at night. No ghosts in my house.

Beverage: Mr. Pibb because Wendy's doesn't have Dr Pepper

Deb

Current Read

I have started another book. This will be number three for the year. If the drive is still to read a book a month, I'm up to March.

I received this book for my birthday. I started it and then it was set aside, buried actually, by papers I needed to file and didn't want to. When I tackled that pile, there was the book, down at the bottom.

I like a good ghost story. I like the kind of story that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, but doesn't scare you witless.
Somewhere in the house, I have a paperback, "The Midnight Hearse and Other Ghost Stories" collected by Elliot McDonald. I got the book while still in high school. They are 2-3 page stories of British ghosts supposedly investigated by McDonald. He had a style heavy on hyperbole but I remember that I couldn't read the book outside of the hours of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Some of the stories scared me that badly.

I don't like horror movies because they seem to be horribly predictable and it's all about dismembering people. I remember watching Alfred Hitchcock's TV show. That was scary. Some of the old Twilight Zone episodes had a genuine "scare feel" to them. I don't want to be terrified. I guess just tingled in a safe environment.

The first stories in this book are just recollections of legends. We'll see, as I delve further, if this is merely a collection of legend or a telling of encounters. I'm fairly certain I have never personally encountered a ghost. I do believe there is something that we can't quantify. Some stories just aren't explainable any other way. And I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that there could be "ghosts". I've just never had the pleasure of an encounter, if I can call it pleasure to be scared witless. Even if these aren't the spine tingling brand of stories, it will be a nice addition to the books I carry around for the clan tent. Mija agrees.

This will be a good read for a lazy summer afternoon spent sitting on the deck this weekend. The girls have been allowed out onto the deck while I'm there and they do like the fresh air. I thought it would be nice to have "family time" this long weekend ahead. What a better way to spend it than with two of my favorite things, cats and books.

Edward Gorey was right.


Beverage: Scottish Blend Tea

Deb