Dan and I just returned from visiting family in the good ol' USA, and this year, we decided to be a little crazy and rent a car and drive from Arizona, to Connecticut, to South Carolina, and then back again. In between, we saw the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Tombstone, Long Island Sound, the Outer Banks, Charleston, Asheville, and Graceland. We racked up over 6,000 miles of highway driving and saw bits of disappearing America. Thank goodness for cars that average 30 miles to the gallon or more!
In the Outer Banks of North Carolina, we rode the Ocracoke ferry and saw shoreline that hadn't changed in hundreds of years. In Charleston, where descendants of West African slaves still make sweet grass baskets like their great-great-great-great aunts did, development is destroying the sweet grass. I guess future generations could find other materials from which to make the baskets, but it's sad to think that one day this could be a lost art. I purchased a basket from a young male basket-weaver, which is a pretty rare sight. Basket weaving is traditionally a woman's art.
In Asheville, we once again stepped back in time to get to the top of Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, in the thickest fog I can recall. I remarked to Dan that I wished I could capture the smell of balsam and Douglas fir trees with my camera. I've never been able to find an essential oil or incense that truly captures this fruity-piney smell. I look forward to Christmases with my house filled with the odor of fir tree, so I'm determined to find that elusive fragrance.
In Memphis, we visited Graceland and its surrounding exhibits. I was never a huge Elvis Presley fan growing up. By the time I was a teenager, Elvis was performing in Vegas and seemed to own the domain of middle aged women. I was more into David Bowie. Now that I'm a middle-aged woman, myself, I find myself fascinated with the world of Mr Presley - where he came from, what his values were ... and I confess that one of my guilty pleasures is to sit and watch Elvis movies. Visiting Graceland was one of the highlights of our trip.
Back in Tucson, I introduced Dan to the world of Halloween at Old Tucson. There, the old film studios are transformed into a world of zombies with haunted houses and live performances. Dan and I never laughed so much or had such a great time being "spooked."
To say that it was difficult to come back, knowing that work awaits us both tomorrow, is an understatement. I may live in Australia, but my heart is in my homeland and I can't wait to go back again. Sadly, road trips are a disappearing event in many people's lives now - with the price of fuel, concern over the environmental impact of long trips, and few people being able to take sufficient time off to "see the USA in your Chevrolet." I'm glad we did this as we may never get the chance again.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be writing about my impressions of things we did on our journey around the United States. I hope you'll come back to read about it and see the photos.
What's really great about this story that I'm about to relate, is that it is, for all intents and purposes, "true," to the best of my recollection, as it happened to me and my sons back in the late '80's. Looking back, I want to say we lived in a haunted house.
We (my husband at the time and I) bought our first house in a small central New York community, adjacent to a Native reservation. In fact, the community was built on what was well known to be "Indian land." The house was a Cape Cod style colonial with a large upstairs room and dormer windows. The heating was ancient as was the plumbing, but it was our first house, and we were excited to have purchased it.
The "happenings" began soon after we moved in. I often heard conversations occurring, which I sensed originated in the living room. I would hear them as I was waking up after working the night shift. The conversations were just barely audible and I couldn't make out any of the words - but I could sense emotions. It sounded like someone was angry. My first reaction was to be annoyed with my sons. They had the television on too loud and I got up to ask them to turn the TV down.
Imagine how I felt when I walked into an empty living room! My sons were out with their father and the house had been empty for hours. This happened on more than one occasion.
One night, two of my sons, who slept in the upstairs dormer, woke up simultaneously to see the broken arm of a rocking chair that their grandfather had made for them, moving up and down, as if someone was examining it. They then reported that they had seen a "mommy ghost and a baby ghost." It was the baby ghost who was playing with the arm of the chair.
When they told me about this the next day, I asked them why they didn't come down and get me, and they said that they had been too scared to get out of their beds. On subsequent days, I heard from my sons about people moving through the walls and waking them up. Then there was the oddest incident of all - the lightning.
I was in the living room with my kids and there was a cracker of a thunderstorm outside. The four of them were playing at the foot of the stairs when I called them to me. I don't know why I called them at that moment. I just knew I wanted them close to me. At that second, a streak of lightning shot in from the upstairs dormer window, travelled down the stairs at a slant, and then BOOM! It shot through the floor at the base of the stairs right where they had been playing. There was a huge reverberation of thunder in the house - ear splitting in fact, but no burn or anything left in the carpet.
I got deathly ill with pneumonia and pleurisy while living there. We left that house after living in it for only a couple of years. My husband and I split up and I wonder sometimes if it had anything to do with the ill-will that the house engendered.
To this day, I've not heard those "conversations" ever again.
Name: Melanie O. Home: Durham, North Carolina, United States About Me: Female, American health and beauty-conscious professional who has rekindled a childhood love of dolls. See my profile...
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