A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....10-31-02

A Few of FR's Finest.....
......Every Day

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A Few of FR's Finest November 11, 2001

So many people have written me since my original Veteran's Day Tribute, asking how they, or a loved one, could be included in that tribute. Since I can no longer add the photos to the body of the thread, I've been including them in additional posts as I received enough to make another collage.

Still that doesn't seem to be enough. I think there's never been a better nor more appropriate time to keep the faces of our own Veterans and Active Military in front of FReepers--every day! That's why I wanted to do yet another Daily Thread .....ABOUT FReepers .....and FOR FReepers. But not only about our Military FReepers; for all FReepers! Wouldn't it be nice to get to know a few of the other FReepers as well? That's why, in addition to seeing FR's Finest Military Personnel every day, I thought it might be fun to feature a different FReeper (or FReepers) each day. If you would like to be pictured, or know someone who would, please FReepmail me and we'll turn the spotlight - on YOU - for the day!

And do let me know if you'd like your picture added to the groups of Veterans/Active Military below. I will keep this page updated, and continue to add them to the comment section of the original Veteran's Day thread as well.

TOP: g'nad, AgThorn's son Justin, SLB, AgThorn's son Brett

MIDDLE: fish70, razorback-bert, CheneyChick,Leroy S Mort, Mark17

BOTTOM: Terry's Take, Taxman, DinkyDau

TOP: ValerieUSA's son Grant, SK1Thurman, kd5cts, RangerVetNam,

dansangel and .45man's son-in-law Tony

BOTTOM: rangerX, Old China Hand, Trish, Howlin's dad, Mustang

TOP: ohioWfan's son, MamaBear's father-in-law, MamaBear's dad, ladtx

MIDDLE: The Mayor's niece, M.Kehoe, Beach_Babe's son-in-law

BOTTOM: deadhead's dad, HiJinx, Severa's hubby, viligantcitizen's granddad.

TOP: Q6-God, Scan59, Mama Bear and JKPhoto's son, ofMagog

MIDDLE: Big'ol_freeper, JustAmy's great uncle, Prodigal Son

BOTTOM: JustAmy's husband, JustAmy's brother-in-law, JustAmy's brother.

TOP: dakine's wife, MeeknMing's dad, Auntbee's nephew, MilitiaMan7,
AlasBabylon.
BOTTOM: Joe Brower, Temple Owl, Temple Owl's wife, dutchess' dad,
Aomagrat

These ghost story writers are not real big on proofreading:

A few years ago, I left grad school in New Mexico and returned to Oklahoma. I stayed with my mom for a while, then Mom said she was tired of the 3 bedroom house she'd rented for about 10 years, so I roused myself from my funk and found a furnished apartment in a somewhat seedy part of town. It was cheap, and I had next to nothing, having moved back to Tulsa with all my possessions crammed into my car, so I moved in. I was at the time part of a Wiccan coven, and two of my fellow coveners lived downstairs, so that was part of the reason I chose that building, besides it being cheap and the landlord being pretty decent.

I didn't really feel too unsafe there at first despite the fact that the apartments across the street were home to a nest of drug dealers, but as they kept a low profile I figured as long as I left them alone...anyway, a month or so after I moved in, an old friend from college called, needing a place to stay, since he'd just gotten a job in town. Well, in a couple of months he and I were an item...bear with me, this does have some bearing on the story!

During this time I became aware of a vague feeling of discomfort when I was alone in the apartment. I had a rather large ficus tree in the living room, and every so often when I would pass by it on the way to the bedroom, I saw movement, sometimes glimpses of a hand and a face out of the corner of my eye. Kris (my boyfriend) said that the place made him uncomfortable also, so it was just as well that we weren't spending a moment apart anyway, since being alone at night there was kind of unnerving.

Kris was at the time very interested in the Black Dahlia murder case. (She was a drifter named Elizabeth Short whose mutilated and sawed-in-half body was found in a vacant lot in 1947 in LA. To this day, no one knows for sure who killed her. For more info, check out http://www.bethshort.com) One night we were lying in bed, with a few candles burning in the room, talking about this and that, with the stereo on and the door to the bedroom open. Suddenly we were both quiet. Both of us felt someone or something enter the room and stand just inside the doorway. I sat up in bed and was overcome by a feeling of awful grief. I began to cry. As we looked, there was a shadowy form against the off-white wall of the bedroom. I could see something like a hand moving. Kris suddenly grabbed my arm. Both of us noticed, with a shock of horror, that some of the clothing lying on the floor was positioned in the shape of a body, with a line between the different-colored clothes just where it would be if that body had been sawed in half -- closely resembling the pictures we'd seen of Elizabeth Short's body as it was found in 1947. We were, pardon my French, scared shitless, and immediately threw ourselves into bed with the covers over our heads, after first destroying the "image" by shoving the clothes into a random pile.

Later, we discovered a penny, dated 1962, in the entry to the bedroom. At the time, Kris was reading a book entitled _Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer_ written by a woman who claims that her father killed Short. According to the book, this man died in a car accident -- in Claremore, Oklahoma, about 30 miles from Tulsa -- in 1962. Kris had cleaned the apartment that day, and picked up all the loose pennies lying around on the carpet (we tended to drop pennies here and there and miss them in the dark color of the rug) and he swore to me that there was no penny there before. We still have it.

I don't know if the presence we felt there was the ghost of the Black Dahlia, but I will never forget that night. We began to wonder if there wasn't some other entity attached to the place, one that we might have believed was Elizabeth Short. We went to the library and searched for information about the building; all we found was that the apartment had been built sometime in the '70s. Lots of things could have happened in that time.

There were other times when we would be talking or sleeping, and would awaken or stop talking to notice that we were definitely not alone. Not to toot my own horn, but I am sort of sensitive to those kinds of things, and Kris is too, and there were several occasions when we knew that someone/thing was in the room with us. Sometimes it felt harmless and vaguely interested in us; sometimes it definitely sent chills up the spine. I have had some training in utilizing my own "psychic abilities", for what it's worth, as part of my coven training, and through my own studies. The most important thing I ever learned and put to use was to trust my own gut feeling. After thinking about all this for a while, my gut feeling told me someone, or something, was there that night we found the penny, and was probably in the apartment at various times, but I still don't know what to make of it.

I do know that both Kris and I, and several of our friends, all saw things moving out of the corners of our eyes while in the apartment, and some of us have seen faint images of faces and hands on the edges of one's field of vision. There was also a mirror over the dresser in the bedroom, a mirror shaped like a door with a lintel, and it made many of my friends nervous -- and me too. I always felt as though someone was staring at me through the mirror, and tried my best to cleanse, seal, or otherwise de-contaminate it through various means, but the feeling never went away.

A friend of ours stayed in the living room for a few months while searching for an apartment, and he told me years later that he saw things moving in the darkness. He is not an overimaginative sort, and he's an atheist to boot and doesn't tend to look for that sort of thing, so I figure he did see something.

Several attempts were made to "cleanse" or "exorcise" the apartment by myself, the high priestess of my coven, and a few other people, but the feeling still remained till we moved. Kris and I moved out of there in 1996, to an apartment in a better part of town that is at least as old as the other, but which has never had the same creepy feelings, strange presences, or sights that the old one did. My covener friends have also since moved out, but even though they lived in the same building, they never felt uncomfortable or had any unwanted phenomena happen in their place.

One last thing: when we moved out, we cleaned the apartment without power, since the electricity had been switched to the other apartment. Kris says that when he walked by the open bathroom door on his way to get more paper towels, he saw, for a moment, what appeared to be bloodstains on the shower!

I still don't know for sure what all that was about, but I am fairly certain that the apartment was the scene of something unpleasant, perhaps a suicide or even a murder. One thing's for sure, I'd never rent the place again. Since moving out of that place, we haven't had anything comparable happen in our new apartment, so I think the place is definitely haunted. By what, I have no idea.

The year is 1620. As the Mayflower tacks about to avoid the dangerous shoals of Pollock Rip off the Cape Cod coast, a young girl mysteriously jumps to her death.

Almost four centuries later, the psychic imprints of that incident in 1620 — and a string of related incidents thereafter—begin to wreak havoc with the lives of two prominent Americans.

A corporate executive daysailing in Nantucket Sound is unexpectedly barraged by a violent storm at sea—which no other vessels even detect on their radar. A highly-respected college professor swears he can see the outline of two large figures hovering over the foot of his bed, one of them brandishing a knife.

Both men share two things in common.

They are scions of the privileged Pennfield clan—one of America’s great families, claiming an unbroken line back to the Mayflower.

And, unbeknownst to them, their strange bouts with the paranormal have just begun.

Soon, the Pennfields realize that these encounters are not isolated occurrences, but an orchestration of paranormal events haunting the entire family. Concerned, they enlist the aid of retired ex-construction-contractor- turned-ghost-hunter, Ed Swann. In his methodical manner, Swann uncovers a mystery that unravels the dark underside of the Pennfields’ cherished lineage—leading them all the way back to that incident on the Mayflower.

Based on years of research into psychic phenomena, Mean Spirits deals in a very realistic, thought-provoking way with apparitions, OBEs, sleep paralysis, synchronicity, poltergeist activivty/RSPK, and many other psychic phenomena.

I may have to purchase this book. ;-)

I'm beginning to scare myself. Some of these sites have all sorts of bizarre, spooky sounds to heighten "the experience."

I mean to relate the tale of my own personal childhood Ghost Cat, which inhabited the home of my parents, and may very well haunt the bedsheets at night there still to this day. That's right, mine was very similar to other Ghost Cats of dozens of other stories, where the weight of a cat is felt to jump on the bed, and settle down against one's legs, back, etc.

My Ghost Cat was always keen to leap upon the foot of my bed, but it never settled down. Instead, it would slowly walk up the bed towards my head. Besides feeling the weight of the paws, (anyone who has ever owned a cat knows how cat paws on the bed sheets feel at night), I could also SEE the indentations being made by the invisible paws, slowly making its way up to my head.

I considered it very unwelcome. I never waited to see why it wanted to get to the top of the bed, by the time it reached my waistline I violently flipped the sheets up high enough that I was confident the Ghost Cat was flung across the room. But sometimes, within a minute, it would have leapt right back onto the foot of the bed and the process would repeat until I was confident it had left the room in frustration, or I had left the room in utter terror.

It seemed to target my brother the most. He spent many nights in my parent's bed, having fled the persistence of terror. Once, so it is said, as my brother was settled in and finally feeling safe between the protective bodies of my parents, the Ghost Cat jumped right up on the foot of THEIR bed. My parents wanted to know why my brother had thrown all their blankets onto the floor. I don't know how often this Ghost Cat may have haunted my parents, they aren't the kind who like to talk about such things.

Even though I personally found the hauntings rare, probably the worst cat ghost experience actually happened to me -- or, well, it happened to my cat (my living cat), Tigger.

It happened when I was twelve years old. I was sleeping peacefully and Tigger was sleeping next to me, on my pillow. Very suddenly I was awakened by Tigger who was hissing and clawing like she had gone completely mad. I assumed that she was having a seizure (having suffered from them in the past), but before I could try to help her, she stopped the commotion.

Everything about her became perfectly still, all except for her eyes. Her eyes were big and alive, like she was hunting. I watched in growing curiosity as she crept near to the surface of the bed, towards my (gulp) crotch area. I was starting to feel a little uneasy. Then, she pounced, and met something halfway into it, and once again was yowling, hissing, and clawing at nothing more to me than thin invisible air.

I realized it could be the Ghost Cat, and I was becoming VERY nervous. My cat seemd to be doing well though - she had chased "it" off the side of the bed, apparently, as she was trotting in laps around the perimeter of my single bed, as if watching something moving over the side, or so it seemed to my mortal eyes.

By now I had gathered my senses to a point where I could take action, so I grabbed a hold of Tigger and ran downstairs to get a drink of milk (for me and for Tigger), and settle in on the couch to sleep the remaining night away.

Unfortunately, sadness closes this story, as within three days Tigger became deathly ill with something our veterinarian could only describe as a "disease" only found in six other cats since the beginning of veterinary medicine. Experts from Cornell University were contacted to help save her, but there was nothing that could be done. The vet had found a scratch along Tigger's body that stretched form the nape of her neck, all the way along her tummy, and down her leg to the "knee area."

Not a common scratch for a "cat" fight, to say the least.

The wound was grossly infected from the rare disease that claimed her life within three days. I was mortified by this experience, and haven't been able to justify it with a logical explanation to this day (but I am still searching for one). Could it be the Ghost Cat was jealous over the fact that Tigger was allowed at the top of the bed? I might mention that my entire street was supposedly built over an indian burial ground. I used to find lots of arrowheads in the fields behind the house. This cliche could serve to completely destroy my credibility, but to some it may offer some explaination.

I now live in Australia with my wife, but soon I am moving back to good old Buffalo. We'll no doubt spend a few nights in that house in transition. At least this time, with my wife, I'll have a witness.

Yikes. I need to take a time-out and get some work done. Have a ball, y'all.

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