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"There are more guests at the table than the hosts invited; the illuminated hall is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts, as silent as the pictures on the wall." - Longfellow
Hello! This is a double-month issue for both January and February since things have been crazy and I'm running a little behind. Fear not, though, since this is a two-month issue it's going to be bigger and better than ever. There are meanderings of my daily life here in Jefferson, a couple of food things, and some ghost stories to pique your interest. Hold on to your seat as we launch into 2020.
Okay, take a deep breath, relax, and let's hope that things get back to normal soon. Stay safe, and social distance from people. Oh, and don't forget to wash your hands. In the doctor's interview that I mentioned earlier, he said that you could literally dip your hands into a bucket of COVID-19, and then wash them with soap and water, and you would have killed the virus. That's how powerful washing your hands is. Most of all, please follow the directives from the CDC on their website - they update it regularly as they learn more about this terrible virus. May God bless you and keep you and yours safe!
Here's what's coming up around Jefferson...
This is weird, but I have to say, "Who knows?" Our sincere prayer is that the country - and Jefferson, for that matter - opens back up in the very near future. Until we get those directives, it's impossible to list upcoming events. Stay safe and healthy!
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Of course, it's hard to ignore the elephant in the room... Corona. Not the beer that I'm holding in the picture, of course, but the Coronavirus, or COVID-19. My heart goes out to our country - everyone is being affected to one degree or another, no matter where you live. I basically think that everything's going to be all right if we practice a few simple things recommended by the CDC - no groups over 10, social distancing, and of course, hand washing. I heard an interview with one of the big-wig doctors recently who said that a major weakness of the virus is that its cell membrane is very susceptible to soap and alcohol - either one kills the virus. I'm washing my hands more than normal, and as prescribed, I sing the "Happy Birthday" song twice while doing so. I don't do any hand shaking and hugging, but all in all the biggest problems have been people doing crazy things... like hoarding toilet paper. Jefferson's been a strange place lately, though - several B&Bs, some stores, restaurants, the library, even the museum - all closed for the time being. The spring History, Haunts, & Legends conference has been postponed, and will be combined with the Fall conference. Jefferson's Historical Pilgrimage has been cancelled this year. We've even suspended tours of The Grove for the foreseeable future. It's just a time where everyone's doing what they have to, and hopefully stemming the spread of the Coronavirus. So for the days ahead, let's be careful out there. Oh, and the photo? I heard a news report that Corona beer was having some sales problems just because of its name, so I bought a six-pack just to give them a little economical support in a tough time. We all do what we can. ;)
One thing about this strange time that gives me inspiration - people are being so nice (other than those hoarding toilet paper, that is). I went to our local grocery store to get a package of tortillas, and I was standing there staring at a completely empty shelf. A fellow that I know here in town walked by and asked how things were going, and I shook my head and said, "You know, I just wanted to get one package of tortillas - not thirty, just one." We talked a minute more - social distancing, of course - and I headed back home empty-handed. A couple of hours later there was a knock on the door and when I answered it, there stood the guy, holding a package of tortillas. He said that he happened to be going to the nearby city of Marshall, so he stopped and picked them up for me. He wouldn't even let me pay for it. What a great guy, and a nice thing to do!
Okay, I've given a few jabs to the people who are hoarding toilet paper, and I think that they deserve the ridicule. I read an article from an economist who was baffled by the phenomenon, because THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF TOILET PAPER!!! This economist pointed out that first of all, use of toilet paper is linear. You use the same amount of TP this week as you did last week, the last month, the last year, etc, etc. Given that fact, 90% of TP used in America is manufactured right here in the good ol' USA. The other 10% comes from Canada and Mexico, and zero percent - zero, zippo, nada comes from China. Face it, we aren't going to run out of toilet paper, and the grocery store shelves will soon be as full as the folks who have 1000 rolls in their hall closet. So please, please, tell everyone that you know to CALM DOWN on the toilet paper front. We're going to be all right.
Okay, I need a sanity check here. Somewhere along the way the dental profession decided that they would do a public service and check everyone's blood pressure when you sit down in the chair. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm sitting there with all these drills and xray devices hanging around me, not knowing exactly what is going to happen during my visit and how many thousands of dollars that it's going to cost, and they expect my blood pressure to be accurate?!? Well, this month my dentist found a problem with an old root canal, and sent me to an endodontist in Longview, TX. He said that "something" was going on above the tooth, but didn't know what. When I went to the endodontist I didn't know if I was facing a fatal disease, a dental procedure that was bordering on the torture of the Spanish Inquisition, a bill the size the state of Texas, or maybe even something even worse. As an added bonus, I figured that it was going to cost me a grand to even walk through the door. When I sat back in the chair, trying my very best not to bolt and run, the nurse came in with a smile and said, "I need to take your blood pressure!" I shook my head and said, "You really, really don't want to do that." She insisted and it was not only high, but it was VERY high. She looked panicked, and I really think that she was considering calling an ambulance. I told her that I was under a doctor's care, that I took blood pressure medicine every day, and that it had been checked just a couple of days before and everything was fine. Still, she couldn't understand why it was so high that day. I wanted to yell, "Are you insane???" To me, it would be like taking someone's blood pressure as they stepped off the Judge Roy Scream roller coaster at Six Flags over Texas, or as they were chased out of the exit of the House of Blood Halloween attraction by a chainsaw-wielding clown. As you're stumbling outside in utter shock and fright, the nurse steps up, smiles, and says, "It's time to take your blood pressure!" You've got to be kidding me... I don't know how or why someone thought that this was a good idea, but I seem to be living proof that it's not.
Okay, I'll get off my soap box about dentists and blood pressure checks, and move on to our cat Elsie. My wife and I love and adore this tortoise-shell feline, and she's been a resident of The Grove for many years. We have always been dog-people, but when I was crawling around under the house to do work, dragging myself over the damp dirt in the dark and brushing aside cobwebs, I realized that cats kill mice and snakes and I became a big fan. Elsie comes and goes through the doggie door, patrolling the property when she wants, and coming inside for food and a snooze when the mood hits her. One "cat" thing that I can't get used to is Elsie bring us little gifts: a mouse, a bird, or something else that she's killed. She seems to be proud to show them off, and leaves them right where we can find them. Before a tour, I've taken to walking through the house and making sure that she hasn't left us anything. Recently I'd walked out onto the front porch to start a tour, and I heard a lady tell her husband, "Watch where you step." I guess that I had a puzzled look on my face, because she explained, "I think that your cat threw up." Elsie, who was busy getting petted by several other guests, looked at me with a "Who, me?" expression as I went inside to get a towel to clean it up. Somehow I've morphed into being a cat-person, I guess.
Oh, and while I realize this isn't a "Martha Stewart" blog or something, I have to tell you about a recipe that we took to Mardi Gras parties in February that is: 1) cheap, 2) easy, and 3) freakin' delicious. You can't beat these things. The ingredients are easy: a bag of small pretzel twists, a bag of Rolo candies, and a bag of pecan halves. If you can't find the bag of Rolos, sometimes you can find the individual logs of them. That works just as well.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and then spread the pretzels out on a cookie sheet (line it with foil first - trust me on this one), and then put a piece of Rolo candy in the center of each one. Do not put the pecan halves on them yet! Slide the cookie sheet with the pretzels & Rolos into the oven and let them bake for 3 minutes. Time it carefully - you don't want the chocolate Rolos to liquefy! The Rolo candies will soften, but will not melt down.
Once you take the cookie sheet out of the oven, put it on a cooling rack or on potholders, and immediately start pressing the pecan halves into each melted Rolo, as you see in the picture above. Just mash them down enough to spread out the Rolo a bit. Once you've done that, let them cool completely - I even put them on a shelf in the 'fridge for a while. When they're completely cool, peel them off the foil and put them on a serving plate. They're cheap, easy, delicious, and even addictive. Enjoy them!
We also just had "Mardi Gras Upriver" in Jefferson. Back in the steamship days of the 1800s, the Mardi Gras celebration made its way up from New Orleans, and has been a huge thing ever since. We were in the Grand Parade with the "Krewe of Karts," with our golf carts all decked out in the Mardi Gras colors of gold, purple and green. We threw a ton of beads, and you can see from the photo that the crowds packed the streets. It was a festive weekend and a whole lot of fun. We're already making plans for Mardi Gras 2021!
If you've been reading the GroveZine for a while, you know that at Mardi Gras I try to find the weirdest things to eat, give them a try, and photograph them for the 'zine. I've had a lot of strange food over the years, including batter-dipped oreos, deep-fried twinkies, and chocolate bacon, but this year I didn't find anything all that interesting... until I saw a television commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken after the big weekend. This has nothing to do with Mardi Gras, but is simply one of their current offerings - the Chicken Donut Sandwich. It's a piece of KFC chicken between two donuts, and the New York Daily News reports that this one sandwich contains - by itself - about 1/3 of your entire daily calories. I certainly don't need one, I don't even know if it would taste that great, but one thing is certain... I had to try one. Unfortunately Jefferson doesn't have a KFC, so my little experiment would have to wait until the next time that I was near a KFC. The anticipation made me want it even more. Fasten your seat belts and hang on.
...and here we go. I found a KFC in a nearby city, walked into the restaurant, and proudly ordered a Chicken Donut Sandwich. That is it in the photo - you may not can tell, but the heat of the chicken has melted some of the sugar glaze off the donuts, and so the sandwich is sitting in a pool of sugar. I decided that since it was sold as a sandwich, I was going to eat it like one. I picked it up, lifted it out of the sugar bath, and took a bite... and it was wonderful! You first taste the sweetness of the donuts, and as you chew the flavor of Kentucky Fried Chicken comes in (and who doesn't like Kentucky Fried Chicken). It was the ultimate sweet and savory experience. Although I later put it on a plate and finished it with a fork, I have to report that the last bite was just as good as the first. While I wouldn't want one of these every day, it was a nice, filling treat. It reportedly has 1100 calories and 65 grams of fat, so depending on your daily caloric intake, this one sandwich can provide one-third to one-half of your daily food requirements - and that's without wedge fries and a drink. If you take in 2000 calories a day, your appropriate fat grams would 44~77. Just think, you get all the fat that you need for the day from this one sandwich. Oh, the sacrifices that I make for the GroveZine!
I got a call a few days ago from the Marion County Judge, Leward LeFleur, and he said, "Are you at home?" I said that I was, and he said "Can you come over to the court house?" When I asked why, he said "We found something." I've got to say, there's nothing I could hear that was more exciting than that.
First of all, I saw that a new paranormal television series is coming out, and it's based on the book The Residence by Andrew Pyper. The story says, "the publishing and production company fronted by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, is ready to explore a haunted White House." Even though the book that it's based on is fictional, there are stories through the years of Presidents and First Ladies who have has brushes with the supernatural in the white house. President Harry S. Truman once said, "I sit in this old house, all the while listening to the ghosts walk up and down the hallway. At four o'clock, I was awakened by three distinct knocks on my bedroom door. No one was there. Damned place is haunted, sure as shootin'!" British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was always quartered in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House during his stays, as were all visiting male heads of state, but the next morning, he would normally be found sleeping in a room across the hall. He explained that he never felt comfortable in that particular room, but never revealed what made him so afraid of it. The haunting of the White House is quite an interesting subject, so I encourage you do delve into it a bit. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to this series, and you can read all about it by clicking 
Rod Serling introduced a few episodes of the TV show Twilight Zone by saying "Submitted for your approval..." and that's how I should probably start this. A while back we were in Vicksburg, MS, and took a tour of McRaven Mansion, a home built in 1797. Ghost stories abound there, and the oldest part of the house was built by the outlaw Andrew Glass, and this is his bedroom. He also died in this room.
Looking through all the photos that I took on the tour, I was disappointed to see that there was a lens flare or reflection from the window in the photo of Glass' room - the whole photo is above. I wasn't using a flash, so knew that it wasn't a reflection of a dust particle like sometimes happens. As I examined it more closely, I saw that the light anomaly was not in front of the light source, the window, but was instead in front of the air conditioner - and it wasn't between the window and my camera lens. The idea of a lens flare went away. It also seemed to be radiating light on its own. I had no explanation for it at that point, but wondered if it could be a supernatural manifestation. The photo that you see here is the light anomaly enlarged.
I sent the picture to paranormal photography expert Michael Graves, who analyzed it and said the following: "This is an incredible photo. I worked the photo through several filter adjustments. Normally if it is just a reflection, or sunlight hitting off of something, the light would shrink and disperse with filtering adjustments made to it. For all the filtering I did, this light anomaly maintained its brilliance, definition, shape and mass. I included the filtered blown-up photo here so you can see what I mean about it maintaining brightness, shape and mass."
Studying the photo, I saw something else that really gave me pause. The light appears to be hovering above a jar with a lid. If you look, the light is reflecting down in the top of the jar, and I can't imagine how a lens flare or reflection from the window could possibly do that. It had to be a sphere of light that was physically above the jar. But by enlarging and lightening the photo, it revealed something else - that there was a stand under the light... meaning that the reason why it maintained brightness, shape, and mass through all of Michael's filtering was that it was that it was an actual light that I hadn't noticed on the desk.
Since I couldn't readily go back to McRaven, I did the next best thing. I searched online for a photo of that room that possibly showed such a lamp - and I found one without much trouble. It wasn't on the table like it was when I photographed it (and it caused all this hoopla), it was resting on the floor not far from the table. Mystery solved. I included this whole process in the GroveZine as an example of how the most convincing paranormal photographs can actually have logical explanations if you just dig for them. It wasn't too much of a bummer, though, because if you try to find explanations for such things, then the ones that defy explanation become all the more significant. A special thanks to paranormal photography expert Michael Grave for his help with this photo - you can find his books on Amazon.com!
We have a friend who has a special gift - she's empathic, if not downright psychic, with animals. She is simply amazing. We ran into her at Mardi Gras, and she said, "I've been meaning to call you guys - I have to tell you something." She paused, and added, "You have another dog heading your way." My wife and I both recoiled. We have two rescue babies, and one of them is special needs, in that she has seizures, arthritis, and as an old girl, is showing occasional signs of confusion. I said, "We can't really handle another one right now!" Our friend just smiled, shrugged, and said, "I'm just telling you..."
When we became the new caretakers of The Grove eighteen years ago, one of the stories that our friend Patrick, the former owner, told us that he would be working in the kitchen and look up toward the front of the house, and a shadow figure would be peering around the door to the stairwell. The figure would quickly pull back, only to peek back around again a few moments later. It wasn't long until we started having very similar experiences - we even talk about it on the tours of The Grove.
If you've been reading the GroveZine a while, you know that one of the rooms in our house occasionally smells like pipe tobacco. We don't smoke, or allow smoking the the house, but that room occasionally has that. I reported in a GroveZine a while back that it happened one weekend during a tour. I didn't point it out or say anything about it - I just kept going with the tour. Finally, a woman said, "Who smokes Prince Albert?" When I asked what she was referring to, she added, "That smell of pipe tobacco; it's Prince Albert. My daddy smoked Prince Albert his entire life, and I could recognize it anywhere." That impressed me, so the next week I went out and bought a tin of Prince Albert pipe tobacco. I walked through the house with it saying, "Okay, if anybody wants this Prince Albert, it's going to be back in the kitchen. I put it on a counter where's it's been ever since. Periodically I open the top to see if the level of tobacco is going down, and it isn't. Our resident smoking spirit must have his own stash somewhere, because this continues to happen in our everyday life and on our tours.
In the last GroveZine I talked about the light at the top of our stairs coming on during tours, and for whatever reason, that activity has continued over the last couple of months. Just to reiterate, we have a motion-sensor light at the top of our stairwell to make it easier to navigate the stairs when you're going up and down. It's set so that it doesn't come on until you've made it past the landing going up, so that it isn't set off by every little movement downstairs.
