Halloween Breaks Wet

I just woke up a short while ago to the sound of rain pattering on my metal roof. I went to the front door and looked out to see if my friends, the neighborhood cats, would venture my way for their usual morning meal. Three angry looking, well-soaked cats scampered out from under my truck and ran underneath the table on my deck. Breakfast is served, little kitties: chicken and tuna dinner out of a can.

Now to feed me. On go the eggs to hard boil for egg salad.

In less than twelve hours the first of the neighborhood ghoulies will head out, bags in hand, costumed and giggling, ready to amass the mountain of candy and goodies that will keep the Tooth Fairy busy. If this rain continues (there is a 70% chance, which, right now, is proving very true) the parents will have to deliver the monsters door to door using their automobiles.

Me? I no longer participate in the festivities. I always turn out the lights and watch television. (Although I admit that I frequently peek through the blinds to check out the costumes.) This evening I will celebrate Halloween, appropriately enough I think, by breaking out my DVD collection for scary shows like Tales From The Darkside, Tales From The Crypt, The Haunting, Night Gallery, or maybe an episode or two of Boris Karloff's Tales Of The Unexpected From Behind The Veil.

A dark, rainy evening is the perfect setting for watching horror shows. But not for going trick-or-treating. So I hope the rain will end ... for the kiddies sake ... not to mention my kitties, who would greatly appreciate it.

At any rate, I wish everyone a Happy Halloween, however you choose to celebrate it. Everyone, that is, except the religious nutcases who believe this is Satan's busiest night and feel that depriving children of a harmless, myth rich tradition is an act of holiness. You guys are cordially invited to sit on a flaming Jack o' lantern.

Cola Complaints

I like colas. I used to like the 12-pack packaging with the perforated end piece that when removed turns the whole into a handy refrigerator dispenser for your drinks. Unfortunately, in an effort to reduce costs, the manufacturers have made the cardboard so thin that, more often than not, once the perforated piece is removed, the corners give way as well, dispensing at least half of the package at once. Very annoying.

I also used to like their space saving "cube" ... twenty-four drinks in a handy cube box, great for storage. Again, the flimsy cardboard sags when you pick the cube up by its handle. I learned quickly you had better support the bottom if you don't want to be chasing around your colas that have fallen out of the busted bottom.

Add me to the list of those folk who long for the good old days when colas came in glass bottles. Long on, those days ain't coming back. So we've had to adjust to cans and plastic bottles. Both seem to me to "taint" the taste. I find the plastic bottle less tainted than the can. Problem for me is, the can is not resealable.

Sometimes twelve ounces is just too much cola. Towards fixing that problem, manufacturers have given us the pony-size cola can. Half the cola for half the price, right? NO, you will pay about three quarters what you would for the full-size can. How's that for a catch-22? Either buy more and waste some cola, or pay more to get what you want. Brilliant.

Often I buy eight-packs of bottled cola in the stretch wrapped pack. The routine is always the same, ridiculous as it is. Knowing damn well it will be a struggle, I set out to remove the first drink without the use of a saw or electric knife. A five minute struggle ensues, with me attempting to pull the wrap apart with my bare hands. I am left breathless, sweaty, and humbled. I can only guess the shrink wrap is cheaper than the plastic rings. But I promise, I will be doing it all again next week.

What about those cheap rip-off soft drinks? Most of us have tried some in an effort to save money. I frankly don't like them. In fact, I've never known anyone to develop a brand loyalty to these imposters. Sure, I see them turn up around the lunch table, every now and then at my own seat, but just as soon as money allows, we go back to our favs. And one more thing. I've noticed more impoverished smokers who seem willing to get by with generic cigarettes but not generic cola. Don't really know what to make of that.

When I occasionally eat fast food, I like a fountain drink. But they are so huge. And really overpriced. The adding of ice is an individual thing. But if you go through the drive-through you are at the mercy of the server. You may end up with a huge cup of ice containing 6 ounces of drink, or maybe three of four chunks of ice floating in a pint or more of room temperature cola. Sometimes the amount of ice is just right, but the lunk-headed server doesn't wait for the foam to dissipate to add more cola. Just pop the plastic lid on the cup and hand you three quarters of cup of cola for an inflated price.

But yesterday I finally won a round. After work I decided I would drive through my local Taco Bell for a Taco Salad. When I got to the window, the lady handed me a drink. "But ma'am," I said, "I didn't order a drink." Checking the order, she made a oops gesture and told me she had made a mistake. Then she asked if I wanted the drink if she gave it to me. "Why, sure!"

Got my money's worth that time!

I know, I know. Colas aren't good for me. But I haven't had a cavity in over thirty years and my kidneys are still functioning well. For now at least, I'm gonna keep sucking them down ... and complaining, I suppose.

Coming Soon: Michael Jackson Autopsy Photos

So we are told according to this dispatch from PopEater.

Should you miss the rumored eventual leak of the photo, or should it prove to be just be a rumor, we are provided with a description of its contents:

It features only Jackson's head and shows his shaved skull and wide open eyes. His eyebrows are tattooed and skin is ashen in color. His lips are flat, wide and without lipstick. A scar on his left cheek is visible because concealing makeup had been cleaned from his face. Jackson is lying on his back on a metal autopsy table. The picture was taken at a 30-degree angle toward the left side of the corpse.

My imagination fails to come up with a single way the viewing of such a photo would fortify or edify anyone.

Included in the article is a poll consisting of two questions. The first asks if you are interested in seeing Jackson's autopsy photo. You can choose between "Sure" or "No thanks." I confess to being a bit disappointed that "You are insane, right?" wasn't an option.

But maybe I'm just being cynical. After all, in our voyeuristic and reality show obsessed culture, such questions are probably legitimate.

Perhaps as an afterthought the second questions asks if the releasing of such photos is "disrespectful."

Who knows about respect anymore? Who can explain the meaning of the word "decorum." What once was considered to be the underbelly of our society is now the mainstream.

I am not a fan of Michael Jackson's ... but I am still a fan of human dignity.

Of Snakes And Guns

Several of my co-workers and I were discussing gun ownership over lunch yesterday. Here where I live, guns are as common as missing teeth. Hunting is very popular, too, and that accounts for a lot of the guns. I'm not a hunter, having been raised in an altruistic family that preferred not to know personally the animals we ate. I don't berate those who do hunt, although I have to wonder why anyone would leave a warm, cozy bed in the wee hours of the morning in order to wait around for game. I do, however, think it is ridiculous to mount animal heads on plaques to serve as trophies. I mean, had you battled the animal to death in hand-to-hoof or hand-to-paw combat and then made a plaque to commemorate the victory, I would be duly impressed. Very impressed indeed. But for having gotten the best of an unsuspecting beast with a high powered rifle, nah!

Then there is the more common argument for guns: "I keep them to protect me and my family." Home invasions being cited as the most common rationale. This argument never convinced me to go out and purchase a gun. Home invasions are unexpected events, and unless you go around your home wearing your gun in a holster, I doubt it would be of much help in an actual invasion.

What about late night burglaries. I feel you here. But again, unless you sleep with your gun under your pillow (I couldn't do that because that's where I keep my arms when I sleep) or on your bedside table (not good if you have young children), again you are at a disadvantage. And there are lots of stories out there about this type of thing going very wrong. But, okay, I find this argument somewhat convincing.

I guess what gets me about all this, is that deep down, I suspect gun lovers keep guns mainly for the feeling of power. Then they rationalize that fact however.

I read that 100,000 people die of snake bites every year. I wonder how many people keep anti-venom on hand in order to "protect their families." The same people who claim to worry about being burgled, I notice, rarely take even the most basic precautions to avoid robbery when they go out. How many men carry decoy wallets that could be handed over in event of robbery, while hiding their "real" wallet that contained their money, credit cards, and important ID items? How many even bother to hide their wallets? (I admit I do neither, because I don't calculate the odds of being robbed as high enough to justify the bother.) How many women do you see walking the malls and department stores with their hand bags gaping wide open, or carrying their handbags loosely as easy prey for a snatcher?

Now I may be wrong, but I think gun ownership is usually more than a protection issue. Somehow I am just not the least bit comforted by the explosion of gun sales. A lot of gun owners I know personally scare me almost as much as the would be criminals.

Oh, I Can Taste The Generic Difference

How many times have I read the advice on cutting my grocery bills that tells me I should buy generic? I'm told I will not notice a taste difference and will save beaucoups of $$$ because generic products do not pass along the cost of advertising. And I will save because of not "paying for a name." So I'm repeatedly told.

My considered opinion, after years of putting this to a test: This advice is exactly bass-ackwards.

Wanna save on groceries? Use your freezer whenever you catch perishable items on sale; use coupons; and my favorite and most useful piece of advice, staple items aside, buy only what is on sale and build your meals around those items.

That latter point runs counter to another common piece of advice: always make a list. Well, I never do that except for staple items I need (there is nothing more annoying than getting home and finding you neglected to get something you needed and intended to buy, but plumb forgot ... unless maybe it is getting home and finding out the bagger left out an item you needed AND paid for!).

It isn't because I love spontaneity that I don't make a list. It's just that it limits my thinking. For example, last week my store was closing out some family sized cheese enchiladas on Spanish-style rice entrees for half price. I bought two for what one would have cost (and I would have never paid that anyway), which gave me enough for eight meals if I threw in some canned beans, which are dirt cheap anyway and seemingly always on sale. Yeah, I may sometimes eat the same thing a few times over the course of a week, but it is worth it to save and still eat well (by the way, the other entree is still in my freeze for later). Besides, people don't complain about fast food burgers several times a week.

I could give many examples of how this pays off for me. Prepared meatballs are often sold "buy one get one free." Spaghetti sauce, like beans, is another item that is always on sale, one brand or another (again, I'm not talking generic). Spaghetti and meat balls, with garlic bread and/or a side salad is a sure winner. And how about a few meatball sandwiches for lunches? Or you could pick up one of those packages of "just-add-butter-and-water" flavored noodles and add a few meatballs to that. How about an envelope of brown gravy mix? Fix that and simmer some of the meatballs in the gravy, then pour over rice (another dirt cheap item). The possibilities are endless thinking this way. But I digress.

I say the generic advice is bass-ackwards because - once you think about it - any fair test will reveal that generic items scrimp on their ingredients, using lesser qualities and lesser amounts, AND YOU WILL DEFINITELY NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE if your taste buds are working.

Try making a half-sandwich out of one piece of generic or store-brand bread folded in half. It will shatter and crumble apart like Styrofoam. Ditto with crackers. I use crackers a lot ... longer shelf life, less expensive, and just about anything you can put on bread can be put on crackers, and without all the extra carbohydrates. I got so tired of trying to spread meat salads or peanut butter onto cracker crumbs that I went back to a name brand cracker.

What about soups? You can buy store brand soups that look so much like Campbell's you might mistake them if you aren't paying attention to the labels. But the taste! Watered down stocks and third or fourth rate tomatoes, that all the salt and seasonings in the world will not mask. Do companies not taste test their finished products?

I don't have too big a problem with generic condiments, mustard usually tastes the same, mayo only slightly inferior ... but what is nastier than generic catsup (or is it ketchup)?

Generic canned beans are almost always bland, and generic canned vegetables are almost always either hard or mushy. Generic packaged food like meat "helpers" (what few varieties are available) are, again, uniformly inferior.

I have tasted off-brand sausage that seemed to me to be more groundhog than ground hog. And, again, all the seasonings in the world wouldn't mask this. But believe me, they wouldn't use that much seasoning, anyway.

I could go on and on. But I have tried, repeatedly, to get on the generic grocery bandwagon, but always fall off because of dissatisfaction. Look, frugality is not about lessening your quality of life. Frugality has to do with getting the most for your money. Eating is one of life's finer pleasures. Don't ruin it with unpalatable foodstuff. That isn't the way to save money.

Now it is very true that you pay more for a "name." But wait a minute. Is that such a bad thing? A name is a reputation when you are doing business. I feel better dealing with a firm that has a solid, time-tested reputation and a good name they feel they must uphold. It is really true that in most cases you get what you pay for. So generic food shopping is bass-ackwards thinking.

When you consider the lack of quality ingredients in generic food, combined with the fact that there is no advertising costs involved, you can see that you are being ripped off big time price-wise!

So, my advice is to work at being a savvy shopper AND a creative cook. This is a winning combination and easier than you think.

And the next time you see that well-known superstore's commercials showing families laughing and giggling over a dinner the mother cooked with store-brand ingredients for less than two dollars a serving, rest assured they are playing in their food and making sport of how bad cheap food really does taste.

How To Maximize Your Family's Grief Over Your Passing

This post is a rant, pure and simple ... brought on from too many personal experiences, as well as those of my friends.

Why are there so many people who go through life apparently without a thought about the mess they will leave behind when they die? I am amazed at how many people do not leave any life insurance for their families. Not just too little, but zero, zip, nil.

If you are an adult, you need to carry life insurance. Even if you are young and healthy, you need life insurance. Life is uncertain. Hey, how a bout a prepaid preplanned funeral ... better yet!

How about a will? Do you have "stuff"? Do you have family? Make it easy on them and designate who gets what. How many families have been torn apart over human greed and a deceased family member's possessions?

Here is a pet peeve. For some reason most older people seem to go into denial about their impending departure. The hoarding of things over a lifetime for purely "sentimental reasons" is one of the traps they fall into. Then, when the inevitable happens and they die, some poor family member has to be saddled with the additional burden of sorting through and cleaning up the mess left behind, right along dealing with the grief. Yeah, we all have the spare time in our own lives to do this, right?

I am just short of 50. But I have been sifting through my personal effects and getting them down to a manageable lot. Hey, and as an added bonus, I don't have a problem losing things! I don't want to leave a mess behind.

The majority of people accumulate way too much stuff in their lifetimes - as if material things were a key to happiness. Hate to move? A minimalist lifestyle will make moving a snap. Look at it this way: stuff you have lying around mostly unused and rarely used is money spent that could have been saved or invested.

We all have heard of the person who learns they have a terminal condition (as if life itself were not one!) and are told to put their house in order. Why wait? Why not get and keep your house in order?

If you have loved ones, show your love for them by having your affairs in proper order so that your final chapter is not one of having left a burden for them to bear in addition to their grief. Be considerate. Don't leave a mess for someone else to have to deal with.

The Psychic Who Didn't See His Own End

I suppose stories such as this could be multiplied, but it is one I personally know the details of and remember quite well.

We had a local celebrity, quite well known, the psychic and clairvoyant R. C. "Doc" Anderson. He was a fixture of local radio and television, always good for a fascinating story. He used to run an ESP studio in Rossville, Georgia, where he counseled people of all walks of life. I remember being impressed as a youth when, in reading one of his books, I came across a picture of Anderson and Eddie Albert (of Green Acres fame), who was another of his consultants. Wow! This man is "big time," I remember thinking. Once I had the pleasure of speaking briefly with him via telephone when I worked part time at a magic shop that promoted him. Anderson possessed a very commanding, spell-binding manner.

One day back in 1980, during a heavy early spring rain, Doc Anderson was driving near his home when his car became stranded in a flash flood. Unwisely, and apparently without any premonition of what was about to be, the large 6'2 and 300+ pound psychic stepped out of his car and attempted to wade out of the water. He was promptly swept away by the rushing undercurrent and found drowned a short while later. Still I remember quite well the radio announcer breaking the news of a person having perished in the deluge. The name had not been released because they were awaiting notification of family, but the announcer said, "And just wait until you find out who this is!" The shock was only surpassed by the grief of our loss of our local seer.

If only this charismatic personality really could have seen tomorrow....

Autumn's Song: My Annual Autumn Post

It's finally here. Summer heat has been broken by Autumn's magical spell. Goodbye mosquitoes! What a pain you have been this summer. It has been downright cool around here of late, unseasonably so. The leaves outside my window have not turned pretty yet. The cold came so suddenly that I see more dying brown than vibrant colors on the trees. And warm, comforting soups are on my mind more. Ah, Autumn is my second favorite time of year, right behind Spring.

Here is a lovely song from an old book that did not identify its author:

The Song Of Autumn

I have painted the woods, I have kindled the sky
I have brightened the hills with a glance of mine eye;
I have scattered the fruits, I have gathered the corn,
And now from the earth must her verdure be torn.
Ye lingering flowers, ye leaves of the spray,
I summon ye all - away! away!

No more from the depth of the grove may be heard
The joy-burdened song of the fluttering bird;
I have passed o'er the branches that sheltered him there,
And their quivering drapery is shaken to air.
Ye lingering flowers, ye leaves of the spray,
I summon ye all - away! away!

Plead not the days are yet sunny and long,
That your hues are still bright'ning, your fibres still strong:
To vigor and beauty relentless an I -
There is nothing too young or too lovely to die.
Ye lingering flowers, ye leaves of the spray,
I summon ye all - away! away!

And I call on the winds that repose in the north,
To send their wild voices in unison forth;
Let the harp of the tempest be dolefully strung -
There's a wail to be made, there's a dirge to be sung;
For the lingering flowers, the leaves of the spray -
They are doomed - they are dying - away! away!

Autumn takes on a more symbolic meaning for me as closer I get to the Winter of my life. Youthful dreams have been replaced with mature reflections on what has been accomplished. Now I'm busy gathering nuts for Winter and hoping it will not be unbearably severe. Live has been good to me so far, with many more instances of good luck than bad. I'm in no position to complain.

Sleeping With A Demon

This one haunted me all through my childhood, terrifying me to the point at times that I often could not sleep at night for fear of having it happen to me. While belief in ghosts was thought to be hooey by my family for religious reasons, demons seemed very real based on the accounts of Jesus' encounters with them in the Gospels. Sermons on demons were a regular part of my childhood.

The lady who gave this account was our pastor. She was almost like a mother to my parents and of course a grandmother figure to my brothers and me ... a sweet, dear soul of unquestionable honesty and integrity. In all of her ministry and personal life (she died in the early nineties), there was never a hint of scandal or impropriety about her.

As she told this story, she was awakened late one night by the feeling of there being someone in bed with her. This was an impossibility as she was not married and lived alone, her children being grown and out on their own.

Opening her eyes, she saw the face of a demon staring at her from the pillow beside her. She often tried to describe the way it looked, but could never do any better than saying it was hideously ugly. She described the feeling she had as being "frozen with fear," unable to move in order to get out of the bed. Then the Bible verse "resist the devil and he will flee from you" came to her mind. She began repeating the words "in the name of Jesus I rebuke you" over and over in her mind, as she could not even move her mouth to speak.

As she did this the demon rolled over and out of her bed, hitting the floor with a loud thud. By this time she was finally able to move. She rolled over to the edge of the bed just in time to see the demon roll under the bed. Climbing out, she knelt down and looked under the bed. Nothing.

I realize I don't do her story justice. You just would have had to hear her tell about it in person. And if you had been steeped in the reality of demons, such as I was, this would be a hair-raising thing to ponder. As a child I could never go to sleep in a completely darkened room because of tales like these. I always had to have a nightlight.

Grown now, I tend to think our pastor had a vivid and terrible nightmare. I well recognize the sleep paralysis from my own nightmares. In a million years I could not imagine this lady making up a tale such as this out of whole cloth. But I have also learned about the Incubus, and believe that fits this case almost perfectly.

Havelock Ellis well observed: "Dreams are real while they last -- can we say more of life?"

My purpose in collecting and sharing these stories is not to ridicule the people who tell them. I'm not trying to make fun of those who believe in an unseen world, even if at times I think humor is appropriate. In my view, and I will probably elaborate on this later, events such as these have psychological - and of course natural, rational - explanations that can be literally overflowing with meaning.

My Dad The Psychic

Not really. But he had one really startling "vision" that was talked about in our family and circle of friends for a long, long time.

As I have stated before, my parents were of the Pentecostal Christian faith. The subjects of angels, demons, divine healings, signs and portents, and visions were staples of our faith. Looking back on it all now it seems more than a bit kooky. Age, experience and an education in the scientific worldview has led me to a reevaluation of my childhood religious memories. Still, this story is interesting and a bit uncanny. Make of it what you will.

My parents had gone to Sunday evening worship service at our church but had left my older brother, Earl, at home to take care of me, because I was under the weather. While sitting in his pew my father began to see a vision of Earl (who was about 12 at the time) playing with matches. So persistent and unsettling was his vision that he told my mom about it and insisted they leave for home at once. This they did.

Upon arriving back at the house, sure enough, while not catching my brother in the very act, they did find incriminating evidence in the form of burned matches lying around on a paper plate along with some shreds of burned paper. These were those huge matchsticks that we used to light the old gas heater in our living room.

Dad apparently never made much of the incident. I never heard him talk about it. The most he would do is confirm the story was true. But Mom sure made a big deal of it. She was and still is more into "magical thinking" than my father ever was.

I've asked myself down through the years, especially after I got old enough to question in earnest my belief system, how this could have happened. Perhaps this was exactly what it appeared to be: a clear example of clairvoyance. Or maybe Dad, deep in his subconscious mind, had been stewing over forgetfully having left the matches out in the open instead of put safely away.

One thing I can tell you for certain, it gave us kids something to think about when we were up to things we shouldn't have been.

In my next post I am going to relate one of the scarier religious stories of my youth, a demonic story that comes from a woman who was like a grandmother to my brothers and me. She was a "lady preacher" (as they called her back then) and pastor of the church we attended.

On Opinions

We all have them. Most of us will defend ours strenuously. Sometimes people die defending them. Sometimes people kill to defend them. Opinions are highly personal things. Most of us to greater or lesser extents take them so personally as to feel almost invalidated if someone else ridicules them. When someone vigorously challenges our opinion, it is hard to resist the feeling that they are questioning our intelligence.

It is hard for a person who holds an unusual or minority opinion to not appear pompous when he strongly defends it. It is also sometimes difficult for people who voice majority opinions to not appear as "sheeple" or followers when confronting maverick ideas.

Formal debates, while highly entertaining, are usually wastes of time. A charismatic debater will usually emerge "victorious" over an intelligent but less personable debater, facts be damned.

Collecting statistics, anecdotes, and clever rhetorical devices that reinforce an opinion you already hold is not to be confused with studying or thinking about an issue. Failure to familiarize oneself with opposing viewpoints is not a virtue.

The majority of us are probably very poor at separating our opinions from our prejudices.

The majority of us probably take ourselves and our opinions too seriously.

The Witchboard And Me

Ouija boards were a big no-no in the fundamentalist Christian home I grew up in. My parents were Pentecostals, so demonology played a huge role in their theology. Anything remotely Satanic was forbidden. In fact, it was not until after my parents divorced and dropped out of church for a while that I was able to go trick-or-treating on Halloween for the first time.

When I used to occasionally spend the night at my Uncle's house, when I was about eleven years old, my cousin would tell me ghost stories in the dark. He used to tell me about his experiences with the Ouija board. He told me that on the back of the board the words "Satan come to me" were printed.

I had to have one to check out for myself!

One day that summer, with some of the money I had earned mowing grass, I walked into my local Ben Franklin dime store and purchased one. I knew better than to tell my dad what I was doing. And I still remember the first thing I did when I took the "talking board" out of its box: I flipped it over to check for the Satanic invocation. Of course it wasn't there. And not only that, but reading the back of the box led to me to believe it was only a game. Bummer.

Nevertheless, my best friend and I were soon busing trying to contact the spirits. I remember our asking the board, "where do you get your power?" Slowly the planchette moved underneath out fingers ...s...a...t .... At this point we hesitated and looked at each other wide eyed. Then ...i...n. The answer was, the board was powered by Satin. My friend looked at me and said, "I don't think that's right." Consulting the dictionary, we found that Satin's name was really spelled S-a-t-a-n. Or maybe we had contacted a female spirit. I don't remember much else about the session as we got tickled over the misspelling, for which my friend blamed me. He was probably right in that he knew the correct spelling!

My dad eventually found out about the board and even used it with me a couple of times. I don't remember anything significant coming from those sessions. Despite his deep seated religious sense, which he kept until his death, Dad could on occasion be quite the skeptic. And he was very skeptical about the Ouija, and said that we were probably moving the indicator, even if we didn't realize it. When I told my mom about it, she was much less receptive! So that board went into the trash.

Years later - when I was in my late twenties - a lady I was dating was into the paranormal (and she even heard voices!) and wanted to do some sessions. Again I was off to the toy department to buy another Ouija board. We asked some questions and got some answers, nothing very heavy as I recall. Then we asked for the name of the spirit speaking to us. This time the name "Diamond" was spelled out to us. No, this wasn't another of my misspellings, maybe for Daimon, the ancient Greek word for minor deities and dead heroes. I was a much, much better speller by then!

Soon this board was forgotten also, chucked into a closet, and I've no idea whatever became of it. I've been boardless ever since. I never got any impressive results using the Ouija board. Never spoke to Captain Howdy. Never had problems with demons attempting to possess me. Nothing. Certainly I was less skeptical as an eleven year old than I am now. My take on this - and I think it is an informed opinion - is that Ouija boards are correctly sold as a game.

If Ghosts Really Do Exist

Two Halloweens ago there was an Associated Press/Ipsos poll that informed us that 34% of people believe in ghosts. Frankly, I would have thought the number higher. I believe how the word "ghost" is defined has a lot to do with how the question "do you believe in ghosts?" is answered. After all, if you believe in personal survival after death, is that not belief in ghosts? Many theists would insist not. But a ghost is a disembodied person, even if it is located in Heaven or Hell and not free to haunt this world. What this poll more likely measures is belief in the haunting type of ghost.

My little paranormalist friend, whom I mentioned the other day in my poltergeist post, has told me that she is now watching Ghost Hunters and other reality spook shows with a more critical eye after our discussions. But she hasn't given up belief in ghosts, because she is one of those who have had a ghostly experience. (I may get her to go over that experience with me at work this week, and if it is interesting I will write about it.) Likely, ghost believers are people who have had, or know someone who has had, eerie experiences that just happen to fit in with the popular paranormal worldview.

From what I can gather by poring over the literature and watching docudramas about hauntings, ghosts seem to be able to interact quite well with the physical realm. As a fan of A Haunting, I can attest that people who claim to have experienced hauntings routinely report being hit, scratched, and pushed down stairs by ghosts. Ghosts also seem to have a thing for opening and closing doors and windows, moving objects, and yanking blankets off unsuspecting sleepers.

What a hellish and uncertain world this would be if such things were so. Ghost believers might not be sure if the massive heart attack that killed a loved one in his sleep was a piece of arterial plaque that broke loose or an encounter with a spook so terrifying as to have brought on the fatal attack; a routine medical operation gone wrong because of a slip of the scalpel may not have been a terrible accident, but rather the hijinks of a malevolent spirit; maybe many times a pedestrian was injured or killed by an approaching vehicle because a disembodied meanie gave a well-timed shove; missing items of great importance may not have been misplaced, but deliberately moved and hidden by sadistic specters. One could go on and on forever. What a can of worms!

I asked my paranormalist friend if this is the type of world she believes we inhabit. She admitted the thought is ludicrous when put that way. Ghost believers seem to want to maintain that these isolated instances of the spiritual interfering with physical happen, maybe more often than one would feel comfortable with, but not enough to totally overthrow the cause and effect laws of nature. A little doublethink seems to go a long way with these folk.

Something Michael Shermer wrote resonates very strongly with me:

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

The Ghost Hitcher

You need to know that ol' rational-minded Doug loves a good paranormal tale. As part of my month long personal Halloween celebration I want to relate a ghost story, one which comes from a long time friend of mine. When I say "long time," I mean all the way back to high school, well over thirty years. Kudos to my friend for going over this again with me in detail the other night, and allowing me to press and probe about the details. She knows I am a skeptic (although an open-minded one), so her final words to me as I finished were, "you might think I'm crazy, but that is what I happened."

Here is her tale:

There is a cemetery near here that (as is case the case with many cemeteries) is allegedly haunted. In fact, there is a rather silly ghost story prominent around here of a devil worshipper biker dude who is buried there, and who once, when a long steel pipe was hammered into his grave by some of his devil-worshipping friends who had gathered to have an ceremony of sorts at his grave, gave off horrid warnings about his experience of being in and suffering in Hell. This was heard through said pipe, after which his friends immediately cut a path back to their homes and became devout Christians. Anyway, there is a road directly behind this cemetery. I say "behind" even though on the other side of the road is another piece of cemetery property that features a huge mausoleum that stores the remains of many other locals. This road provides a nice shortcut to my friend's job.

One morning on her way to work, while it was still dark, she "felt" a ghost enter her car and take the front passenger seat. All the hair on the right side of her body stood on end. The left side felt normal. She was immediately enveloped in a sense of fear and dread. Sorely tempted to turn her head and look the ghost in the face, she heard a voice repeatedly and strongly warning her not to look, that she would wreck if she did look. In a state of extreme discomfort she continued on until her ghost guest left after she had passed the cemetery.

As you can imagine, I had questions. Why would a ghost need a ride? Of course, that wasn't the point, my friend let me know. The ghost obviously wanted to make its presence known. Why? She doesn't know. I asked if she knew anyone buried there. She told me she had an aunt and uncle there. And then, almost as an afterthought, she told me that a lady she used to work with - at the same department store she was on her way to work at - was buried there. Aha! Of course the ghost would not have wanted to travel all the way back to its former place of employment, so that it explains the hasty exit. (Trust me when I tell you I will do exactly the same if one day I find my disembodied self in a car with a former co-worker on the way back to my old factory!) My friend and I shared a good chuckle. What about the voice that warned her not to look? I asked if was it audible, say, like a good television narrator: "You could help solve a mystery! Or, "the story you are about to see is true...." But, no, it was an inner voice.

This is interesting. I wanted to know more about her former co-worker? It turns out that she was a lady my friend had known and worked with for a number of years. This lady was a cancer survivor who began to get sick again. but resisted seeking medical help out of fear of finding out the cancer was back ... until it was too late. The cancer had indeed returned. She continued to work until shortly before her death, when she became too ill. My friend had never entertained the thought of her ghostly passenger being her former co-worker until I was interrogating her.

Do you, as I do, recognize this as a variation of the Vanishing Hitchhiker and Resurrection Mary stories? I know my friend is neither dishonest or prone to exaggeration, so I was left with the thought that she had experienced something many other people have. Perhaps this type of thing is a trick of the mind, a psychological event of some sort. Skeptical as I am, it is difficult for me to just dismiss out of hand this type of thing. Certainly to the person who experiences such events they are "real" occurrences.

As for my friend's experience, I had to ask why she continues to short cut through the cemetery. She paused, then told me she avoided two school zones and saved a good amount of time by doing so. Is there a clue here, I wonder? Although at the conscious level she really believes a ghost literally hitched a ride with her that morning, is it possible that deep down, at the subconscious level, she recognizes this was only a psychological occurrence and no cause for true fear?

I suggest that at least many tales of ghosts and hauntings have much to do with the psyche of the person having the experience. Certainly a strong believer in the supernatural will read the supernatural into most everything ... just as believers in only the natural will find only the natural!

Perhaps the main question to be grappled with is, what exactly is reality?

Look Ma, we made Saturday Night Live

Rest assured, when you are featured on Saturday Night Live, you are the butt of a joke. But there we were, my hometown, featured at our religiously nutty best. We made SNL's Weekend Update. My link to the local TV station has plenty about how this story has taken shape. Mentioned also is the profiteering going on by those hawking souvenir t-shirts. Ah, you can't say we aren't an enterprising lot.

The brouhaha started when someone complained about religious banners that the were being displayed by Lakeview-Ft. Oglethorpe cheerleaders at their football games. And by religious, I mean what is regarded by the overwhelming majority of locals as the one true religion, Fundamentalist Christianity.

Just for kicks I have been going to WRCB's comments section for this story (really stories, as they have been milking this idiocy for all it is worth). Well worth the read, just to get a feel for what the deep South is really like.

One of my favorite comments was this one sent in from a local "Christian"defending her belief system against the atheists (mainly those who disagree about the propriety of this school banner thing):

Are you afraid if everyone knows God might to, just a lil secret I will let you in on "He already knows" and He is a lot more important than we are, we CANNOT judge you we CANNOT throw you out of the school you teach at, and sadly enough you do not have a clue. What do you think created ALL things? Maybe a great big FART?! Because that is what you are doing BLOWING A LOT OF HOT AIR SHEW!!!

Perhaps this was an attempt to fulfill Jesus' words "unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven," because the comment and sentiment are about the most childish I can imagine.

Of course, there are many intelligent, well educated religious believers in my neck of the woods. They just aren't fundamentalist Christians.

Gold Kitty

A memory that is still with me, vivid, and capable of tugging at my heart strings some forty-plus years later, is of a certain walk home that was made into an adventure by a tiny gold kitten who decided to "adopt" me.

Carefree and dirty after the rough and tumble visit to a friend's house, I walked with my face in the air enjoying the autumn afternoon sun, when suddenly I felt something brush against my ankle. Looking down I saw a cute, fluffy gold colored kitten swiping playfully at me. I stopped briefly to play with and pet the kitten and then I started on towards home. Looking back, I noticed I was being followed.

Now this wasn't one of those "look what followed me home, can I keep it?" stories. I knew better than to bring a kitten home unannounced, as our home was already, as always, well stocked with pets. The exception was wounded animals, which my mother never turned away, and more often than not was able to nurse back to health. But that little bugger would not be denied, and no matter how many times I gently pushed it away, or walked it back to where I found it and explained to it why it couldn't follow me, it followed me ... all the way home.

It was so cute (and so young that I wasn't able to determine its sex) that it was an immediate hit with the family. Unfortunately, especially with my little brother, who was still young enough that he had no appreciation for the fragility of a baby cat. Later that night I noticed that my playful little kitten was no longer playful and seemed to be having a problem with one of its legs. The next morning I found it dead.

Now this hit me especially hard, probably for a couple of reasons. One, it was the first time an animal had ever "chosen" me. Before that I always had to win the approval of pets we were adopting into our home. But secondly, I felt partially to blame for its death inasmuch as I thought perhaps there was more I could have done to keep it from following me home to its death. As I recall I blamed my little brother too.

Ever since, every time I see a gold cat I think of my childhood friend who made such a big impression after being part of my world for such a short, short time.

Fast forward and four months ago I befriended one of the neighborhood cats that is also gold and reminds me of that kitten. I call him Gold Kitty. If the batteries in my digital camera were not dead, I would try to take his picture to show how pretty this cat is. He has a little white triangle on his lower neck above his chest and a white and gold striped tail. He isn't fully grown, I think only about five months old.

A couple of weeks ago this cat got very sick. You see, I have about four cats that regularly wait on my deck for the sound of my truck as I come home from work, waiting there for their supper. Gold Kitty is somewhat special among them because he reminds of what my first gold cat might have looked like if allowed to grow up. They also are usually on the deck waiting for breakfast when I wake up and look out. Sometimes they will let me pet them, sometimes not, but always I enjoy their company when they drop by.

I watched as the little Gold Kitty got sicker and sicker. His eyes were watery and his face and neck looked swollen. He became sluggish. He had practically no appetite and slowly became emaciated. Every morning when I looked out I half expected not to seem him, but there the poor little critter would be, looking helplessly at me. Every day when I came home from work I was surprised again to find him waiting. But he would hardly eat. I did everything I could to get him to eat, including dangling sliced ham in front of him (the other cats went wild over this).

I decided to make a trip to the grocery store and pick up some quality soft food for him. I got various meats with gravy, gourmet cat food. Slowly Gold Kitty started licking the gravy, but that was about it. Then the rains came. We had a lot of rain recently and quite a bit of flooding. It was a cool rain that I expected to finish off Little Gold (that's a nickname I gave him).

I watched for several days as the cats tried to catch me between the worst of the rains in order to get a bite to eat from me. Gold Kitty looked so wet, so forlorn, and so close to death. At one point I actually got close enough to pick him up. I had the intention of bringing him in, drying him off, and seeing if I could get him to eat without competition from his companions. He had other ideas and began to struggle, scratching and biting me in the process. Not good, I thought, from a sick animal. I went inside to clean my wounds and then got online and did some research into rabies. I had seen Gold Kitty repeatedly turn his nose up at water, so it was in the back of mind that maybe he had been bitten by a rabid animal and that was what made him sick. But he appeared to be unscathed with no visible wounds, and since I noticed the facial swelling before he got to the point of not being able to eat, I chalked this rabies thing up to paranoia.

And then the rains finally stopped and the sun returned. So did Gold Kitty's appetite. Only slowly at first. I kept up the expensive gourmet food routine for the cats, but it was primarily out of concern for Gold Kitty. Pretty soon he filled back out and got back to looking like he used to. His brother, Puffy, who is also gold, but much darker, appears to have doubled in size. I'm still buying that damned gourmet food and even upgraded their dry cat food to boot! The cats remain standoffish at times but are also flourishing, no doubt due to the improved diet. My grocery bill has increased drastically, but I am happy to report that I tore up the will I started working on when I thought Gold Kitty might have been rabid. I'm sure now my little gold friend is going to make it.

Still, I can't forget my original Gold Kitty. I'm sure I never will so long as my brain is right. Part of me feels I let my first Gold Kitty down by not doing a better job protecting it. I was so young, I guess I shouldn't punish myself emotionally. Then as now there is just something special and heart-warming about an animal that bonds with me.

My "Poltergeist" Experience

Note the quotations there ... this one is a bit tongue-in-cheek.

I have a friend at work who is a big believer in ghosts and a big fan of the Ghost Hunters television show. We discuss the subject very often. Personally, I'm a lover of ghost stories. I bought a complete DVD set of all four seasons of The Haunting. My ritual is to watch an episode late in the evening on Saturday's, after dark. I think this is a throwback to my youth when Saturday nights meant a horror movie hosted by a local ghoul. But I don't take any of this seriously, and am skeptical of ghosts for the same reason I am skeptical of "life after death." After all, is that not what ghosts supposedly are, departed spirits of the once living?

Anyway, I was soundly asleep last night, having a 4 a.m. date with my alarm clock, when I heard a crash that would have woke the dead, so's to speak. Since early adulthood I have had a perennial fear of being broke in on during the night while I am sleeping. Naturally, the first thought entering my sleep-intoxicated mind was that someone had knocked out a window.

As I flipped on the light upon entering the kitchen I saw there in the floor, in front of the sink, my favorite casserole dish shattered into thousands of little pieces. Instantly I recalled earlier when I used it to heat up my supper of soup in my microwave. I have over the years cooked many a meal using it as a microwave safe dish. But when I washed it after supper I carelessly laid it in an already full drain rack. I remember thinking at the time that it wasn't sitting securely, yet I left it precariously perched.

Even though the clock read midnight (hey, isn't that "the witching hour"?), not wanting to absentmindedly, sleepily head to the kitchen for a drink of water in my sleep in the dark and inadvertently reenact a fakir bare-footed glass walk, I took the time to sweep up the glass.

After this I returned to my bed to try to get a little more sleep before the alarm went off. Lying there I began to ponder what made the dish fall. I know, I know, it wasn't seated firmly in the rack in the first place. But it had held on for seven hours before falling. What had happened?

I will tell my friend at work about this today. I'm sure we will debate whether a spirit did this in mischief, perhaps as retaliation for yesterday's post, or whether a vibration during the night (I do live right near the airport, for example) unsettled it. I'm sure I will be told it was an attempt to slay my skepticism. Perhaps. It did unsettle me for awhile, but I finally returned to sleep.

But this I know: I am going to miss that casserole dish!

Near Death Experience Only Near Proof?

Confession time: I'm always open to light, but honestly my personal belief is that death is the final end of our conscious existence ... no purgatory, no heaven or hell, no spiritual realm at all ... only nonexistence awaiting us all. This isn't pessimism on my part, but rather the result of a lifetime of serious thought about and investigation of the matter.

For nearly a year I have been reading at irregular intervals the massive (over 400 pages) book The Complete Idiot's Guide: Near Death Experiences by P.M. H. Atwater and David H. Morgan. Very appropriately titled, I believe, although some of its chapter titles and subheadings can be quite cute at times. This morning I finished it. If one is already a true believer in an "afterlife" (and the word itself seems to me a self-contradiction) or a philosophical lightweight, then I suppose this book would be interesting. For me, it was a hard read.

Even after wading through all the contradictory accounts from the various experiencers, one fact remained clear to me. If anyone lived through a near death experience, obviously they weren't truly dead and their testimony must be viewed from that perspective. Sorry, hallucinations and delusions can hardly be proof of reality.

As a personal note, my interest in the subject started in earnest back in the late seventies when a local cardiologist, Dr. Maurice Rawlings (who interestingly enough was once my mother's cardiologist) wrote a book of his encounters with near death survivors. The book Beyond Death's Door, which is referenced in the Idiots Guide, has never gotten much respect among the vast NDE literature because it clearly is not a serious study but instead a Christian polemic. (A more humorous personal note is that years ago, when I worked in the home maintenance business, I did some work for Rawlings' namesake son, who also is a doctor, and he clarified to me that he was the sane Dr. Rawiling. Interesting, no?).

This is the problem with most popular studies about NDE: they tend to be religious rather than scientific. In Atwater and Morgan's large book, on page 120, is a sidebar with one of many of its "Otherwordly Insights":

After many years have passed, most adult experiencers will eventually locate a church home that feels right to them, as either member or active supporter. They seem to go full circle in their desire to explore spiritualities, ending up either back where they started from or within some type of organized religious institution....

Now to be fair, the Idiots Guide does devote two chapters, thirteen and fourteen, to looking at the skeptical view that I hold. In thirteen the authors admit that "The near-death experience is a subjective phenomenon that has no objective criteria for validity."

Bravo! So what then is my beef?

Well chapter thirteen is titled Scientific Naysayers. Bias anyone? And fourteen is more blatantly titled Debunking the Debunkers. The point of that latter chapter is summed up with this statement: "The burden of proof remains with the debunkers. Evidence for authenticity clearly rests on the side of researchers and experiencers." Really now?

Well, I often say that people first believe what they want to believe, and then search for evidence and "proof" (usually anecdotal, of course) to confirm their presuppositions. And that is mainly the value of this book. Although it seems to be more New Agey than historic Christian, in my opinion, it probably won't matter because when it comes to this subject believers of wildly differing faiths can join hands in agreement.

Hey, it's hard to muster enthusiasm for impending oblivion, I freely admit. And I've no problem at all with wishful thinking on the subject. But NDE as proof of an afterlife? No way.