I am listening to the radio, feeling melancholy tonight because of the death of my Labrador retriever Lucky. Celine Dion’s song My Heart Will Go On began playing, evoking a memory that will remain forever poignant in my heart.

My wife Anne was within a few months of death in her battle with cancer when old friends, Sammy and Stephanie, dropped by unexpectedly. They asked us to go to the movies with them. Barrett, one of Anne’s fellow law students at OCU, was visiting for the weekend, also helping to lift her spirits. Anne pulled herself out of the bed and that night, we saw the movie Titanic.

Titanic is an awesome movie, but it is long, Anne very weak, on oxygen and in a wheelchair at the time. I didn’t know how close to death she was, but perhaps she did. She cried during the last scene, not for herself but because of the powerful emotion that the movie evoked.

The movie and the visit from Stephanie, Sammy and Barrett lifted Anne’s spirits and added quality months to her life. Of this, I am convinced. After receiving a wonderfully supportive email from my Aunt Dot tonight concerning my big pup Lucky, I am now positive that interaction with caring human beings is an elixir stronger than any medicine your doctor can ever prescribe.

Eric’sWeb

I’ve chronicled my summer job in New Orleans many times.  I worked for a now defunct geophysical company named GTS Corp.  They had an office on St. Charles Avenue, near Jackson Circle.

The seedy front door opened into a modern office that employed at least a hundred professionals and technicians.  I developed many of the characters in my French Quarter mystery Big Easy during that summer in New Orleans.

I lived in a broken down wood framed building in Arabi, a little town located between the Lower Ninth Ward and Chalmette - all three areas decimated by Hurricane Katrina.  My rent was only seventy-five bucks a month but there was no air conditioning and someone should have paid me to stay there.

I lived across the street from a convent of cloistered Catholic nuns and the entire time I never saw a single occupant of the large building.  I generally walked the half mile, or so, to St. Bernard Avenue, the road leading to downtown New Orleans, and took the bus to work.  I usually slept all the way there and all the way home.  This practice got me into trouble on more than one occasion.

The worst situation occurred at the Arabi Station.  I awoke to find the bus deserted except for me, the woman sitting next to me, and a desperate-looking man brandishing a pistol.  I grabbed the woman’s shoulders and pulled her down behind the seat, the crazy man’s pistol pointed right at us.  We held our breaths, hoping that he didn’t shoot in our direction, even though I knew that the ricochet of a single bullet would probably get both of us more than once.

Instead of shooting us, the loony fellow ran out of the bus where police officers quickly apprehended him.  Cops are often hard asses but considering the service they perform for the public and the constant danger they are in, I can only commend them for their almost daily acts of bravery that rarely earns them an atta boy.

I didn’t make much money at GTS, even in those days, but I spent what I earned having fun in the Big Easy.  All the fun and work left little time for sleep and I –like I said – spent lots of time sleeping on the bus.  One way from the bus stop on Canal, next to the old Saenger Theatre, took about forty minutes.  More than once, I awoke about two hours after boarding the bus and finding myself in the same spot where I had started.  When this happened, I usually felt newly invigorated and simply headed for an evening on Bourbon Street.

Growing up in the little town of Vivian, I was familiar with many poor people but I had never seen the masses of derelict winos such as those that populated St. Charles Avenue.  I’ve since seen many others since in Boston, New York, Oklahoma City and even Amarillo but that summer in New Orleans was my first day end, day out experience with humans little more alive than voodoo zombies were.  Hmmm!  Sounds like the makings of a suspenseful murder mystery novel.

Eric’sWeb

An interesting article explaining how certain superstions evolved.

http://www.divinecaroline.com/24133/86121-knock-wood--superstitions-origins

Eric’sWeb

A great recipe from the wife of former Oklahoma governor and U.S. Senator Henry Bellmon.

http://www.newsok.com/shirley-bellmons-pecan-pie/article/3418169

Eric’sWeb

Misty rain fell as I walked through the neighborhood tonight. It reminded me of a similar rainy night that I spent during basic training at Fort Polk in Louisiana.

I spent years trying to forget my tour of duty in the Army. Now that I’m older, I sometimes have trouble remembering exact details of things that happened in the past. No problem! I’m a fiction writer. If I can’t remember the exact details of an event - Well, you get the picture.

This event took place during the last week of basic training. Despite an aging brain and attempts to forget this period of my life, it remains branded in my memory with blazing detail. There were four of us, Tommy, Robert, Bob and me.

We spent the last week of basic training camping out and undergoing exercises designed to test our resolve. The four of us were a team in a game called “elude and evade,” or at least something to that effect. A truck dropped the four of us off on a Louisiana road deep in the forest.

We had no light, food, water, or compass. Our mission was to make it back to the base camp, a mile or two away, without capture. If the enemy captured us, they would torture and abuse us, the drill sergeants told us. It was raining, a mild drizzle, but still wet.

“No one’s catching me,” Tommy said. “I been huntin’ since I was five and I can get around in the woods like a fox.”

Uh huh! It was dark within the hour, the four of us completely and totally lost, the trees so tall we couldn’t see the stars or the hazy moon. Since we had no watches, we didn’t know the time. We only knew how tired we were and how desperate we felt.

“Shit, my feet hurt!” Robert said. “Maybe we should just give up.”

Tommy shook his head. “You see or hear anyone out there? Who you gonna give up too?”

“Then what are we going to do?” Bob from Wisconsin asked.

“They are patrolling the dirt road. Let’s catch a few hours of sleep. When the sun comes up, we’ll go out to the road and follow it back to the base station. If we hear a truck, we’ll just hide in the trees until it passes.”

With no better plan, my three companions accepted my suggestion. The ground was hard but I was asleep soon after I closed my eyes. It was morning when I opened them again.

“Which way is the road?” Bob asked.

“That’s east because I can see the reflection of the sun,” Tommy said. “Follow me.”

We eventually came out on the dirt road, turned right and followe it. We soon heard an approaching truck and dived back into the forest. Once it passed, we got back on the road, walking for almost an hour until we reached the base camp. No one seemed to notice, or to care as we straggled into camp, going directly to the food line and not caring that a cold misty rain was falling on our aching backs.

No one ever told us, but we were the only team that made it back to base camp intact and not captured. I’m not sure what the moral of this story is, but I guess it’s just that when you have a problem that seems unsolvable, sometimes the best thing you can do is sleep on it.

Eric’sWeb

Ed is a well site geologist that offices with me. We were discussing ghosts and he conveyed this ghost story to me. It happened in southwest Kansas.

There aren’t many cities in southwest Kansas and most of the towns small. Drilling wells are often located miles from the nearest town. The primary roads are blacktopped, but narrow. The side roads are often impassible when the weather turns bad.

Ed was sitting a well miles from the nearest town. Early winter snow had melted, leaving dirt roads that were all but impassible.  After driving fifty miles for dinner, Ed and the tool pusher were returning to the rig, finding the road into the location too muddy to traverse in their truck. Parking on the blacktop, they began the quarter-mile hike to the location.

Ed and the tool pusher had a lone flashlight that cut a narrow swath of dim light through the misty darkness. About halfway to the rig, they both smelled something that Ed described as putrid and ugly. The temperature dropped, perhaps twenty degrees.

“Did you just feel something?” Ed asked.

“Yes, did you?”

“I think we just passed through something evil.”

“Amen to that,” the tool pusher said.

The experience unnerved both men. When Ed returned to his truck the next day, he felt the same sense of dread as he passed the spot where he and the tool pusher first sensed the presence of evil.

“It was so far from town, I couldn’t imagine what was haunting the hollow we crossed on the way to the rig. Maybe it was an Indian spirit. I don’t know. It was evil, whatever it was. That I know.”

Eric’sWeb

Vivian is a small town in northwest Louisiana surrounded by pine forests, rolling hills and swampy bayous. I didn’t visit many museums or art galleries growing up, but I spent hours enjoying the outdoors that dominated my childhood.

My brother Jack and I were Boy Scouts, although neither of us advanced beyond the rank of First Class Scout. It didn’t matter because we did lots of camping and hiking. The parents of Murray, one of our fellow scouts, had a fishing camp on Black Bayou. The place was rustic, the accommodations meager. The weekend our scout troop spent there remains as one of the most frightening events of my life.

Black Bayou is a shallow expanse of dark, almost opaque water, and thus the name. It is the home of snakes, alligators, aquatic birds and every manner of fish. Murray’s little camp was an unpainted, one room structure situated on the bank of Black Bayou, sheltered by pines and cypress trees with bloated trunks that grew out into the water. A wooden dock, several rowboats moored to it, jutted out into the sleepy bayou.

So close to Vivian was the camp that we had no adult supervision that weekend. Joe, the head scout, was in charge but we had no specific agenda except to have fun. The first evening, Joe suggested we go gigging for frogs.

“We paddle out into the bayou until we hear the bullfrogs croaking. When they do, we turn on the flashlight and shine it in their eyes. The light will stun them until we have a chance to gig em.”

There were four of us in the paddleboat, Jack, Joe, Murray and me. Joe was in the back of the boat with our only flashlight and an eight-foot long, three-tined gig. A few stars were out but not much of a moon. An occasional shooting star brightened the sky a bit, but mostly we were just paddling around in the darkness.

“Watch out for the cypress trees. Water moccasins perch on the branches and if they drop into the boat with us, we’ll pretty much be goners.”

Joe’s words gave us little comfort as we soon passed beneath the low-lying branches of a cypress tree, Spanish moss draping almost into the water. Dry cypress needles dropped down the back of my shirt and a spider web wrapped around my face and neck. As I was trying to untangle the mess from my glasses, Joe began yelling and something dropped into my lap that felt suspiciously like a snake.

“Snakes in the boat,” he yelled.

Murray didn’t need another warning, tumbling headfirst into the shallow water. Jack and I were right behind him, swimming away from the boat as fast as our arms and legs could flail. The sound of laughter soon stopped us in our tracks.

“There ain’t no snakes,” Joe said. “Cept rubber ones. I got you guys good.”

Joe had spirited a handful of rubber snakes in his shirt, throwing them on us when we passed beneath the cypress tree. He rolled with laughter, right up to the moment that Jack, Murray and I pulled him into the water with us.

No frogs were gigged that night, just a few gullible Boy Scouts. Still, I’ll never forget the rubber snake that tumbled into my lap, giving me the fright of my life.

Eric’sWeb

A wonderful article on Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704112904574477360084334816.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Eric’sWeb

There is a wealth of wonderful restaurants in New Orleans, every one vying for customers grown used to only the best food and entertainment in the world. One of those is Mulate's Cajun Restaurant, known for its Cajun dance floor. Here is one of their recipes from their website. The restaurant’s name was the inspiration for the character Mama Mulate in my novel Big Easy.

Ingredients:

- 1 ½ sticks butter or margarine
- 2 medium bell peppers - chopped
- 3 large onions - chopped
- 3 stalks celery - chopped
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. cayenne pepper
- 2 cups bread crumbs
- 1 tbsp. Flour
- 3 eggs
- 1 handful chopped parsley
-  ¾ - 1 lb. claw crabmeat - (suit to taste)
   (Pick all of the shells out.)

Directions:

Melt butter or margarine. Sauté vegetables (bell peppers, onions, and celery) on medium heat until translucent - approximately 15 minutes.

Salt and cayenne pepper, season to taste. Mix all ingredients except crabmeat. Add vegetable mixture you've already cooked.

Mix well. Fold in crabmeat.

To Fry:

Batter with egg. Cover with breadcrumbs. Fry until golden brown.

To Bake:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook approximately 20 to 30 minutes.

You can use this stuffing in Stuffed Mushrooms, Stuffed Bell Peppers, and Stuffed Crabs.

Eric’sWeb

   The dictionary defines triskaidekaphobia as the fear of the number 13. Today is Friday the thirteenth, supposedly an unlucky day. My day started in frustration with me thinking things are going badly for me. It made me think, which spirit have I angered. My first thought was my Mother.

My Mom died of lymphoma about two years ago. She was eighty-five when she died and mentally as sharp as a twenty-year-old. She fought her cancer until the end because she didn’t want to leave my Dad, who has advanced Alzheimer’s, alone. I assured her, just before she died, that Brother Jack and I would look after him.

I have wondered lately if she is keeping an eye on things and somehow unhappy with the way Jack and I are managing things. I have thought this for sometime now because my “Magic Moonflowers” haven’t bloomed since she died.

I don’t know if any of this is true, but last night I called on the spirits of my Grandpa and Grandma Pitt, my Mom’s parents, to intercede if this is truly the situation. Jack and I are far from perfect and neither of us can be with Dad as many hours each week as he would like us to. I also know that no one could ever take care of him as good as my Mom Mavis.

Now I know lots of you out there don’t believe in spirits, but today my luck took a turn for the best. Two very positive things that I had almost given up on happened and I have had a mile-wide grin on my face since noon.

I know the world is an imperfect place. I have thought many times that no one can do anything as well as I. I also know that when things don’t go right you often tend to blame the ones you love the most. I’ve known this since I was a child.

My Mom and my Grandma Pitt were very close and never a day passed that they weren’t together. Brother Jack and I were no angels and got into trouble on a daily basis but we always knew that Grandma Pitt would intercede on our behalf, no matter what mischief we had caused. Grandpa Pitt would back her up and tell my Mom to cut us some slack.

“They are just being boys,” he would say.

Today is Friday the 13 and a chill wind is blowing outside the house. I am happy as I keyboard this story because I realize that “family” is the single strongest entity that exists and that I can still grab my Grandma’s spirit leg and ask her to protect me, and know that she will.

Eric’sWeb

Anne and I had little expendable cash following the eighties oil bust.  We usually ate dinner at nearby Wyatt’s Cafeteria.  Times were tough all over and their food was not only good, it was also inexpensive.

During a visit from Bruce, our close friend and former employee, we let him convince us to visit a seafood restaurant on Northwest Expressway called Harry’s.

“They have free hot wings during happy hour, and half-priced drinks.  I’ll even go in Dutch.”

Bruce, a formerly strapping young man, had leukemia.  He was looking bad at the time and Anne and I would have spent our last penny to make him happy.  The trip, contrary to our doubts, proved fruitful.

There was a new game in town called NTN Trivia.  Restaurants belonging to the NTN network have interactive boxes that their patrons use to play various games of trivia.  A satellite transmits the network to restaurants all over the United States and Canada and these restaurants compete against each other in real time.

Every Tuesday night, NTN has their premium game called Showdown and rank the top one hundred restaurants and bars following the game based on their top five boxes.  Harry’s didn’t finish in the top one hundred that night but Anne, playing as OILIES, finished tenth overall for individuals.  We were pleasantly surprised at the end of the game when our waitress presented us with a twenty-five dollar gift certificate.

“We give it every Tuesday to the highest ranked player in the restaurant,” the blonde-haired woman told us.

From then on, Tuesday nights had us hooked.  Bruce went with us to Harry’s on Tuesdays until his disease progressed beyond the point where he couldn’t make it every week.  If I told you we won the gift certificate every week you will probably think that I am lying, but we won the prize almost every week.

Lil, another close friend, began accompanying us to Harry’s and we played as a team, helping each other with the answers.  This went on for nearly a year until Oklahoma’s rapidly waning economy caught up with Harry’s and it went out of business.  There were other restaurants still playing trivia and Anne and I soon found one.  Along the way, we met other Trivia addicts and began playing together as a coherent team.

I won’t bore you with details except to say that our group included a dozen very smart people and I’m proud to say that Anne and I were part of the fabled Don Serapio’s group that won so many championships.

That was a while back.  Bruce is now gone, as is Anne. So is Harry’s and Don Serapio’s in Oklahoma City - though Jimmy and Janie still have a very successful (and quite wonderful) Mexican restaurant in El Reno.

There’s a point to this story: even when the economy is in the dumpster, there’s still a place out there offering free hot wings, half-price drinks and maybe more – sometimes much more.  Find it!

Eric’sWeb

My Dad was a soldier in WWII and has six battle stars. My brother Jack served in the Army in Germany while I was in Vietnam. We all understand service and we all understand the sacrifice service men and women undergo.

Marilyn and I sat on the patio of Kang’s Asian Restaurant tonight, drinking sake and Sapporo Beer. The night was warm, maybe a bit too warm for a date this late in November. It didn’t matter as we enjoyed Kang’s wonderful patio.

Kang asked if we liked venison. Even being from Louisiana, I had never tried it. Marilyn has. He treated us to bowls of venison soup that was nothing short of wonderful.

As I keyboard this story, I think how lucky I am to live in the greatest country this world has ever known. I also reflect on how lucky I am to live in a country where brave men and women risk their lives and limbs on a daily basis to protect our freedoms.

Happy Veteran’s Day and thanks for your service. We wouldn’t be here without you.

Eric’sWeb

During my stay at Fort Polk, I became close friends with a fellow draftee named Tommy Picou.  We went through Basic Training, Leadership Preparation and Advanced Infantry Training together.  There were only four draftees in my AIT; all the rest were in the National Guard.  Because of this, the four of us performed every KP and sh-t duty that came along.

During the summer of 1970 at Fort Polk, draftees were the lowest of the low, at least in the minds of our superiors – literally everyone, even the cooks.  Picou and I became best friends because we had many things in common.  We were both recently married and both from Louisiana, although I was from north Louisiana and he from south Louisiana.

Picou was of French-Acadian descent and spoke fluent Coon-ass French, a language we both assumed identical to the Mother tongue.  A series of events that happened during AIT proved us both wrong.

We were at a rifle range, eating lunch when the MP’s brought a new addition to our training company.  The young man, like all of us, was dressed in fatigues.  None of us was very happy but this fellow seemed particularly indignant.  When we tried to talk to him, he replied only in French.

”What’s he saying?” I asked Picou.

Picou shook his head.  “Beat the hell outa me.”

“I thought you speak French.”

Picou grinned.  “He damn sure don’t speak the same French I do.”

“Try saying something to him,” I suggested.

Picou rattled off a few questions for which he received only a quizzical look from the Frenchman, a universally understood open palm gesture and a shake of his head covered with thick dark hair.

He seemed to understand when I said, “Want something to eat?”

We got the young man a hot plate of chow and sat with him beneath the trees as he ate.  When he finished, he said, in passable English, “My name is Charles and I’m from France.”

Charles just shook his head and grinned when I said, “Tommy’s French.  Didn’t you comprehend what he was asking you?”

“Not a word,” he said.

Charles proceeded to tell us how he was a flight attendant for a French airline.  On a layover in New York, the U.S. Army conscripted him.

“They have no right to do that,” I said.

“Apparently they do,” he said.  “But I won’t stay here for long.”

“What’ll you do?” Picou asked.

“Escape as soon as I can.”

“Then what?  They’ll hunt you down.”

“Make it to an airport where my airline flies and catch a flight back to France.”

“But they’ll just come after you,” I said.

“I’m a French citizen.  They can’t touch me in France and I don’t intend to serve in your war.”

“We’re not too happy about it either,” Picou said.

“My brother was a soldier in Vietnam.  He died at Diem Bien Phu,” Charles said.  “My family has already lost too much to that damned country.  I swear they won’t kill me too.”

True to his word, Charles was gone the next day.  Picou and I both ended up in Vietnam, me in the First Cavalry and he in the 101^st Airborne.  We both made it home safely and kept in touch for several years.

I don’t know if Charles got back to France or spent years in an Army prison, but I know one thing for a fact – he was a man of resolve and had no intention of ever going to Vietnam and fighting another country’s war.  I can’t say as I blame him.

Eric’sWeb

    Two pics from a weekend fundraiser held east of Edmond, OK this past weekend.

Eric’sWeb

I didn’t get much time off during my stay at Fort Polk, maybe two weekends.  One of them I spent in Chalmette, visiting wife Gail and her parents.  I traveled there on the bus and the trip was memorable, not in what I saw but in what I felt.

Leesville is the Louisiana town just outside of Fort Polk and one word describes it - seedy.  The Leesville bus station fit the bill.  I can’t remember how I got there but I probably hitchhiked from the base.  The lobby reeked with the vague odor of despair.  The station was empty except for the lady that issued my ticket without seeming to see me, and about a half dozen GI’s; like me, they were all privates.

I sat alone in the back of the bus, reveling in the legroom but saddened by its darkened loneliness.  We were fifty miles out of town when one of the GI’s began to sing.  I wasn’t very old but this kid was younger, probably no more than eighteen.

There was a song out at the time called And When I Die.  Laura Nyro wrote it but a group called Blood, Sweat and Tears had a hit with the song.  The young man had no accompaniment and sang it much slower even than Nyro’s version.  His words tore the heart right out of my chest.

The young man was an Eleven Bravo, I an Eleven Charlie.  We were both infantry bullet-stoppers; bound for the human gristmill that was Vietnam.

Like me, he was probably afraid of death.  I was afraid of something much worse - the decisive act of taking another human life. I didn’t know if I was up to the task even though I’d had the act of ultimate enactment drummed into the very essence of my brain for the past four months.

The song’s lyrics ripped at my soul but didn’t make me cry.  I was drenched in the steel resolve of personal survival at the time.  I would do what I had to do.  I hoped that any act of violence I might perform wouldn’t corrupt my soul – at least not forever.

Eric’sWeb

You can’t visit New Orleans without trying the oysters. An early-day chef from France began using them, trying to find a substitute for escargot, an almost impossible commodity to procure in the colony.

New Orleans chefs now prepare them a thousand different ways, from fried to raw. Here is a simple but wonderful recipe from the Acme Oyster House on Iberville. As their name implies, they know oysters. Try this recipe and enjoy.

OYSTERS LOUISIANA
Ingredients:

• 4 oz. butter - melted
• 1.5 pints oysters - drained
• 4 green onions - chopped finely
• 3 cloves garlic - minced
• ½ lb. fresh lump crabmeat
• ½ cup bread crumbs
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Melt butter in a skillet. Add oysters and cook until dry. Add onions and garlic and cook slowly for at least 10 minutes. Fold in crabmeat and crumbs. Simmer 5 minutes more. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Eric’sWeb

After returning from Vietnam, I entered the master’s program at the University of Arkansas.  Gail and I both had part-time jobs; I was on the GI Bill and had a quarter-time assistant-ship.

We raked in well over a thousand dollars a month.  Since we had no debt and little overhead, I probably had as much money at that time as I ever have in my life. My quarter-time assistantship consisted of work at the University of Arkansas Museum located then on the fourth floor of the Old Main Building, the oldest building at the University.

When I wasn’t giving guided tours to grades one through three, I was unwrapping rocks, bones and other artifacts.  There seemed to be at least ten times more material in the back than there was in the actual museum, most still packed in the same boxes as when it came to the University.

It was sort of creepy working late in the old museum because there were rows and rows of human bones and complete skeletons, mostly stacked unceremoniously on the various shelves.  The rock, mineral and ore specimens were wrapped in old newspapers, most very old.  I spent half my time, it seems, reading old newspaper stories.

One of the museum’s greatest treasures, at least in my mind, was the giant quartz crystals donated by geologist Hugh D. Miser.  Some of the crystals weighed a thousand pounds or more.  They are rare and irreplaceable.

I loved leading tours through the little museum and seeing the eyes of the young people, all agog with discovery.  It struck me that enthusiasm and desire to absorb knowledge, filled kids of this age.  Less than professional teachers often manage to blunt most of this desire and enthusiasm.

Yes, I had a canned story that I used on all age groups. I usually ended at the quartz crystal display where I attributed the collection to Hugh D. Miser, Arkansas’ greatest geologist ever.  One day, a group of adults followed along as I conducted my tour.  When I concluded, the teachers and kids thanked me and departed.  One of the women listening to my conducted tour approached me.

“Excuse me, but you said that a man named Miser was Arkansas’ greatest geologist.  I beg to differ.  It was my father John Branner.”

I know my mouth must have dropped as this unknown woman invoked the name of the first Arkansas State Geologist.  I took a breath and said, “Your Dad was truly a great geologist and did so much for Arkansas.  He and Miser were both great men and I was judgmental to say Miser was the greatest.  It is only because I’m a mineralogist and he donated those beautiful crystals that I admire so much to the State.  I apologize if I offended you because your father was truly a great man.”

The woman must have accepted my apology because she smiled, shook my hand and thanked me.  She and her party departed with smiles on their faces, leaving me with a rapidly beating heart and a greater understanding about blanket endorsements.

My thesis advisor, Dr. K almost busted a gut laughing when I told him the story.  He shook his head and said, “Wilder, you may never make it as a geologist but you have the best line of bulls—t of any student I’ve ever had.”

Eric’sWeb

While a geology student at Northeast Louisiana (now University of Louisiana Monroe), I attended a Geological Society of America convention in New Orleans.  The St. Charles Hotel was the convention headquarters.  When we arrived, I learned the hotel had lost my reservation.

It was an earlier place and time.  Instead of turning me away to seek lodging some other place, they erected a cot for me in a large towel closet (I kid you not!) and I spent the night there.  It was only for one night because they found a room for me the next day.

The original St. Charles Hotel burned in 1841, reconstructed and burned again in the 1890’s.  I stayed in the third hotel built on the original site, it razed in the 1970’s.  It was already a bit seedy when I stayed there but the original St. Charles Hotel was widely accepted as the most regal hotel on earth at the time.

The original St. Charles Hotel was a meeting place for wealthy Americans.  The French built the equally regal St. Louis Hotel.  Like many historical places, they had their dark sides.  Stocks for selling slaves stood inside both hotels.  Here is a compelling excerpt from an account of the everyday slave trade as told by Harnett T. Kane in his book Queen New Orleans – City by the River published in 1949 by William Morrow & Company.

The two hotels shared a sight that made certain visitors, Southern as well as Northern, wince.  Here stood blocks on which human beings were auctioned.  From one point of view it was merely a sale of property, no different from that of a horse or a table.  From another – but let us watch such an event as eyewitnesses reported it.

An elderly dark woman, sunken –chested, is helped up to stand on the block. The auctioneer starts briskly: “Now, gentlemen, here’s Mary.  Clever house-servant, excellent cook.  Only one fault, shamming sick.  Nothing wrong with her any more than with me.  Put her up, gentlemen.  A hundred dollars to begin?”

Several men reach over and prod Mary in the ribs.  “Are you well?” one asks.

“No, very sick.”  The words are strained.  “Bad cough, pain in my side, suh.”

The auctioneer interrupts: “Gentlemen, I told you she’s a shammer.  Damn her humbug!  Give her a touch or two of the cowhide, and she’ll do your work.  Speak, gentlemen.  Seventy dollars only?  Going, going, gone!”

Nobody is much interested.  “Lots of skin and bone,” a younger man comments, and his neighbor chuckles loudly:  “Guess that ‘ere woman will soon be food for the land crabs.”  Amid general laughter, the sick slave is led away.

A bright-eyed youth steps up.  The auctioneer praises his intelligence.  Neither he nor any of the others would be for sale, the man says, if their master were not in financial trouble.  Several growers escort the boy to a side room to strip him for sores or other imperfections.  A high price.  Next!

A smile on her lips, a pert mulattress glides over.  A stout man opens her mouth to examine the gums.  He and several others make a motion to the auctioneer and take her away, as in the previous case, for private examination.  A yet higher bid, a lively raising of it while the girl’s smile widens proudly.  Sold!

A middle-aged woman takes the block, her eyes somber, in her arms a sleeping child.  “How much/” The auctioneer describes her training at length.  Not once does she raise her eyes from her baby.  He tells of her experience, what her masters have said of her dependability.  She still stares down.  Sold!  Next –

The planters stroll about, bored.  “Not much left, eh?”

“Have to hurry home, anyway.”

They throw on their top coats.  Tonight they will be back, a few feet from this spot, sipping wine, dancing.  And the cadence of the music will rise where Negro men and women have been whispering together, and the dancers’ feet will slide across a polished floor where slave people shuffled to the block and off it again.”

There are still many compelling stories about New Orleans but there were no slave blocks in the lobby when I stayed at the hotel, only friendly people trying hard to accommodate a young geologist wannabe.  Still, I felt the specter of the slaves as they dragged their shackles down the hall - that night long ago spent in the towel closet of the St. Charles Hotel.

Eric’sWeb

After spreading Anne’s ashes, Angela and I stayed another night on Cape Cod before returning to Boston.  We stopped for dinner in Salem, Massachusetts (at least I think it was Salem.  I wasn’t very coherent at the time) and met some very friendly folks.

I don’t remember the name of the restaurant but it was in a two-storied wood-framed building that overlooked the bay.  Angela and I went upstairs to a room that featured a large picture window affording a wonderful view of the boats moored in the marina.  The bar wrapped around in a 360-degree oval, manned by a friendly waiter that introduced himself as Matt.  Affable darkness draped the room with comforting shadows.

At least twenty-five feet long, the bar was expansive enough to seat fifty patrons.  It was nearly empty but we weren’t alone.  I ordered a Sam Adams when Matt asked us what we wanted.

“I don’t usually drink beer but I think I might like one tonight,” Angela said.  “Do you have a suggestion, Matthew?”

Angela is an attractive woman and she instantly enamored Matt with the flash of her eyes and tone of her voice.  “Why don’t I let you taste some samples,” he said.

Matt, a slender young man with wavy brown hair was youthful enough to be Angela’s son.  It didn’t matter because Angela exercises, watches what she eats and usually passes as someone at least twenty years younger than she is.  In addition to her youthful good looks and expressive eyes, she has the wonderful resonating voice of a radio talk show host (which she was at the time).

Matt proceeded to open a selection of different beers and then pour small samples into shot glasses.  Angela sipped each proffered selection, turning her nose up at all of them.  Matt didn’t seem to mind.  He just kept smiling and pouring.  She finally decided on a glass of chardonnay instead of beer.

Matt gave me what she didn’t drink and I was soon feeling eerily loose.  Never at a loss for words, I asked, “Where is everybody?”

“We don’t get many tourists after Labor Day,” the man across the bar answered.

“We’re not from around here but we’re not tourists,” I said, already tipsy enough to explain our mission on the Cape to the stranger.

The couple introduced themselves as Beth and Dutch.  After my story, they became immediately friendlier.  “I could tell by your accent that you aren’t from here,” Beth said.

At first glance the couple looked to be in their fifties but the timbre of their voices suggested they were both much older, Beth’s well coiffed and bouffant hair popular during a decade past.  I had the notion that her highlighted brown tresses had cost a bundle at an expensive salon and the big diamond on her finger did nothing to belie my observation.  She had shoehorned herself into a low-cut slinky black dress that went perfectly with expensive accessory jewelry adorning her slender bod.  I couldn’t see her legs but imagined she was wearing black, fishnet stockings.

Dutch’s hair was also perfect – maybe too perfect.  The diamond encrusted Rolex on his wrist clashed with his diamond pinkie ring.  The cut of his handmade shirt indicated wealth and my fiction author’s mind surmised he could have attended Harvard with the Kennedy’s.

“Born in Louisiana,” I told her, “But I’ve lived in Oklahoma so long now that I call it home.”

Jay and Linda were sitting to the left of us.  A burly man with dark wavy hair, Jay had a small tattoo visible beneath the sleeve of his flowered Hawaiian shirt.  He looked younger than he probably was because Linda’s hair had gone totally gray.  Their shorts revealed athletic legs that likely took many long walks along the beach.

“I was in Louisiana during Vietnam,” Jay said.  “Fort Polk.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Basic training,” he explained.  “I was on my way to Nam but blew out a knee.  They sent me home after that.

“Where in Oklahoma are you from?” the man sitting to the right of Angela asked.

“Oklahoma City,” I told him, along with a brief description of my past twenty years.

His name was Ray, his wife’s Sandra.  They wore shorts, and matching tee shirts featuring a procession of ships sailing into New York harbor.  The caption said “Tall Ships.”  They were drinking draw beers and eating bowls of chowder.  Ray had a Wyatt Earp moustache that drooped to his chin.  Sandra was a blonde-haired woman whose blue eyes twinkled when she smiled, even in the interminable darkness of the bar.

Matt had implanted himself in front of Angela, his elbows on the bar and his chin resting in the palms of his hand as he hung on every word she uttered.

“This is wonderful,” she said.  “The view is gorgeous.  I wish I lived here.”

“Its hell until after Labor Day,” Dutch said.  “We rarely get out during tourist season.”

The three couples had lived in Salem their entire lives.  They knew each other and all hated tourists.  Angela and I dined on lobster thermidor, drank more beer and wine than needed, and continued to kibbutz with the locals.

Before the evening ended, it seemed as if we had known each other all our lives.  I invited them to visit me in Oklahoma and they asked Angela and me to call them next time we were in the area.  Finally, it was time to leave.

Matt held Angela’s hand, beseeching her to stay until he got off work.

“I’m married,” she said, showing him her wedding ring.

I have never returned to Salem since that night and Angela now lives in California.  Still, I’m grateful to the wonderful folks we met in the bar that night because for a while they took my mind off Anne’s passing.

Driving as if unimpaired, Angela returned us to Boston.  I sat in moody silence, battling without success as aching melancholy crept slowly back into my soul.

Eric’sWeb

  My dog Lucky died today. He was twelve-plus, an advanced age for a Labrador retriever. My deceased wife Anne bought Lucky six months before she died and the big pup soon became my constant companion and best friend.

Lucky helped ease me through a hard time in my life. I am sad tonight, but I am happy that he lived such a long and happy life, and died on such a gorgeous day with no apparent trauma.

Goodbye Lucky and rest in peace. 11-02-2009.

Eric’sWeb

Some say Edmond is a hotbed of urban legends
Tales of paranormal activity haunt on.

http://newsok.com/some-say-edmond-is-a-hotbed-of-urban-legends/article/3413267

Eric’sWeb

Edmond, Oklahoma is the home to thousands of crows. Here are a few pics I took in my backyard.

Eric’sWeb

Born on the day before Halloween, I seem forever connected to that holiday.  Anne and I married early in 1980 and decided to host a Halloween party that year.  Halloween was on a Friday, but we planned the big bash for Saturday.

Not all of our guests got the message as three revelers showed up for the party Friday night.  Jakob, an Israeli expatriate that was doing stonework around our house for us, came as a cowboy.  Nancy, a geologist, dressed, strangely enough, as an Indian princess, soon followed.  John, a fellow geologist, showed up a little later, his only costume a mask.

Nonplussed, Anne and I broke out the alcohol.  There was a championship-boxing match on television that night - Oklahoma City's own Sean O'Grady versus James Watt, a Scottish boxer.  The fight took place in Glasgow, Scotland and to say that there was a bit of home cooking going on is but a mild statement.  After a few rounds Watt head-butted Sean resulting in a horrible cut over his eye.  Watt De served disqualification and O'Grady the title.  Instead, the local judges ruled the cut caused by a punch rather than a head-butt.

Those days there was no rule about excessive bleeding.  To say that there was a little blood strewn around the ring would be a true understatement.  The ring looked more like the inside of a working slaughterhouse, all the viewers, including myself, in shock.  The ref soon called the fight and proclaimed Watt the world champion.

We went on to drink, carouse and to celebrate into the wee hours, neither Anne nor I in much shape for the real party that continued as planned the next day. As it happened, the first Halloween party I ever hosted, an unscheduled party became the one I remember the most.

Eric’sWeb

Halloween, my favorite holiday, is almost upon us and one of the reasons I love this time of year are the tasty pumpkin pies my Mother and Grandmothers used to make.  Here is an old yet simple recipe that I hope you enjoy as much as I do. HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

• 1 ½ cups fresh pumpkin
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• ¼ tsp cinnamon      
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp butter
• ¼ tsp salt

Combine ingredients.  Mix thoroughly.  Pour into pastry-lined pie pan.  Bake in hot oven (425 degrees) for about 25 minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out clean.  Serve with whipped cream on top.

Eric’sWeb

22 year-old Sammy Wanjiru of Kenya won the Chicago Marathon in 2:05:41, the fastest marathon ever recorded on American soil. I was thinking about the feat as I began my walk tonight. Thousands run the marathon every year. Few have covered the more than twenty-six mile distance in one-hundred-twenty-five minutes forty-one seconds – an average of less than five minutes per mile.

I’m too heavy and too old to jog anymore but I can still walk. As I left my house tonight before six, intent on beating the darkness, I thought about the young Kenyan’s feat. My mind, still as nimble as it was at twenty-two, quickly raced to other subjects. My thoughts transformed from running to writing.

The screenplay I am working on, adapted from my book Big Easy, is forty pages too long. I spent much of the day trying to mend the problem with varied success.

It was spitting rain as I commenced my walk tonight. Temperatures have fallen in central Oklahoma recently and we turned on our heaters yesterday. My mind wasn’t on the rain, or the falling temperatures, but Sammy Wanjiru, and which actor should play Lieutenant Tony Nicosia should my book ever result in a movie.

While I will never run a sub-three-hour marathon, I can still walk, and walking- for all you enthusiasts out there - is a great thought catalyst. During my walk, It dawned on me the best person to play Tony Nicosia is John Travolta.

I finished walking in the spitting rain, dreaming of running a world record marathon, and trying to convince Travolta to star in my movie. Hey, maybe I’m a hopeless dreamer, but sometimes dreams are all we have. I also have a feeling 22-year-old Sammy Wanjiru dreamed of running the fastest marathon ever recorded on American soil long before he ever did it.

Eric’sWeb

A few years ago, I took a mineral lease not far from Lake Arcadia, Edmond’s water supply.  I wanted to get an oil well drilled at a location about two miles south of Route 66.  I became friends with Carroll L, the mineral owner and one day, just before lunch, he showed up at my office.

“Let’s go to lunch,” he said.  “I’m buying.”

I had no other plans so we piled into his truck.  Instead of taking me to lunch, though, he had other plans.  We soon pulled up outside a house in Edmond.

“There’s someone here I want you to meet.  Her name is Nita.  She’s a seer and I’m going to have her read your cards.”

Nita was apparently expecting us, quickly ushering us to a back room complete with a table and deck of Tarot cards.  She smiled and basked in the accolades as Carroll explained all the missing persons she had found for the police.

“I have a talent,” she admitted.

Nita was an attractive Oklahoma woman that in no way looked like a witch doctor or soothsayer, but she had a confident manner about her that caused me to trust her instantly.

Carroll, apparently, was more interested in learning if she thought there was oil and gas under his property than in listening to my fortune.  Listen, though, he did because Nita dealt my cards and proceeded to predict my fate.  I don’t remember everything she said.  One thing I do.

“You ride a motorcycle, don’t you?” she asked.  When I admitted that I did and had two motorcycles, a grave expression appeared on her face.  Her next statement caused me concern.  “You’re going to have a motorcycle accident and you’re going to lose a leg.”

I was still reeling from Nita’s prediction when Carroll changed the subject to his minerals.  Nita thinks there’s a wealth of oil and gas beneath my property, don’t you Nita?

There was a moment’s hesitation between Nita’s answer and the look of doubt in her eyes.  I knew right away that no matter what her lips professed about how much oil and gas we were going to find, her eyes were telling the truth that she believed.

We never made it to lunch that day, Carroll returning me to my office, confident that he would soon have a wonderful well drilled on his land.  After our meeting with Nita the seer, I was not so sure.  The meeting unnerved me to the point that I have never again ridden a motorcycle (well, okay, just once maybe.)

Nita’s eyes did not persuade me that there was no oil or gas under Carroll’s property and it took the drilling of two dry holes to convince me otherwise.  While I don’t believe that Nita knew anymore about the oil and gas (or lack thereof) beneath Carroll’s property than I did, I’m still not going to run out and buy a new Harley.

Eric’sWeb

I recently finished the screenplay adaptation for my novel Big Easy. Even though I removed several subplots, I still ended up with one-hundred-sixty pages - forty pages too many.

I called my business and writing partner, r.r. bryan and asked him what I should do. My friend just finished adapting his novel, All the Angels and Saints, for the movies and he knows much more than I do about the intricacies of screenwriting.

“Just cut every fourth page,” he advised.

He was just joking and after he quit laughing, he promised to look at my script and see if he could find a way to fix it. Humbled, I realized that penning a novel doesn’t qualify you as a screenwriter. It also made me realize why so many movies are so very different from the book that originally spawned the story.

It’s a cold night in central Oklahoma so I think I’ll go to bed early. Maybe the solution to my writing problem will come to me in a dream.

Eric’sWeb

We had a torrential rainstorm in central Oklahoma today. When I left my office to meet friends Terry and Debbie at nearby Louie’s Restaurant, red muddy water was gushing from the vacant lot near the office. The rain and incessant dampness caused me to remember something from my past.

It happened almost forty years ago in the hills of Vietnam, near the Cambodian border. I was a machine-gunner for the 1/8 Cavalry (1^st Cav). Deep in the jungle, we came on a deserted Montagnard village situated by a stream.

The North Vietnamese hated the Montagnards because they supported the South Vietnamese regime. They killed every Montagnard that they could and I felt certain that some atrocity had occurred at the deserted village we found on the outskirts of the jungle.

It was monsoon season and it rained every day. It didn’t matter much to us grunts because we wore the same clothes until they became as stiff as cardboard. We didn’t worry about dirty underwear. We didn’t have any underwear, dirty or otherwise – well, except for socks.

Like everyone else, I wore jungle boots. I usually kept them on for fifteen days at a time because I didn’t want to have to run through the jungle barefooted in case we came under fire at night. Snakes and scorpions also had a tendency to crawl in your warm smelly boots when you took them off.

My memory is faulty after forty years, but I remember a few desecrated structures made of brush, and a few campfires in the Montagnard encampment. The ground was bare of grass, which told me that someone had lived there for quite a while before vacating the premises, probably in haste. Something that happened later that night told me that they didn’t all make it.

We luxuriated in the stream, washing away days of mud and grime. That night, it rained so hard that the weight of the downpour almost took down the poncho liners Gary Clark and I shared as shelter from the storm. Water gushed through the tiny village, lifting my air mattress and washing me into the rain.

Falling water awoke me immediately, although I wasn’t fully asleep because you never really achieve deep sleep in a free fire zone. Grabbing my air mattress and other possessions that had floated out into the rain, I quickly poked them back under the poncho liners. It was then that I turned and saw something that I will never forget.

It was the villagers, men women and children. They weren’t real, just spirits of the dead, their lives destroyed by several decades of war. They weren’t alone. Behind them were the ghosts of North Vietnamese regulars, Vietnamese villagers and several dozen American soldiers. I stood there in the pouring rain, watching until the vision flickered and disappeared into the darkness.

Forty years have passed since that night so long ago. Tonight, as torrential rain dropped more than three inches of water on central Oklahoma, I remember the looks on the faces of the dead and realize you don’t have to be a genius to know what they wanted to convey.

Eric'sWeb

As I sat out by the pool tonight, playing with my pugs, I recalled something from my past when I glanced up at the full moon partially covered with pregnant clouds.

I have mentioned many times that Halloween is my favorite holiday. There was little or no crime during my childhood in Vivian, Louisiana and the parents allowed us to stay out until the wee hours on Halloween night. Despite the darkness, I can only recall being frightened on one occasion.

Darkness comes early in late October and it was well after dark when Rod, Wiley and I left my house, intent on collecting lots of candy and treats. Parents didn’t accompany their kids when I was young. They didn’t need to. The three of us had hit every house on our block. We were moving east when we first encountered a church group engaged in a scavenger hunt.

“We have to get a flower from the cemetery,” a girl’s voice dressed as a witch told us in passing.

“Let’s get that piece of obsidian from the graveyard,” Rod said. “You’re not scared, are you?”

“Not me,” Wiley said.

“I ain’t scared,” I said. “But we shouldn’t steal from the graveyard just because it’s Halloween.”

“You’re a wus, Eric. You wait here and Wiley and I will get the obsidian.”

“You ain’t going no place without me,” I said. “We’ll see who the wus is.”

Louisiana is always humid. Halloween night had a rare full moon that year, but rapidly moving clouds covered much of the stars and moon. Vivian is hilly, the town cemetery at the top of the highest hill. The pumpkin moon had just disappeared behind a cloud when we reached the top of the hill and headed for the obsidian grave. When we reached it, we found something unexpected.

There is no obsidian in Louisiana, at least not natural obsidian. Someone had placed a large chunk of the rock at the foot of someone’s grave. As an amateur rock hound, I lusted after it. I had talked about it so much that both Rod and Wiley also coveted it. Stealing it from the dead was another matter. I had the big hunk of obsidian in my hand when I noticed someone kneeling in front of the headstone.

The person looked like a witch and at first I thought it was the girl on the scavenger hunt. When the person stood and faced us, I realized that it wasn’t.

I was close enough that I could smell the dank fabric of the dark clothes the woman wore. When she turned to face me, I thought she was wearing a mask. As I stared at her, I realized that she wasn’t.

Rod and Wiley didn’t hang around; they ran away when they realized the person was not a trick-or-treater. I looked at the ugly old woman, my heart racing, still holding the hunk of obsidian in my hands. When she raised her hands over her head and took a step toward me, I screeched at the top of my lungs and started running. I didn’t stop until I was at the bottom of the hill where I found Rod and Wiley.

“Did you get it?” Rod asked.

“No thanks to either of you.”

I kept the hunk of obsidian for two days, but my conscience wouldn’t let me keep it. I returned it to the cemetery, placing it at the foot of the grave where I had found it. I forgot about the old woman until tonight when a full moon cloaked by pregnant clouds reminded me again.

Eric’sWeb

I have used Pascal’s Manale as a setting for two stories, both featuring Mama Mulate, my fictional voodoo mambo/Tulane English professor.  In the short story Conjure Man, Mama visits Pascal’s during a hurricane to visit her much younger boyfriend/bartender. In my novel Big Easy, Mama and Wyatt Thomas seal a partnership that sets the stage for the stage for the French Quarter murder mystery.

There is no better place on earth to eat a few dozen oysters and drink cold Dixie Beer while waiting on a table to dine on Pascal’s signature barbecue shrimp and finish up with what may be the best bread pudding in all of New Orleans.

Below is the recipe for their bread pudding straight from the Pascal’s Manale website.

Ingredients:

• 3 Loaves French Bread
• 15 ozs. Raisins
• ½ Gallon Whole Milk
• ½ lb. Sugar
• 10 Eggs
• ½ Pound of Melted Butter
• 3 ozs. Vanilla Extract

Directions:
Cut French bread into cubes. Pour milk on French bread. Let milk soak into bread. Add the remaining ingredients to French bread mixture. Mix with hand until blended evenly. Pour mixture into ungreased pan.

Pre-heat oven at 350 degrees. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Makes 15 or more servings.

Topping

• 3 ozs. Brandy
• 1 lb. butter
• 8 ozs. sugar
• 2 ozs. vanilla extract

Let butter sit at room temperature until very soft. Add the remaining ingredients and blend with mixer until smooth. Pour over bread pudding.

Eric’sWeb

Barely October and central Oklahoma’s weather has already turned chilly and misty – perfect Halloween weather. As a Halloween baby – well, almost, I was born on the 30^th – I love this time of year. As a writer, I feel like penning a few ghost stories. No time for a full-blown short story, but I will tell you my inspiration for one when I get around to writing it.

Marilyn and I live on the southeast edge of Edmond, America. Unlike much of Oklahoma, Edmond is hilly and has many large trees. Creeks dissect the hills and many wild animals populate these creeks. The other night, I saw a particular animal outside my front door that you wouldn’t believe, even if I had managed to grab my trust camera and snap a picture before it ran away.

I feed my cats in the front yard and they don’t always finish their food. I know, I know - I can already sense my email heating up with veterinarians and other animal professionals telling me what an idiot that I am. Yes, I know about rabies but I love seeing these wild creatures up close. Last night I saw a wild creature that I didn’t expect.

It was a coyote, yes a coyote and not a fox or a dog. My cat Fang didn’t seem to notice, or to care, as the coyote ate cat food from his dish. Maybe he didn’t notice because the coyote was solid white. The animal either didn’t know that I was observing it through my storm door, or else didn’t care.

Not twenty feet away, I watched as the beast finished the cat food in the bowl, glanced around to see if anyone was near, and then disappeared into the darkness.

Was it a ghost coyote? I don’t think so. I saw it and so did my dogs in their nearby fenced area. They never stopped barking. Still, the coyote was ghostly white.

Barely October, our weather is already chilly and misty, and I am wondering what other specters of the night I will see before Halloween. I can hardly wait.

Eric'sWeb

There were two barbershops in Vivian when I was growing up.  My friend Rod lived up the street and his dad Coy owned one of them.  When I was old enough to start getting my hair cut by myself, I began frequenting Rod’s dad.  Before then, I always went with my Dad and his instructions to the barbers were always to cut my hair short – I mean very short.

I had a hybrid crew cut – flattop until I went away to college.  It wasn’t even much of a flattop, more of a cowlick just above my forehead.  I usually left the barbershop with only about a quarter-inch of hair on the top, hair pointing skyward with the help of a liberal dose of butch wax that was sticky and smelled bad.

College separated me from Dad and I was able to let my hair grow for the first time in my life.  For me it was a liberating experience.  When I met Anne, she introduced me to Tony, her stylist and one of the best hair cutters in the world.  He kept my hair in top shape for years.

Last year, the oil business became so hectic that I had little time to make an appointment for a haircut two weeks in advance, so I began dropping in to the local barbershop instead.  I went today and the look and feel of the old shop sent waves of nostalgia coursing through my memory.

There were four barber chairs in the place - all antiques - seated firmly amid the floor’s black and white tile.  The barber buzzed my hair with his clippers, and then shaved me with a straight razor lubricated by hot foam.  He finished by slicking my hair back with a glob of sticky pomade.

My Dad is in a rest home now and they have a professional stylist on staff.  Last time I visited, his hair looked like that of a pampered movie star preparing for a possible Oscar-winning role.

My Dad now has a well coiffed head of hair, not a strand out of place.  Meanwhile, I’m trying to wash the goop out of my own hair as I wonder what I look like.  I guess we’ve come full circle.

Eric’sWeb

There were at least a dozen Monarch Butterflies in my backyard when I went for a walk with my pugs. I only had my Nikon with the relatively short zoom and was unable to get any close-ups. Hurrying into the house, I returned with my Pentax and 200mm zoom lens.

Even though I didn’t manage to take any “drop dead gorgeous” pics, I had a great time clicking away at the fast moving little creatures. Most of the Monarchs had departed when I returned to the backyard but there were dozens of large yellow butterflies. Dressed in shorts, tee shirt and flip flops, I snapped away as mosquitoes made a meal of my legs and ankles.

After watching the first half of Alabama drubbing Arkansas, I threw in the towel and decided to take a walk through the neighborhood. Monarchs were everywhere, flitting in front of me but never quite close enough to get a shot with my Nikon. Reveling in the gorgeous creatures flying around me, I was unprepared for what I saw next.

As I topped the hill about a mile from my house, I saw a huge turkey buzzard in someone’s front yard. I stopped, extracted my camera, put it on full zoom and began clicking away. I was close enough to hit the huge buzzard with a spitball, but unfortunately not close enough to get a clear picture.

My little Nikon is great for taking still photos, mostly close-ups, but out of its element when taking action shots. As I looked at my pics upon returning to the house, I saw that all I had was a blur.

It was a gorgeous day in Central Oklahoma. I missed most of the good butterfly pics and totally flopped on the buzzard pic. Arkansas, my favorite team, was creamed but hey, it was a gorgeous day in central Oklahoma and you can’t have everything.

Eric’sWeb

While attending college in Monroe, my friend Larry and I decided to hitchhike to the small Webster Parish town of Cotton Valley, Louisiana.  Larry’s grandparents lived in the former oil and gas boomtown and had invited us down for the weekend.

The trip there was non-eventful, the trip home a story in itself.  I’ll save that account for another time and tell you instead about our encounter with a ghost in the Cotton Valley cemetery.

Larry had a twin sister named Leeann that was also visiting her grandparents for the weekend.  Her girlfriend Cindy had a car and don’t ask me why we hitchhiked to Cotton Valley instead of riding with them but it had something to do with sibling rivalry.

Larry’s grandparents, I’ll call them the Bloomers, had a large wood-framed house with many rooms that they had once rented to itinerant oil field workers.  By the sixties Cotton Valley had a population less than two thousand.  Still an oil town it was no longer a boomtown.  All of the Bloomer’s extra rooms were empty and Larry and I had our pick of the lot.

Like her brother Larry, Leeann was tall and dark.  That’s where their appearances diverged.  Leeann had the looks of a young starlet along with a Jayne Mansfield body. Tiny Cindy was as pretty as Leeann but was blonde, svelte and had a deep and lusty voice that belied her size.

In my teens, the girls could have both been homely as sin and I would still have had visions of a potential weekend liaison.  Leeann and Larry, as I mentioned, had unresolved family differences and my daydreams squelched shortly after the girls arrived.  I got my first clue when she and Cindy took rooms as far away as they could get from us on the other side of the large house.

Friday night and most of Saturday passed without Larry and me seeing much of Cindy and Leeann as they were off in the car and we were on foot.  Cotton Valley had neither a movie house nor any other form of recreation at the time and Larry and I soon grew bored.  I managed to stem my own boredom somewhat by keeping a running journal written in ink on a sheet of paper that I kept in my shirt pocket

The seclusion Larry and I felt had apparently also worked on Leeann and Cindy because shortly after a sit-down dinner with the grandparents they asked us to go for a spin with them in the car. We quickly agreed.

We drove away from the grandparent’s house after dinner, Larry and I in the back seat of Cindy’s Fairlane.  As I glanced over the bench at the half-hidden riches beneath Leeann’s plunging blouse and Cindy’s short skirt hiked high on her tanned thighs my daydreams quickly re-emerged.  They needn’t have.

We soon stopped at a house on the far edge of town and picked up Jim.  Cindy and Jim, it seemed, had met the prior semester at Northeast Louisiana.  After flunking out, he had moved back to Cotton Valley to work in the oil patch.

Cindy’s beau was a tall handsome fellow with a Cancun lifeguard’s tan.  When Leeann climbed into the backseat with Larry and me and told me to push over to the middle of the bench seat, all my sexual fantasies flew out the car’s open window and I could tell by her frown that I should keep my hands to myself.  I thought so when she crossed her legs and pointed them away from me toward the door and knew for sure when she wrapped her arms tightly around her ample bosom

It was just beginning to grow dark as we drove away from Jim’s house – a good thing as I had trouble keeping my gaze away from Leeann’s ample body.  Miniskirts were the vogue at the time and the short garment barely qualified her as fully clothed.  Feeling Larry’s cold stare over my shoulder I somehow wrested my gaze from her gorgeous legs and luscious breasts – except for an occasional stolen glance.

There isn’t, as mentioned, much to do in Cotton Valley and we were soon headed out of town on a stretch of lonely blacktop.  By now it was pitch dark, except for the stars and light of a full yellow moon.  Jim and Cindy apparently had a bit of a tiff earlier in the day.  We didn’t know it at the time but their relationship was near an end.  Luckily for the rest of us, they remained cordial the remainder of the evening and Jim covered up their quarrel skillfully by becoming our local tour guide.

“Slow down and I’ll show you the hanging tree.”  Cindy touched the brakes and pulled over as Jim pointed at a large oak tree on the side of the blacktop.  A single large branch stretched across the road.  Jim told us the tragic story of the rape of a white girl by a local black boy and the resultant retribution performed by an element of the town’s white population.  ‘They buried his body in the cemetery up the road and he supposedly still haunts it, especially on a full moon like tonight.”

“Have you ever seen the ghost?” Leeann asked.

There was swagger in Jim’s voice when he said, “Lots of times.  Once it waved a knife at a friend and me.”

“Did it scare you?” Larry asked.

“No way,” Jim said

As we sat on the side of the road, listening to Jim’s story, a gentle summer breeze wafted the large tree’s leaves and branches causing shadows to dance across warm blacktop.  None of us commented as Cindy applied the gas and started away toward the cemetery.

As I recall the short ride to the suspected rapist’s place of internment, I realize that Jim probably had visions of mending fences with Cindy, and perhaps a romantic connection induced by her anxiety at possibly seeing a ghost.  When we reached the cemetery, I’m sure the visualization we soon saw caused his thoughts of romance to disappear out the open window, along with his phony boldness.

The little cemetery lay just off the blacktop and had a small dirt parking lot.  Cindy pulled into the lot and turned off the car’s lights.  The night was moon bright and it took only a few moments for our eyes to adjust to the relative darkness.  A fence of wrought iron surrounded the cemetery stretching before us like a silent metropolis of the lifeless.

“Hear it?” Jim asked.  “The dead boy’s soul is calling out to us.”

I couldn’t hear anything except semis passing on a distant highway along with a chorus of crickets and tree frogs.  Still, Jim’s words evoked a certain anxiety.  Cindy also felt it as she slid toward the center of the car and closer to Jim.  Leeann uncrossed her legs and grabbed my hand in a firm clasp.  I couldn’t see Larry’s eyes but I knew he must be frowning.  We had all just noticed something that none of us could explain.

Leeann clutched my hand even tighter when Cindy said, “Oh my God!  What is that?”

Before us, an eerie blue light rose straight up from the center of the little cemetery, stretching like the creepy luminescent beam of an ethereal spotlight pointing high into the sky.  A slight breeze caused the beam to vacillate like the luminous arms of a ghostly hula dancer.

We all sat in silence, waiting for the image to disappear so our minds could promptly deny what we all had seen.  It didn’t happen that way.

Talk of the ghost had elicited Jim’s desired effect on Cindy.  By now she was practically sitting in his lap, her arms clutched desperately around his neck.  Jim didn’t seem to notice as his eyes in the reflected moonlight were big as proverbial saucers, his own arms gripping Cindy as tightly as she held him.

They weren’t the only ones caught up in the spooky moment.  Leeann clamped my right hand with both of her own.  She couldn’t have drawn any closer without occupying the space where I sat.  What Larry was thinking about the situation briefly crossed my mind.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Leeann finally said.

Larry was having none of it.  “No way, we need to find out what’s causing that light.  I don’t believe for one minute it’s a ghost.”

When no one responded to his statement, Larry opened the back door and started for the cemetery gate.  I was more interested in Leeann’s pressing warmth and tender softness than the ghost was but it quickly returned to my attention when the door slammed behind him.  Concerned for her brother, Leeann released her grip and pushed me toward the door.

“You’re his friend.  You go with him.”

When I glanced at Big Jim, his wide-open stare quickly told me he would be of no help.  Leeann’s frown and folded arms had returned so I opened the back door and followed my friend into the night.

“Larry, where are you?” I called.

“In front of you,” he said in a whisper.  “The light is coming from over that rise.”

The little country cemetery was well kept, grass trimmed around the tombs.  Some of the headstones were large and ornate but most were old and crumbling, many no more than wooden crosses and rectangles of worn concrete.  We had no flashlight but didn’t need one as there were few trees to block star light and bright glow of the full moon.  A graveled path led up the hill toward the gleaming blue light.

Larry and I were in ROTC and both already experienced in night maneuvers.  The ghostly light that continued to beam from the center of the cemetery apparently didn’t frighten my large companion and I was feeling more elated anticipation than fear.  As we crested the slight rise we both saw the origin of the eerie light.

Larry halted in his tracks and held up his hand for me to stop.  Moonlight was shining directly on a large piece of blue foil once used to wrap a flower pot.  The light was reflecting off the foil and onto the polished marble surface of a headstone.  The resultant glow shone like the beam of a spotlight, straight up into the sky.

The light wasn’t all we saw.  In the darkness, just beyond the spot where the little hill began to drop in elevation, an almost indistinguishable shadowy figure came into view.  It remained a moment in one spot before continuing slowly toward us, its amorphous shape wafting in the gentle summer breeze.  Larry took a step forward to investigate but a shout from behind caused us to turn and look.

“Larry, where are you?”  It was Leeann.  Worried about her brother, she had followed us.  We watched as she picked her way up the little hill.  Just as she reached us she froze in place, put her hand to her mouth and said, “Oh my God!”

A vivid flash of summer lightning accompanied Leeann’s exclamation followed quickly by a clap of thunder that seemed as if it were right on top of us.  Leeann didn’t appear to notice.  She was staring at a spot behind us, still grasping her open mouth with her left hand as she pointed straight ahead with her right.  Need I add how wide her eyes had grown?

Another flash of lightning lit the sky as Larry and I turned to see at what she was pointing.  A sudden summer rainstorm had moved quickly overhead, already covering the stars and moon with dark puffy clouds.  As lightning dissipated, only gloom remained, but not until Larry and I saw a shadowy nimbus floating up the hill toward us.

Before either of us could react, Leeann grabbed me from behind and screamed, trying, it seemed to squeeze the breath out of me.  As she did clouds began unloading with large heavy drops of warm precipitation that lasted for no more than a minute.  Dark clouds passed with the rain, again revealing clear sky complete with stars and full moonlight.  Whatever we thought we had witnessed had disappeared along with the momentary storm.

“Did you see it?” Leeann asked, her long arms still wrapped tightly around my chest.

“I saw something but don’t know what it was,” I answered.

Leeann gave me an incredulous look when Larry said, “It was just a low-lying cloud.”

“My ass!”  Leeann said.  “It was shaped like a man and it was coming up the hill after us.  You saw it didn’t you Eric?”

“I saw something but I didn’t get a good look.  We turned away just as you called to us.”

“Trust me, it was nothing but a cloud,” Larry said as he led us back to the Fairlane.

Leeann had already begun to disbelieve her eyes as she followed her brother down the hill.  I didn’t know what to believe but I was already missing the warmth of her breasts against my back.  We had to bang on the car door for Jim and Cindy to open it.

“Did you see it?” Cindy asked.

“Yes, just before the rain started.” Leeann said.

“What rain?” Jim asked.  “It’s been clear as a bell ever since you left the car.”

“Well it sure as hell rained on us, didn’t it Larry?”

“For a minute or so,” he said.

Cindy and Jim stared at him, and then at me.  “You don’t look wet.  Are you guys pulling our legs?”

My shirt and pants were almost dry and I could do little more than shrug my shoulders.  By the time we dropped Jim off at his house, talk of the ghost had ended.

Cindy and Leeann were already gone next morning before Larry and I ate breakfast.  Larry didn’t want to talk about the ghost except to say it was “bullshit” and I never spoke to either Leeann or Cindy again.

The mind plays tricks and sometimes what you think you see is nothing more than an invention of your imagination.  Still, as Larry and I waited on the edge of I-20, trying to thumb a ride, I reached in my shirt pocket and pulled out the remains of my scribbled journal.  My shirt - we were out of clean clothes and I was wearing the same shirt and blue jeans as the previous night - was damp from sweat, crumpled paper equally moist.  Something prompted me to unfold the soggy journal and look at it and I got quite a shock when I did.

Either rain or sweat had caused the blue ink to bleed on the paper and render my scribbling indecipherable – except for one word.  In large blurry letters, it spelled out WRAITH.

Eric’sWeb

   September saw temperatures reach a hundred degrees here in central Oklahoma but when October arrived, it was if someone had pulled a temperature switch. We have already experienced fifties and even forties, and day after day of drizzly weather. Today was no different.

After work, as I set out on my walk, a misty haze cloaked south Edmond. Walking is good exercise and great stress relief. It must also increase the blood flow to the brain because I always seem to solve my toughest dilemmas, or remember something from my veiled past whenever I walk. Tonight, I remembered something that had occurred many years ago. How I forgot this incident, I will never know because it was one of the most singularly frightening moments of my life.

I was a freshman in college at what is now the University of Louisiana at Monroe. My brother Jack had started there the prior year and convinced me to join an ROTC precision drill team called the Fusileers. I did, enjoying the camaraderie immensely. Toward the end of the first semester, we underwent an initiation called Hell Week.

During Hell Week, we initiates had to go to class everyday in full dress uniform, and then hang around the student union in case a senior Fusileer wanted to make us do push-ups, or recite the memorized, rhyming answer to specific military questions. I can’t remember a single rhyme, but I knew them all by heart during Hell Week.

Hell Week culminated with Hell Night. There is a giant, mostly abandoned gravel quarry on the outskirts of Monroe. During Hell Night, the initiated Fusileers dropped off us uninitiated in the darkness to try to find our way to the entrance. Along the way, the upperclassmen would ambush us with firecrackers, cherry bombs and M-80’s - legal fireworks at the time. The night was dark and hazy and we had no flashlights. During a particularly frenetic ambush, I somehow got separated from the group.

I must have walked a mile without calling out because I didn’t want the upperclassmen to capture me – having heard about the dire consequences the entire week. I soon realized that I was lost and began calling out.

The gravel pit was like the surface of Mars, rugged, rolling and completely barren of vegetation. Hazy rain had soaked my fatigues, my socks and boots wet from running through pooled water. When I stopped to listen for the other Fusileers, I heard something quite different and unexpected. It was the whumph of some large animal, coughing to get the attention of anyone near it. I didn’t know what it was, but it scared me. Not having a good grasp of what direction I was moving toward, I started away from the sound.

There was no moon or stars, only darkness and a persistent mist rising up from the broken gravel beneath my feet. I called out, “help.” No one answered.

I heard the whumph again and realized it was not my imagination. My heart began racing as I also realized that the sound was drawing ever closer. I tried moving faster which resulted in a face-first plunge into a cold pool of water. Another chill ran up my spine as I heard a low growl on the hill directly behind me. Unable to get away, I lifted myself into a sitting position and turned to face whatever was stalking me.

On the rocky hill above me, I could just make out the moving shadow of some dark, four-legged beast. With my heart racing wildly, I prepared for its attack, something that never occurred. Over the hill behind me appeared the old World War II Jeep the head Fusileers used to move about the rock quarry. I could see its lights coming up from behind. When it topped the hill, the lights flashed briefly on the beast at the top of the hill.

All I ever saw was the red demon eyes of some misty apparition. Lights from the Jeep blinded me when I turned around, the beast gone when I glanced away into the darkness.

“Wilder, where the hell have you been?”

“Lost, Sir,” I said.

Major Pfrimmer glanced at his watch. “Damn good thing for you it’s after midnight or I would have had to wash you out. You may be a sorry sack of shit, but you’re a Fusileer now, so get in the damn Jeep.

I crawled into the open vehicle, regaling in the smiles, handshakes and shoulder slaps from my fellow initiates that had also survived Hell Night. Someone passed around a bottle of cheap whiskey and I imbibed forgetting about the monster of the mist with glowing red eyes until forty years had passed, during my walk through a hazy Edmond neighborhood.

Eric’sWeb

I know I do.

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Eric’sWeb

I never believed my wife Anne would lose her battle with cancer but she must have had an inkling.  “Cremate me and spread my ashes on that beach I liked so much on Cape Cod.” Five or so months after she died, I flew to Boston to do just that.

My Cousin Angela and her then husband Bob accompanied me to Cape Cod.  They had a vacation cottage on John’s Pond and we spent the night there, spreading her ashes the following day.  Bob had to return to Boston but Angela and I stayed at the cottage.

“There’s a very good movie playing at the theatre.  It’s gotten great reviews and I think we should see it.  It will take our minds off everything.”

I wasn’t up for a movie but I decided to go anyway because I really wasn’t up for anything.  The movie was Smoke Signals and those of you that saw the movie will probably know where I’m going with this story.

The movie received many accolades and was the first film ever created totally by Native Americans.  Two young men live on a reservation in Idaho.  The drunken, abusive father of one of the men has just died in Phoenix, Arizona and the two heroes set out to return his ashes and belongings to the Rez.  Both men are conflicted by their relationships with the older man and the trip becomes a journey of self-discovery.

I won’t ruin the movie for everyone because it is worth seeing.  The final scene was unexpected and traumatic for me.  The two young men stopped at a river the father always admired.  Standing on the rustic bridge, they dumped his ashes into the water.  I cannot begin to tell you how the scene affected me.

One of the stages of grief is denial and yes, my mind had latched on firmly to that particular stage and was refusing to let go.  As the father’s ashes wafted off the bridge and into the rapidly moving water, the sledgehammer of realization crashed unexpectedly into the back of my head.  I began to sob like a baby and I couldn’t shut up, even though every person in the darkened theatre turned to see what fool was causing such an embarrassing scene.

I’m positive that my poor cousin Angela had no idea what was about to occur.  Even though the mother of two, she had no frame of reference to deal with the blubbering man beside her.  She patted my hand but I know she’d have rather taken a quick trip to the ladies room.

I finally got a grip, just as the credits began scrolling across the screen.  Grabbing Angela’s wrist, I said, “I’m not leaving here until everyone is gone.”  We finally hurried out of the theatre, my face red with both tears and embarrassment.

Even today, I can’t explain the coincidence of having spread Anne’s ashes the same day I saw the movie Smoke Signals, but I know that it jolted me out of denial and into yet another stage of grief.  When tragedy hits you upside the head it often leaves you dazed and mired for months in a muddy ditch beside your life’s path.

Like me, you’ll remain there until something quite unexpected happens – like seeing Smoke Signals - and propels you, once again, down life’s karmic highway.

Eric’sWeb