A Look Back...

Been quite a while since I last posted here. I've done more over at my movie review blog, and have over 100,000 page-views, world-wide, to show for it. I guess I, kind of, regard this blog as a sort of diary or dry run spot for some of my other writing, and when things seem complicated in my life, I don't write all that much personal stuff. Not even over at Face Book, where I often immediately delete personal stuff after I've let it stand publicly for a little while.

When I was about 12 years old, I found an old diary at my grandmother's house that had never been written in, and I started keeping track of my thoughts in it throughout the course of the remainder of that year. Then I graduated to another diary, and another, and by the time I was finished with High School, I was writing journal entries on notebook paper, and I now have a literal tub filled with old diaries and journals.

When my father died, thirty years ago last month, I couldn't write but one sentence, "Dad died today," and after that - any time I felt like things in my life weren't exactly to my liking, I just didn't write all that much. After I became a pastor, I kept log entries of events in my life, but I dreaded writing them down. Especially when things weren't going all that well, and I eventually stopped journaling altogether.

My last entry here was last October, and things haven't been bad necessarily, but I have certainly been pre-occupied. Here's a recap of events since that last post:

My wife's been working at the local Wal-Mart, and I've been working as Director of Children's Ministries for a local UM Church. I've also worked for over a year as a part-time Instructor for a nice university out west, so now I'm a "Professor," even though I haven't yet attained my PHD.

I've finally been accepted into the Advanced Studies department over at the seminary, and I'll be starting a new course of study in September. I'm wrapping up the Spring 2012 semester, and plan on taking a break over the summer. My son's playing baseball again this year, and he'll have games on into early June, and my daughter is looking forward to seeing some more classic cinema at the Kentucky Theater in downtown Lexington once school lets out for her; this year they're showing THE WIZARD OF OZ, and MARY POPPINS, and several other old movies she'd like to see on the Big Screen.

Next month I'll be doing some altar response ministry for the annual ICHTHUS music festival, and at the end of the month I'll be taking the entire family to Louisville for a movie convention. Then, in September, we'll be attending the annual SCAREFEST convention in Lexington, and it looks to be a lot of fun.

I'll do my best to try to post here a little more. I might even dabble at some more fan fiction. I keep getting the occasional fan letter from England over my DOCTOR WHO/LOST IN SPACE story from last year. This time around I'm thinking about doing a Tom Baker DOCTOR WHO story and having him meet Steve Austin, THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN, and Jaimie Summers, THE BIONIC WOMAN and have them collectively battle the Cybermen of the Tom Baker era. I've also been pondering doing a variation on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but featuring television superheroes from the 1970's and '80s in it...



Southern Gothic Dreams X

My Mother's Mother

Bamie and me...

We called my mother's mother "Bamie," because my older sister couldn't pronounce "Granny" properly. Bamie had several children, including her eldest son - my Uncle Jack - my mother, and my Uncle Tommy and Uncle Billy, and my aunts Alma, Linda, and Pat. After my Uncle Jack drowned after his fishing boat capsized off the shores of Wrightsville Beach, NC, Bamie's family was never the same, and the cold truth of the matter is that my grandmother opted to remain close only with my mother and our family. Relations between my aunts and uncles became very tenuous, and I've only seen a few of them on rare occasions, some more than others. 

Bamie was a tough nut to crack for most. She grew up in the Depression era, so she was a very stoic individual. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother died when she was young, so she - being the only girl in her little family - raised her twin brothers; I never met her father or her brothers - I think they died before I was born. Bamie rarely talked about her childhood, but she did tell me that food was so scarce and her father was such a bully when she was small that she would boil eggs and bury them in the dirt under her family's home, which was raised up on tall wooden pilings somehow.

My older sister was extremely close with my grandmother, and so was I. I have fond memories of spending quiet days at her house when I was a kid, listening to the Bob Whites say their name from the tree branches on Gordon Road. "Bob, Bob White!" - I can also remember the cool breezes that would blow through her dining room, and the smell of the back room, the linoleum tile, and chasing her fluffy white cat around. The cat's name was, appropriately enough, "Fluffy," by the way,

Bamie had a beautiful portrait of my Uncle Jack that hung in a prominent place in her living room. I always admired that picture, because he was an extremely handsome man, and he died in his prime. To Bamie's family, I always imagined he was like James Dean. I still have vague memories of my parents debating as to whether or not I should be allowed into the funeral home to see his body, and the lines of somber-faced grown-ups that had formed outside to pay their respects. Someone got drunk at the family home after the viewing or the funeral, and I remember my parents dragging me out of the house, being hoisted up over my mother's shoulder, and how my dad scrambled to drive us out of there as I watched shots being fired overhead as we sped away. No one will give me a straight answer about what happened, but it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, I guess.

My grandmother and I were really close until a year before she died, when family drama put a wedge between us that wasn't removed before her mysterious passing. When things were good between us, we would talk for hours, and I really miss her sometimes. She was not an easy for most people to read, but I completely understood her, and she seemed to understand me as well. My fondest memories of her are of times when she would sit down and rest, and just smile pleasantly, sometimes holding onto a cane, and never say a word.

Yesterday, while running errands, I took my family into a craft store in Nicholasville, and as we entered the lobby, I saw an elderly woman sitting on a bench, looking away from the direction we were walking. She was resting on a cane, just like my grandmother, and dressed in an outfit similar to one that Bamie favored.

It was only for a split second, but as I studied the lady, I had an eery feeling overtake me, as if it actually was Bamie, and she was there to escort me to Heaven or something. I almost fell into a swoon at the thought of it, and was relieved when she looked my way, and I saw it was someone I didn't know. It reminded me very much of fantasies I had as a child that, as I passed strangers on the road, I would recognize them, and they would actually be me. I had these thoughts over and over again. Later, after my father died, I'd have fantasies that I'd see him standing on the side of the road in strange towns, but my grandmother passed away in the early 90's, so I can't figure out why I'd imagine her so vividly at this stage of my life. It was like a waking dream, and a very unsettling one indeed. 

Bamie had Type II Diabetes, and so do I. It's what eventually killed her, and I've been struggling with my Diabetes for nearly two decades now. Every day brings a new challenge, and the thought of just being able to rest, and smile, and not say a word brings some kind of strange comfort to me at times.

Scarefest 2011 Wrap-Up

 

On my movie review blog, I posted a glut of pictures of what we saw and experienced as staff members at the annual SCAREFEST movie convention, and I posted a review of the bootlegs I bought there, but I didn't really write anything personal. That's what this blog is for...

Just thought I'd take a few minutes and do a write-up about some of the conversations I had with celebrities while there, just for the fun of it.

The first star I talked with what James Hampton, who was the dad in TEEN WOLF; he was one of the stars of the old show F-TROOP when I was a kid, and in a few Burt Reynolds movies, and a couple of Disney movies. He was also in SLING BLADE. He was a really nice guy, and his beautiful wife - Mary Deese - played the mother of Harold Lee in HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY. We talked a lot about our mutual Christian faith, which was nice, but also about some of the movie and television work he'd done. We also talked about my own life a little, and where I am, trying to figure out what the next phase of my life should lead, and he said he was always moved by a sign he saw in front of a church that said, "The safest ship is always the one that stays in the port." -- I attended his Sunday morning Q&A on TEEN WOLF, and my family and I were the only ones there, aside from one other fellow, who didn't ask any questions. My kids were in costume, and Mr. Hampton put on my son's "Jason" mask at one point. You can see the pics on my movie review blog by clicking the link in the top paragraph of this post. During his Q&A he said he had to audition to play the voice of the dad on the TEEN WOLF cartoon spin-off, and he cleared up an on-going myth about the ending of a film, explaining that the filming of that scene took longer than expected, and a college student he sat near was adjusting his shirt tail after unbuttoning his jeans a little to get comfortable during the prolonged film shoot.

All photos borrowed from the official SCAREFEST site.

Don Calfa, who played the German mortician in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD was the next celebrity I got to know; I got him a cup of coffee, and he became my friend for life. He had a long chat with my wife and me, and when we told him we were originally from Wilmington, he asked if the Hieronymus Seafood restaurant was still open. He remembered going there when he was on the coast filming WEEKEND AT BERNIES, and told us how he cooked a sucking pig while at the beach, and how he'd put an oyster shell between its teeth. He was a really nice person. He tickled me because he wore a tan leisure suit, and sported a scarf. He also wore sunglasses a lot.

My little boy wandered over to Erin Grey's booth when no one else was there, and he casually pointed at a photo of her as Wilma Deering, and said, "You were in BUCK ROGERS!" -- She was surprised, and said, "You're too young to know that, aren't you?" And he told her I'd showed him several episodes. She was immediately taken with him, and told him he was going to have a bright future and he would succeed at anything he put his hand to. She let me take her picture with him, and when I asked if she'd take one with me, she whispered, "I usually charge for this, you know," to which I replied, "Well, I'm honored. Thank you." - Later, my son and daughter both wrote her a letter, and he held them to her heart when she read them. She was very sweet, and as pretty as ever. I asked if anyone ever asked about her run on the short-lived STARMAN television series, and she said some did.

My kids also wandered over to Lin Shaye's booth when it was slow, and she also took to them. She told them she was too scared to watch INSIDIOUS more than once, and the red-faced demon in it was too scary for her to be around. She told my wife that the little boy who worked on the movie would watch the effects crew put the makeup on him for 3 hours, but when they were acting, he was horrified. She is a very soft-spoken and sweeter person than the characters she plays in movies, which should be expected, I guess.

It was a delight to get to meet Ernie Hudson, who is best known as one of the GHOSTBUSTERS. He and I talked about the news reports I've been hearing about a third installment, and he acknowledged that Bill Murray was the hold-up. He said Bill Murray wanted to make sure it was good, and he wasn't convinced by the current script yet. Then I told him I was a minister, and I'd been dying since 1984 to tell him that the line he quoted in GHOSTBUSTERS from the Book of Revelation wasn't even in the Bible. He laughed when I acknowledged that he wasn't responsible for the script, and added, "That was Danny," referring to Dan Ackroyd. We had a good laugh about that, as he shook his head, wholly unaware because he never checked. He was a super nice man. Really friendly and personable.

ELVIRA had a pretty long line most of the convention until she appeared as herself, Cassandra Peterson, on the last day. My wife and I told her that we both thought she was much prettier as herself than as Elvira, and she sadly intoned, "I'm much more comfortable as myself, too." -- She thanked us, and we told her we looked forward to meeting Cassandra Peterson, and when we later met her as herself, she was really nice. She saw my son's toy "Jason" knife, and started stabbing the air with it, and laughing like she was revisiting her youth; I asked if I could take her picture with it, and said asked, "Really?" and I said, "Yes," and I just love the picture I took. I liked her a lot.

My son and I wandered over to where Michael Biehn was sitting while my wife and daughter got in line to meet Zac Bagans and Aaron Goodwin from GHOST ADVENTURES, and my son walked over to Biehn and said, "You were Reese in TERMINATOR," to which Mr. Biehn said, "That's right," and gave him an autographed photo as a prize for knowing who he was. I talked with Mr. Biehn about his work on the atrociously bad film THE OMEGA CODE II, and when I mentioned how bad I felt for him when I saw him in it, he said, "Hey, don't feel sorry for me - I got a paycheck for it!" Nice man. His wife was with him, and she invited my wife and me to go see a movie they were screening later, but we didn't get to go because it wasn't kid-friendly. She was really nice. When she told us Michael had recently undergone a heart procedure, he pulled up his shirt and showed us his scars. He was a real trooper.

Zach Galligan was an interesting person to talk to, largely because he was pretty ticked by the bio that was written up for him in the SCAREFEST program, which used phrases like, "never quite able to come into his own in Hollywood," and implied he was a has-been. He said he was going to let someone know how upset he was when the convention was over. He wasn't real thrilled with the thought of talking about GREMLINS, he said, because it was just a small phase in the grand scheme of his life. I noticed he spent a lot of the weekend on his smart phone, which he had to read through, I think, bi-focals. He was pleasant enough, but he wasn't an entirely happy camper, either. I don't think he was too thrilled to be there, and I don't know if it was because of the write-up about him, or if something else was bothering him. I asked him if anyone had asked about his roles in the WAXWORK movies, and he said plenty had.

I didn't really spend a lot of time with the folks who came to represent NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, but I did speak briefly with its script-writer, John Russo, who reminded me a lot of Forest J, Ackerman for some reason. I got to talk a little longer with the actor who played the redneck sheriff at the end, George Kosana, and when the event was wrapping up, I asked him if he'd had a good weekend, and he hurriedly said, "I don't know - I haven't counted my money yet." I thought that was funny. I got Russell Streiner to say "They're coming to get you, Renee" on my blackberry for me, and that was a highlight. He doesn't look anything like "Johnny" anymore.

Lea Thompson, from BACK TO THE FUTURE, was very nice. When I introduced myself as one of the event's staff, she giggled and asked if she could sign my staff shirt because, she said, she was addicted to it. I told her, sure, and she signed the back of it. I had some pictures taken with her, and found the last Hot Wheels DeLorean car in Lexington on the way home! When I mentioned her filmography to my children, she was listening, and seemed extremely flattered when I referenced THE WILD LIFE, which she referred to as "very rare." As I walked around, she waved at me periodically over the weekend, and that was neat. Very nice lady.

Linnea Quigley was a trip. She really liked my silver vest, and kept commenting on wanting one. She also liked my staff shirt, which she said could wear as a night-gown. I watched her table for her so she could grab some lunch, and got a lot of comments like, "You sure have changed!" As I watched her table for her, I noticed she had some Sour breath mints sitting out, an album of photos, and her BIO AND CHAINSAW. She's a tiny little thing. She signed "I like it spooky" on my RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD UNCUT WORKPRINT sleeve.

I developed a crush on Beverly Randolph the very instant I first saw her in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, when she played "Tina," the good girl. I was a little nervous approaching her, so I just told her I went to see the movie twice at the theater when I was a teenager because of her. She touched her heart, and said, "Aw..." and we had an immediate friendship. We talked several times over the weekend, and she was so nice. She was very flattered to hear that she was exactly the type of girl I wanted to date back in '84, and when I said "Tina" reminded me of Mary Anne of GILIGAN'S ISLAND, she said, "I'll take that as a compliment." She's as adorable as ever. She signed my workprint sleeve, too, and added X's and O's.

The rest of the celebrities we met were all nice, too. I was a little intimidated about meeting Danielle Harris, because she was just so pretty, and she's so tiny I could put her in my pocket! She was really sweet, though. She and Lea Thompson were the only stars I had sign my staff shirt. Danielle signed mine above my heart.

Kane Hodder was a trip. He was just hilarious, and as friendly as he could be. Someone brought him a machete to sign, and he slammed it on the table behind my wife, and she squealed, and when my son later pointed her out when Kane was signing an autograph for him, he looked over at Renee and said, "That crazy ladu over there is your mom?" -- So he referred to her as "the crazy lady" all weekend. Awesome guy.

Lance Henricksen was really cool. He spent so much time attending to his fans that he missed getting lunch twice, even after I offered to bring some over to him. I only got to talk with him in passing, but told him of my love for MILLENNIUM, and he touched his heart, signifying how special a project it had been for him. I told him later that I noticed him even when he was in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and had no lines, and recognized his stage presence even when I was a teen, and he was flattered, and asked, "You did?" When all the other celebrities went home, he stayed behind and signed autographed pictures for the staff members who'd helped him for free.

My son was quite taken with MAD MAN PONDO, a wrestler, and he was really inrteresting to talk to. He told us how he'd wrestled Mic Foley just a week before SCAREFEST, and took pics with my son as he held the barbed wire baseball bat he used in the ring.

Now, I recognized Vernon Wells from THE ROAD WARRIOR and WEIRD SCIENCE, but I didn't realize he was the Big Bad during one season of THE POWER RANGERS, and the villain in COMMANDO until he told me. He was a real gentleman, and very pleasant to talk to.

Bill Moseley was interesting to talk to. I told him I was an ordained minister, and that his performance in THE DEVIL'S REJECTS wrenched my guys, especially in the scene where his character asks his victim to pray to God for mercy and then beats him to death. He said, "Well, thank you!" and smiled, and then I asked him how he felt when he said those lines, and he said it was just a job, and he had the ability to leave his work at work, and then go home and be himself. He told me the wind blew his hair across his brow naturally during that sequence, and he then improvised a lot of the dialogue on the spot, but it didn't really bother him to play the scene because it wasn't him. He said he was a very spiritual person in real life, and even introduced me to his pretty daughter, who'd come to the convention with him. When I asked if he'd take a picture with me, he did, and then he had Kane Hodder come over and pose with both of us, and Kane Hodder about broke my shoulder with his arm when he pressed down on it - he's really strong! 

 Meeting the actors who played Malachi and Isaac from the original CHILDREN OF THE CORN was really neat, but Courtney Gains was a lot friendlier than John Franklin, who wanted money for posed pictures, and was selling old ADDAMS FAMILY magnets that looked as old as that movie.. Gains let me take his picture for free. I got along a lot better with Gains because I told him how old I was, and he said we were about the same age; he asked me if I was going to the VIP party, but I opted out. I'm not a drinker, and didn't think I'd feel real comfortable, but I was flattered that he asked.

Before SCAREFEST, I'd never actually seen SLEEPAWAY CAMP. I'd heard of it, but never saw it, so meeting its primary stars was a different experience. I knew who Felissa Rose was, and I knew about the shock ending of the movie, but I didn't know anything about Jonathan Tiersten, who played the character Angela's cousin in the film. He kept joking around with me all weekend, and at one point when I was helping out at the Hospitality Suite, he came over to me and said, "You think you're something special, don't you, trailblazing through here with that silver vest on..." -- I could tell he was joking, but I wasn't sure ehy he was joking with me. If I'd spent more time with him, we would have gotten along better, but my family was drawn to Felissa Rose, because my wife discovered her love for chocolate, and kept bringing her some. My daughter especially loved her, too. Felissa Rose was very sweet - she posed with my daughter while making the face her character makes at the end of SLEEPAWAY CAMP.

We met a few television personalities, too, including some of the folks from GHOST HUNTERS from the SyFy Channel, and one of the co-hosts of FACT OR FAKED, Ben Hansen, who's really tall. Amy Bruni was really pretty, and extremely sweet, and I thought Britt Griffith was a lot nicer than he comes across on television.

Aaron Goodwin, from GHOST ADVENTURES, and my wife got on like a house on fire; he hugged her probably seven times over the weekend, and our kids thought it was hilarious. They were instant buddies. I shot some footage of him being electrocuted for YouTube that you can see by clicking the title link of this poat. He was a real nut. Zac Bagans, I'm afraid, wasn't very personable at all. He was quite rude several times over the course of the weekend, and when I asked him how he was doing on Sunday, he looked away and said, "I'm just trying to get out of here, you know?" I heard he refused to sign some autographs at one point, even when fans bought his book for forty bucks a pop. I can't speak as highly about Zac as I can about Aaron, who took time to talk with my kids, and my wife and me. Aaron was one of the highlights of the event, and Zac was probably the biggest disappointment, other than John Franklin, who refused to sign my wife's shirt when he saw that we were having Courtney Gains sign it first; "I gotta go," he muttered, and off he went, bags in hand. Considering the otherwise awesome time we had at the event, I'd say we didn't really have anything to complain about.

Southern Gothic Dreams IX

This one is a little different. It was a dream I had in Jerusalem during my first trip to Israel. I can still remember it with great clarity, but I don't know what it means. I stumbled onto my Israel notes the other day, and thought I'd share. It was a weird dream but, fortunately, I wrote down two snippets of dialogue from it, so I will quote directly from my 2009 Israel notebook when necessary.

Bear in mind that I don't normally see movie stars in my dreams, so the cameos in this one are far from usual in my dream world.

In this dream, I was Matthew Broderick, and I was watching Matthew Broderick in a movie at the same time. The movie was a docudrama about my attempts at getting a movie I'd written financed in Hollywood. For some reason, the sets had already been built before the film received a green light, and the movie was going to take place in a hospital.

In my mind, I knew that no stars had been signed for the film, but I knew Dustin Hoffman was on set for some reason, so I took my script over to him, where he stood chatting in a hallway with two other gentlemen. They were out of my line of vision, but I understood they were Hollywood power brokers, and friends of Hoffman's. When I finally caught his eye, I said to Mr. Hoffman with no small amount of nervousness in my voice, "I've got a script I'd like you to look at. I've written a script I want you to read. Read it, and explain it to me, because I don't understand it."

Dustin Hoffman looked at me with incredulity. He was shocked and offended, and he was silent for a moment. In that moment, he was suddenly no longer Dustin Hoffman. He was now the chief administrator of the hospital that the movie was to be the focus of. I was suddenly no longer Matthew Broderick, but a surgeon asking him to green light the shooting of the documentary about rhe hospital we both worked at. And this was all playing out on a television screen as I both watched it and participated in it.

Hoffman walked over to the two mystery men, and showed them the script, and his face turned red. He shook the script and then he threw it at me. He made it clear there would be no movie, and my requests were in vain. I became outraged, and asked him why he thought he was the sole power in what should have been a democratic process.

He looked at me then and said the following in a way that only Dustin Hoffman could : "There is no democracy of three here. There is no democracy! It's a TYRANNY! A tyranny of ONE!"

And then I woke up.

Mr. Brown

Mr. Brown sat down on his favorite stool and lit another cigarette, grateful for at least one public place where he could light up. He sucked the nicotine down into his lungs and drug the bowl of peanuts on the bar closer to him. What was taking the barkeep so long, and why did everything in his life have to be some overly protracted event? Everyone else's lives seemed to go smoothly but, as far back as he could remember, nothing ever worked out in his favor.

The Sleepy Beagle pub looked like it always had - a typical dive nestled in the oldest part of town, with a firehouse red color scheme that seemed to mask its inner rage. Mr. Brown liked it just the way it was, and exactly where it was. It was so far removed from the funeral home where he worked that none of his clients could spot him there with ease. Plus, he liked its murky, smoky interior because it smelled of stale beer, old cigarettes, and cigars. Its smells were the complete opposite of the funeral parlor, where everything wreaked of fresh flowers and strange perfumes and oils that barely masked the true stench of the death and decay that was hidden behind pastel-colored walls.

Franklyn, the night shift bartender at the pub walked over to Mr. Brown and asked him what his poison was. He ordered a screwdriver, and lit another cigarette, then checked his watch. His lifelong best friend was nowhere to be seen, and he wondered what was keeping him. It wasn't like him to be late. He rested his chin on one palm and lightly tapped his free forefinger in rhythm to the music on the jukebox. It was an old jazz number, a piano piece mostly, with an occasional saxophone utilized for effect. It sounded like something he'd heard before, but he didn't completely recognize it. Great. Another weakness. A faulty memory. Was there anything else wrong with him that he wasn't aware of?

A familiar voice broke his train of thought. "You know what your problem is, Charles?" It was his best friend, whom he'd long called VP, nestling himself down into his usual spot. Both men loosened their ties, but neither looked the other in the eye. They were too busy looking up at the television screen mounted over the shelves of liquor bottles and beer taps. There wasn't anything on that either were regular viewers of, but they kept their eyes fixed on the TV nonetheless.

Charles looked up after a moment of silence, finally acknowledging VP's question.. "Other than being mostly bald, and worthless in any and every way a grown man can be worthless?"

"I would hardly regard you as an unimportant member of polite society." VP responded calmly.

Franklyn the bartender interrupted the conversation's natural flow by taking their orders, and asking if. Brown needed another vodka. He said yes, and VP ordered a rum and cola on the rocks.

"I'm being completely serious," Charles muttered, knowing full well he would receive a stern rebuke at what he was about to say. "I'm in my second marriage, and Marsha and I still don't have kids. Everyone else does, even my ex wife, your sister, and she's a prominent psychiatrist, and she's happily married to a concert pianist. I work in a funeral home, and other than you, my other best friend works at the City Dump!"

VP was a licensed therapist, so he wasn't surprised to hear Charles make his usual whiny rant, but he was also aware that it was his unconscious way of asking him to give him a pep talk. So that's what he did.

"Funeral Directors, as well as ministers and priests, provide an invaluable service to their communities, Charles. I'm sure your own father, the most well-loved barber for decades in this area, would agree, as he knew full well that other than barbers, cooks, doctors and nurses, Funeral Directors fulfill a need that can never be completely eradicated as long as there are human beings on this planet. You work in a very specialized field. Not everyone can be a Funeral Director."

"But I never wanted to be a Funeral Director," Charles interrupted, looking over at VP with suddenly reddened cheeks.

His good friend loosened his baby blue tie a little more, not exactly sure if he was about to hear a new confession. "Well, then." VP asked. "What did you want to be?"

Charles looked up at the television again, not sure if he wanted to answer. He did, though. He figured he might as well let it out. What would be the worst thing that could happen? "Well," he said, "I've always wanted to be a...well...a sculptor." 

VP looked up at the television screen. "A sculptor, eh? And how long has that desire been burning in your heart?"

"Since we were kids." Charles retorted. "As far back as I can remember, I've wanted to be a sculptor. When all the other kids were making snowmen, I was making abstract ice sculptures. I never felt more fulfilled in my life."

"Did you ever show your work to anyone?"

"Never got the chance. Whenever I'd convince someone to come take a look, it had already melted in the sun."

"Pity," VP replied, polishing off his drink. He took a look at the empty glass, then stroked his greying goatee.

"I failed at everything as a kid," Charles continued, lighting up yet another cigarette. "Made it all the way to the finals in the national spelling bee, and then choked. Managed our ball team, and yet never once led us to a victory at the tournaments. I couldn't even fly a kite properly."

VP smiled at the memories that were emerging. "Well, you'd always get it hung up in the biggest tree in the park. What did we call that thing? The 'Whomping Willow,' or something?"

"I don't remember," Charles laughed quietly. "I always thought it was, like, a tree zombie or something, with a mind of its own. I could have sworn it was eating my kites. But I thought a lot of weird stuff when we were kids."

"Yeah," VP chuckled. "We had big imaginations back then. I guess our emotions were stronger than our common sense. Remember how we always imagined how your dog was schizophrenic? I would have sworn that he was pretending to be different characters from time to time."

"Yeah," Charles laughed softly. "Just like we used to imagine seeing things in the clouds."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I did see things in the clouds." VP chortled, taking a swallow of his freshly delivered second drink.

The laughter stopped almost as quickly as it had begun, and Charles Brown sighed. "Well, it's a shame we can't go back to being kids again. I enjoyed it when we were wee folks."

"Yeah," VP breathed out softly."But we all have to grow up sometime. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to be anything like I was when we were kids."

"Me neither," Charles agreed. He tossed back the last of his vodka, pulled out his wallet, and tossed a twenty to the bar, motioning for Franklyn to keep the change. 

The two friends walked over to the coat rack and pulled on their jackets and headed outside. It was cold outside for early September.

As they walked to the nearby train station, VP blew frost as he spoke. "As we grow older, October seems to come quicker each year, doesn't it, Charles?"

Charles Brown nodded, fishing for his train pass, and was surprised to see that there was a small rock amidst his pocket change. How did that get in there, he wondered, then tossed it aside. Finally, he found the pass.

"I love October, as you well know. It's my favorite time of year." VP smiled.

"I know," Charles grinned back. "It's when they start bringing out all those great pumpkins."

VP zipped his jacket up as far as it would go, then ran his fingers through his thinning hair. "I can't wait 'til Halloween. Sally gets as excited as I do, and we both dress up with the kids. I can't wait 'til Halloween."

"Me neither, " Charles agreed. "Me neither."

The defective speakers in the train station made a weak attempt to play music, but the local public radio station's broadcast came out sounding exactly like a muffled trombone. For some reason this made the two friends think of their school days.

They closed their eyes and waited for the train to come and take them to their respective homes. As they looked up into the night sky through the station's windows, they could see a full moon in the distance, and their minds drifted back to a story they'd once heard of a lone soldier trying to make his way home in the darkness, navigating by the moon's light. 

A low-flying plane could be heard in the distance, its engine buzzing like a dragonfly over a body of water.

"Sopwith Camel," Charles giggled, looking over at his friend to see if he'd react. 

VP opened his eyes and smiled, clearly listening to the plane. His grin grew larger.

"Bloody Red Baron," they both said at the same instant. They laughed long and hard as the train finally arrived and they both climbed aboard.

Charles Brown looked out his window as the train chugged along, and for a moment thought he saw a vulture sitting on an extended tree branch. Maybe he should cut back on the vodka, he thought. Perhaps he would take up sculpting again instead. Even a Funeral Director needs a hobby, after all.

The Curse of Cassandra

Odd as it may sound, of all the literary and mythological characters I have been made aware of during the span of my lifetime, I most identify with the Trojan princess named Cassandra. According to ancient mythology, mystical pythons whispered in her ears when she slept in the temple of Apollo when she was young, and she was granted the gift of prophecy. Later, as an adult, she revisited Apollo's temple, where he manifested and made advances upon her. When she resisted him, he cursed her, rendering her gift of prophecy fairly useless: her prophecies would be disregarded, even though they were entirely true.

Interestingly, I once read somewhere that the ancient Oracle of Delphi had a giant python wrapped around a crystal orb that served as a divination device that allowed prophecies to be produced. In the New Testament Book of Acts, you can find a reference to a demonic spirit of "python" in the original Greek translation of the story of the girl who utters prophecies while under the influence of a devilish entity before she comes to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ (Acts 16:16-18).

Bear in mind that I'm not identifying with any satanic aspect of the story of Cassandra, or even the young girl in the Book of Acts. I identify, however, with the fact that, over the years, I've - quite often - seen things differently than many people in my circle of friends and family do. If I've not offered up a more rounded-out understanding of something obviously misperceived, I've offered warnings regarding things to come that I clearly saw looming on the horizon. Or I've felt instinctively repulsed by certain public figures, or situations or opinions that seem to be readily embraced without question as if there were no room for doubt, even under close examination. And every time I'm eventually proven right - without fail -  (and this is quite often) what I originally said goes entirely unacknowledged. I never receive a word of apology, I'm never told I was correct all along, and anything and everything I've been adamant about in the face of differing opinions simply goes ignored. It is frustrating beyond words. 

Because I would just be opening a Pandora's box of controversy, I won't go into any details about anything specific I warned people about in advance, or when I've offered up words of correction or clarification. I just want to note that it would be nice to see this curse lifted, if that's what is upon me. And it would be really nice to hear an apology every once in a while. In my gut, though, I know getting any apologies would require that the puffed-up and proud humble themselves, and that usually requires divine intervention. And I ain't divine. Nor am I perfect. I just wish certain people would acknowledge when I've been proven right once in a while instead of acting like they agreed with me all along, or we never butted heads in the first place.

An ancient coin w/Oracle of Delphi's Python on Right Side

Southern Gothic Dreams VIII

It is no secret that I served as pastor for a handful of rural  churches in North Carolina for close to 14 years, and left the pastorate to pursue teaching. What is a secret. however, is the fact that, in recent months, my dreams are often haunted by past church members, many who have already gone on to be with the Lord. Last night, for example, I had a strange dream where I had returned to my hometown of Wilmington and. in my childhood neighborhood, I was asked to sit in on a lady's Bible Study. For some reason, I was still a pastor (this is usually the case in the dreams where I'm visited by church members), and the Women's Group from a church over an hour away from Wilmington decided they wanted to meet with the Wilmington group on a regular basis. I sat and watched in silence as a beloved past church member, silently held my hand and gently patted it as the discussions began.

Before a formalized Bible Study could begin, two of the more outspoken ladies who were present - one from the Wilmington group, and the other from my out-of-town church - started trying to over-talk the other in a blatant display of territorialism, and the leader of the Wilmington group won out, because the Study was being held on her turf, after all. The white-haired church member didn't like this one bit, but was rendered mute by the promise of elaborate door prizes, one of which the Wilmington leader unveiled as a promise to one lucky member of the gathering. Whatever it was, it was quite ornate, with real golden trim, and dark, lush maple wood. I wasn't sure if it was a clock, or a picture, or merely a wall decoration of some sort, but as I tried to sort out what I was seeing play out before my very eyes, I began to realize that some of the women in our gathering had been dead for many, many years.

When I was a pastor, I served at least two churches where I conducted so many funerals I lost count of them. One of them had a rash of deaths amongst the elderly membership that resulted in my doing a funeral every other week for over a dozen weeks. I became so proficient at eulogizing that I was occasionally asked to do funerals for unchurched friends of my congregation, and to this day I have been informed that many of my past parishioners have clauses in their Last Will and Testament that they want me to do their funerals when they die. I don't say this to brag. Instead, I mention it because I have always had some sort of affinity with death.

I was in the room with several church members as they passed away, or shortly before they joined the dearly departed. Some passages were gentle and slow, and others were horrific and do not merit discussing. I have seen deathly ill human beings in the final stages of their existence cling to their lives with desperation and, more than once, I have been witness to instances where someone needed to be granted permission to cross over from this life to the next. I have been saluted by former military men who knew full well it would be their last interaction with me, and on one sweet occasion I was told by a veteran of World War 1, "You were a great commanding officer." I don't want to disrespect anyone who died before my very eyes, so I won't say more, but I have been in the presence of Death more than most, and at times I have a deep nagging feeling in my heart that reminds me that Death sometimes offers a final kiss that just might be the most blessed experience a human being can ever know before they cross that great, mysterious void. 

Shortly after my 40th birthday, I almost died from pancreatitis that was the direct result of my being on a carb-free diet. My gall bladder fritzed out and issued gall stones into my pancreas, and my pancreatic levels were astronomically and deathly high. The doctors had to remove my gall bladder and literally vacuum out my insides to clean me out, and they kept me in the hospital for 11 days. I was over 40 pounds lighter when I was finally released. I thought for certain I was going to die before my primary surgery, and in the weeks of recovery that followed it, I was often as weak as a kitten - probably due to loss of muscle tissue.

My father died of spinal cancer at the age of 40, just shy of his 41st birthday, so my older sister was nervous before she reached 40, and so was I. Two weeks passed after my 40th birthday without incident, and then I fell deathly ill one night without warning. My sister ended up staying with me in my hospital room before the operation, and when they wheeled me back into my room after my gall bladder was removed, she could tell the terror of death had left me. But the experience changed me more than that, somehow.

After I began to grow somewhat stronger, I occasionally recalled what I would label "the kiss of death," and there were times when I was so weary that I almost wanted to experience it in its fullness because, to me, it was sweet somehow. Were it not for my wife and children, I may well have willed myself to die at the time of my greatest illness, but when my children walked into the hospital room and I saw the large eyes of my little boy, and the sheer horror on his and his sister's face when they saw me with so many tubes and wires in my nose and arms, I knew I'd need to venture on and get better. And so I did - but I was never fully free of the swoon that the allure of death placed on me.

Perhaps my pseudo romance with Death hearkens back to some latent memory I've blocked out, or perhaps it's inherent in my psyche because of my Christian belief that "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord," but I wish I didn't look forward to my dying day and, instead, was more optimistic about the things this life has to offer.

I've dreamed of church and church members repeatedly since I stepped down from the pulpit, and only a few dead church members have made themselves known to me. More often than I dream of church members, I dream of my dead father, or my late grandfather, and my typical reaction to seeing them again is not to be shocked, but to realize they'd never really left in the first place. I just hadn't noticed their presence in a while.

Dreams are strange things. I've often had dreams where I discovered secret passages and hidden doors, and while I almost always make attempts to view these dreams as clear indicators that I've got unresolved past issues I need to deal with, in my dreams I always, always, always get excited by the awareness that I've found these unseen portals that no one else has ever noticed. Usually, when I cross over into the doorways or holes, I discover lost treasures, and I'm absolutely delighted. 

Once, while visiting a church member in his 90's, he told me he'd had a very similar dream, and was elated to know his ancient home was rife with unlimited mounds of cash obscured within its walls. I asked him if he'd share any of it with me, and he laughed with twinkling eyes, but wouldn't commit to give me even a cent. It didn't matter, though, because the stories he told me about his growing-up years were priceless. He's passed now, as have most of the older congregants I've served. I sometimes wonder what they'll say when I see them on the other side. I wonder even now what they'll say if we encounter one another in a dream. But whose dream will I be dwelling in - mine, or theirs?

The Game Hunter - Chapter Two

It began as a simple hunting trip. The Fall season was in full swing, and young Bert Rampling was all alone near his grandfather's deer camp. No one knew where he was, and he hadn't reported to anyone where he'd be. To be honest, his family was relieved that he was gone that weekend. He had a personality that was grating. Always the loudest voice in the room, Bert Rampling was one who pretended to be an expert on everything, even things he'd never heard of before, and this was painfully evident after just a few moments in his presence. He was the type of person who seemed to know no boundaries, and who pretended not to know a stranger. If he went to a restaurant, he'd go into the kitchen and make small talk with the cooking staff, or try to tell bawdy jokes to the manager. People couldn't stand him, but the conventions of polite society demanded he be left to his own devices. Unfortunately, no one but Bert Rampling was aware of what he was capable of, whether he had access to devices of any kind or not.

His childhood was an odd one. The child of the proverbial dominant mother and passive father, his favorite past-time as a little boy was frying ants with a magnifying glass under the blaxing light of the sun. At least until he discovered that larger prey reacted differently than ants when scorched by his make-believe laser beams. He graduated from ants to lizards fairly quickly, and from lizards to toads, then small birds became his victims, and then cats and dogs. During the summer months, when left unattended, he sometimes sought out the neighborhood kittens, and if he didn't smash one's head in by swinging it around by its tail until he loosened his grip and let it hit the nearest wall, he'd bag several together in a potato sack and weigh them down with stones and dump them in the nearest pond until their air bubbles stopped rising to the surface.

When Bert was given his first airgun, he immediately sought out the little crabs that dwelt in the marshy area behind his family home, and carefully shot off their pinchers, smiling as they continued to wave what remained of their tiny forearms. Then he moved on to lizards, and was fascinated when he hit one in the side, and ripped open his side, exposing its pounding heart and rapidly pumping lungs. He smashed it into a stone with a piece of concrete, and then moved on to squirrels. 

Bert Rampling was always in trouble at school, always getting suspended, and when he was expelled as a teenager, he sought revenge on the principal who issued the verdict by breaking into the school and stealing the sound system in the gym, which he promptly dumped into the Cape Fear river. He didn't get away with this, and was arrested and sent to a juvenile facility until his parents stepped in and agreed to send him off to a military school, where he met others who were cut from the same cloth that he was spawned from; they taught him many things. Thinking he'd changed for the better, he returned home, and it wasn't long before he took a government test and was given a position at the downtown post office. In his off time, he took up hunting as a hobby, sometimes with a group, but usually by himself,. so he could torture the animals he caught alive and relish their pain in private.

So it was that, one fateful night, Bert Rampling was out hunting by himself, and he heard an odd noise in a thicket. Without thinking, he opened fire, and when the smoke from his weapon cleared, he was shocked to see that he'd just slaughtered two teenagers who'd been making out on a blanket. Without missing a beat, he carefully cleaned the scene of the killing up, rolled up their corpses, and carefully placed them in the trunk of the car they'd left unlocked. Then he drove it to a wooded area, far from the scene of his crime, that he knew no one frequented, and saw to it that the vehicle was completely obscured from view by stones and debris, and he left it there, leaving no traces whatsoever that would prove he'd ever been there. And at that time, in the age before cell-phones and surveillance cameras, no one ever could, and no one ever did.

Some say that dogs of any breed, if they ever taste human blood, must be put down, or they'll develop a taste for it that will drive them mad. The thrill of his first human kills had this very effect on Bert Rampling, and every time he heard tell of the missing lovebirds he'd slain, he chuckled inside to think that most folks believed the two had run off to be married, probably because they were about to become a family with a child on the way.

It wasn't too long before Rampling began to plot out his next killing spree, and then his next, and his next. He never picked targets who knew him. To do so would invite suspicion, and if he were to continue to feed his addiction, it was too risky a prospect. Usually, his preferences were for out-of-town folks, or homeless people. If he didn't kill them where he found them, he'd take them back to his parents home when he knew no one would be there, and he'd alternate killing techniques. He was quite creative about his murder styles, and almost fancied himself an artist. It was a shame, he thought more often than once, that no one would ever be appreciative of his work.

One night, however, he selected the wrong victim at the wrong time, and in the worst possible place. The end result would lead to the beginning of the end for him. That is, if you believe the hype surrounding the murder trial that resulted from the events of that night and all that followed afterward.

The Game Hunter - Chapter One

Sheriff Ken Porter had chili on his face, and sweat dripped from his forehead. “I dunno ‘bout you,” he coughed as he dabbed at his nose with a napkin.. “But I gauge chili by whether or not it makes my face break out into a sweat, and if it makes my nose run. And this here’s some good stuff.”

Porter was sitting with a deputy in his favorite booth at Whitey’s restaurant in Wilmington, NC. The interior of the place hadn’t changed since it was first built back in the 50’s, and neither had the uniforms the waitresses wore. Porter slurped coffee and wiped his mouth off. He looked into his deputy’s face, waiting for him to respond to the comment he’d made about his lunch. No reply was forthcoming.

“What’s wrong, Ben? Cat got your tongue?”

Ben Ripley was watching the traffic on Market Street, lost in thought. As if he was coming out of a trance, he looked at his superior and asked, “Do what, now?”

“Oh, nothing,” Sheriff Porter muttered, shoveling another heaping spoonful of the chili into his mouth.”I was just makin’ conversation while you were on visual traffic patrol. What’s on your mind, Ben?”

“I been thinkin’,” Ben responded. “Wilmington ain’t seen a rash’a killings like in some places, and I’m wonderin’ when we’re due. Somebody was tellin’ me the other day that we should be due a Hurricane anytime now, and I got ta thinkin’ that the same might be true about killin’s.”

“KILLINGS, you say?” Sheriff Porter almost choked on his coffee, and did his best not to burst out laughing. “What kind’a killin’s, man? You talkin’ about serial killers, or what?”

“Well, yeah.” Ben offered. “Surely there’s gonna be some serial killin’s here one day. I mean, think about it. Wilmington’s surrounded by swamps, and woods, and just up the road there’s Wrightsville Beach. Shoot - a serial killer might’a been killin’ folks left and right  here for years, and no one even  noticed. There’s plenty’a places ta stash bodies.”

For some reason what Ben was saying touched a nerve in the Sheriff, though he didn’t want to admit it. He’d been having troubling dreams for months, most of them revolving around corpses coming to light in the swamp lands around Wilmington once the tide was low enough for them to be seen. Sometimes his dreams dealt with a running storyline in which he’d killed someone himself, and was afraid the dead bodies he’d dumped in the swamp would be found. Ludicrous, he knew, but troubling nonetheless.

The two officers continued their talk over their meal, speculating about the possibilities that Ben’s concerns might one day prove to be true, and wholly unaware just how soon.

Meanwhile, a few miles from Whitey’s, a muffled scream went unnoticed by the residents of the Alandale subdivision. Blood spray covered a wall in a dark room where curtains were drawn as a throat was slit, and a dead body slid jerkily to the floor. Bert Rampling wiped off his blade and grinned. “Another notch on my wall,” he laughed to himself. Then he began his clean-up ritual.

Southern Gothic Dreams VII

I was watching an old Bible epic when, suddenly, I was no longer watching it, I was in it. I was an observer, though, not a participant, and my entire worldview was in black and white. I was watching Jesus, whose face was obscured from view, scold the Apostle Peter as they stood beside a Roman structure made of stone. There was a rectangular shape on the stone wall beside them, with smaller rectangular shapes fused, somehow, into the etching above the primary shape. Peter kept picking at the smaller pieces and, to my astonishment, I noticed that he was popping the smaller pieces into his mouth and eating them like candy.

Suddenly, I became the Apostle Peter, and I could actually taste what he was chewing, and as I gnawed on the piece of stonework, I could hear Jesus saying, "That's your problem, Peter. You're a nibbler. You seem to have a need to nibble on something all day long, and it needs to stop..."

I continued to chew what seemed to be a nut like an almond or something, and I could hear myself saying to the Lord, "I'm sorry, but it tastes good. I can't help myself," and then I was an observer again, watching Jesus and Peter walk away, over a hill. As they walked on, Jesus said, "There's lead in that, by the way. It'll kill you."

I looked over at the stone wall where Peter had been chipping away at the stonework, and touched the now hollow spots, wondering why he had done what he'd done. Then I found myself pondering the writings of the Apostle Paul, where he wrote a cryptic passage about having a nonspecific "thorn" in his side. and I wondered if it was a food addiction. Then I began to wonder if I'd seen an exchange between Jesus and Paul instead of Peter, and reminded myself that Paul never physically saw Jesus and, instead, encountered him by way of a vision on the road to Damascus, where he was blinded for persecuting the early Christians. The dream ended, and I was left wondering what it all meant. I've never dreamed about the Apostles or Jesus before. It's a shame I didn't get to see Jesus and the dream wasn't in color; I was distinctly aware that it was black and white. I don't recall dreaming in black and white before. Usually my dreams are all in technicolor.

For all you wanna-be Jedi out there...

I tweaked this for my little boy's birthday, so I could personalize it; I straightened the original out, and removed the reference to RETURN OF THE JEDI. My son was delighted when I presented him with his "official" Jedi certificate, and squealed, "I made it past Padawan!" He had a good ninth birthday. Especially when the Darth Maul lightsaber my brother sent him arrived in the mail. Enjoy.