Christmas Approaches

Last year I re-read Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" to cheer myself up. This year I read the yule-time essays from Washington Irving's "The Sketch Book." I found the last few lines of the last essay, "The Christmas Dinner," to be inspiring for writers:

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"But enough of Christmas and its gambols; it is time for me to pause in this garrulity. Methinks I hear the questions asked by my graver readers, “To what purpose is all this? how is the world to be made wiser by this talk?” Alas! is there not wisdom enough extant for the instruction of the world? And if not, are there not thousands of abler pens laboring for its improvement? It is so much pleasanter to please than to instruct—to play the companion rather than the preceptor.

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"What, after all, is the mite of wisdom that I could throw into the mass of knowledge! or how am I sure that my sagest deductions may be safe guides for the opinions of others? But in writing to amuse, if I fail the only evil is in my own disappointment. If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good-humor with his fellow-beings and himself—surely, surely, I shall not then have written entirely in vain."

The Difference Between Myself and Other Writers

I have revived a novel I call A Kingdom of Children, a fantasy about the Children's Crusade of the Thirteenth Century, and I hope to work on it this winter.

An author named Evan H. Rhodes published a novel about the Children's Crusade, An Army of Children, in 1978.  How do I compare myself to this previous scribe and his work?

Him:  "In researching this book the author traveled the complete route indicated on the accompanying map; by ship, plane, boat, train, automobile, and some 571 miles on foot; only the small stretch of territory between Alexandria and Kantara was not covered.  The Israeli war department was extremely helpful in supplying the author with an armed escort and transportation from Jerusalem deep into the far western reaches of the occupied Sinai desert." (Author's note, 1978)

Me:  "I wonder if I'll be able to pay my rent in January?" "Do I have enough gas to get to work tomorrow?" "Don't I own one pair of pants without ragged cuffs?"

Eh, ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer. :)

"Gate Duty"

Opposing events seem to hit me at the same time.  For instance, a good blogger ought to post something at least once a week, and I rarely come here even once a month.  So I decided to try to punch out something weekly.

Then I took on this job based in another city.  I severely underestimated how much time it takes to travel there and back; I'm lucky to get home three hours before I (ought to) go to bed.  So I have little time now to write.  Eh, I'll slog on anyway.

One of the main species inhabiting my fantasy world Aanuu is the gryphon, half-lion, half-eagle.  I incorporated most of my gryphonian short fiction in The Eyrie: A Book of Gryphons, which can be found on Amazon Kindle, along with Dragonfly Woman, a novel devoted to the bird-beasts (along with early female aviator Amelia Earhart).  I suppose it's time to write more gryphon stories.  Let's try for a beginning right here:

            Inkara of the Bear Clan paced the length of a high, arid cliff-top.  Her acquiline talons clicked against the beige-gray granite; she created a second clicking with tongue in beak.  It seemed criminal to waste a muscular Adolescents’ talents on Gate Duty.

            Gryphons of Clan Bear tended to stoutness of body and leg like their ursine totems, but Inkara more resembled the long, low panthers of the hot lands – particularly one in a cage, because she marched in the same precise fashion.

            All Folk knew of the Gates.  The Gates opened – somehow – onto other worlds entirely.  It was through such portals that the humans and One-Eyes had arrived in Sakria to begin with.  Thousands of years ago, however, a series of Catastrophes both natural and man-made swept over the land:  The Germination, the Rending of the Veils, the Fire and Flood, the Wars of Purity.  After those dangerous times the Gates no longer functioned properly.  Most had stood dormant for centuries. The gryphons, the humans and other species patrolled them more from habit than from worry.

            An utter waste of time, Inkara thought again.

***

There we go!  And I have the sneaking suspicion a Gate will open . . .

Hands-On Writing

I spent a ridiculous amount of time preparing a poem for a poetry contest, filling out entry forms in long-hand (including a long author bio) legibly, hunting down large and small envelopes, finding various white labels and putting addresses on them (I think it makes the addresses more visible to the post office scanners against a manila envelope), looking for stamps (and don't forget one for the Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope), remembering that they use cheap glue nowadays so taping the labels on the envelopes and taping them shut . . .

It was fun! At least it gave me a sense of accomplishment. Hardly any magazine or publisher accepts snail mail anymore, so writing consists of sitting in front of the computer for hours, and preparing it to go out consists of sitting in front of the computer some more. And when I'm done I sit in front of the screen looking at FaceBook or watching YouTube. And my hoped-for future job will be mostly scanning things onto a computer and uploading things on a computer. No wonder I can't seem to get excited about writing a new book, no matter how great I think it will be. It means more endless hours sitting in front of the computer . . .

I need to make writing more physical. Since I printed 2 copies of my poem, the first thing I'll do is get a manila folder, and get a label, and write the title on the label, then stick it on the folder (then tape it on, &^%* cheap glue), then put the folder in the filing cabinet. Maybe I'll go back to my enthusiastic college years, when I drew maps, pictures of various monsters and characters, drawings of scenes from stories (they were gawdawful but inspiring). Anything to get things going!

The Mead Notebook of Fantasy

Something I noticed about the way the fantasy world of "Aanuu" developed has itself developed into a rather quixotic task.  When I first entered the hallowed halls of Oklahoma State University, more specifically when I started wandering along the endless shelves of the Edmond Low Library, I began picking historical, legendary, mythological and fortean/paranormal tid-bits from its many books and journals that seemed almost predisposed to gather together in a milieu of strange lands, peoples and creatures.

I spent most of my spare time winnowing out stories of cryptozoological beasts like the Mokele-mbembe, the Chemosit, and the Agogwe, or mythical countries like Norumbega, Tolopan, and Hyperborea, and magical characters like Aristeas the Wanderer and the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Eventually I cobbled them together (more-or-less) to create the backdrop for what I hoped would be many novels and stories of fantasy.

How well I accomplished that remains to be seen, but I remembered something a few weeks ago:  I wrote down endless notes in longhand during my four years at OSU, on legends, fairy tales, mysterious disappearances of people and objects, new monsters to roam the land, story fragments, you name it.  Also, in all that time, all my notes went into a single, spiral-bound, college notebook.

The notebook was a Mead college-ruled, 9 1/2-by-6 inch, 5 subject notebook with two hundred sheets.  Unlike modern notebooks, it had a rather rough cardboard cover.  I bought a pack of three to start my freshman year.  One had a bright yellow cover, one bright red, and one a very dark blue.  The blue one contained my notes on the "Fantasy World Project."  As you might imagine, entries appeared as I came across interesting folklore or legends (or simply made something up), so there should have been no rhyme or reason to Aanuu's development.  Yet, in retrospect, there did seem to be a kind of progression . . .

Now the quixotic part:  I'm going to re-create the notebook.  Ideally, I'd use a Mead of the exact same kind I used in college -- and the same color.  They don't make those anymore, and I'm not sure they go up to 200 sheets now.  Biggest I've found are 180.  That original book of notes disappeared with most of my other college papers years ago.  But I still have its somewhat beat-up yellow package-mate.

The yellow book was mostly full of its own old notes -- but there were some blank pages, and I could say the same about various other Mead books -- and all the 9 1/2 x 6 ones used the same kind of spiral notepaper.  So I Frankenstein-ishly uncoiled the yellow book's spiral, gathered 200 blank pages in 5 sets of 40 (with dividers), and threaded them together.  Now I have a notebook identical to my old Fantasy World book.  It isn't the navy blue cover, but it literally possesses the cover of one of its sisters.

And now I'm trying to re-create the notes I wrote back in college.  I vaguely recall which books I came upon at OSU, and in what order (each one seemed to make a great impression on me).  I even remember when two different subjects would collide, seemingly pulled together by some outside magnetism (The Pied Piper, the Children's Crusade, and the Black death).  Heck, I may try to publish this facsimile notebook someday -- I think it will be almost 80% accurate.  Perhaps a curiosity, a study on how one author thought.

If nothing else, it's a fun romp down memory lane!

Hoarding an Author

Books, reading and writing are my life, so it's odd that I sometimes write about NOT reading.

When I was 12 or so, my introductions to science fiction were John Wyndham's novels "Day of the Triffids" and "The Kraken Wakes." I read them both every summer from then on. I collected pretty much every novel and story collection by Wyndham after that, and I read "The Chrysalids," "The Midwich Cuckoos" (aka "Village of the Damned"), "Chocky", etc. Then I came to a complete stop.

Why? I discussed this phenomenon with a pen-pal way back when people actually wrote letters to each other: finding a favorite author, collecting his/her books -- then stopping cold turkey. We determined that we were saving books for our old age. Yep, if we read everything by our favorite authors now, we would have nothing to look forward to, as if no one else was ever going to write an enjoyable book.

Well, now old age is bearing down on us, or me at least, so it's time to pull out our "saved" books like wine of ancient vintage. Cheers!

Imaginary Employment

My father said, when one is unemployed, one should still rise and shine early, dress nattily, shower, brush one's teeth, etc., and act like one is still working -- actually, he said that looking for work was your job under such circumstances.

Last Thursday I decided to try -- really try -- to pull this off.  I rose about three hours before I've been getting up.  I showered, shaved, brushed my teeth, FLOSSED my teeth, got dressed, left my apartment, stopped for a doughnut and ice tea -- then I went back to my apartment to my fake job. Yes, as an experiment I decided to act as if I were at a job in my apartment. I got quite a bit done -- applied for a real job, typed 500 words on my novel, read that article on the F-22 fighter, paid my bills, cleaned up my work tables, took those books to the consignment store, got the dishes out of the sink, found those references on quantum gravity (but not on the Palace of Nestor in ancient Mycenaea -- not in the "Archeology" file and not in "Gryphons") . . . wanted to take off my shoes, but you don't get to take your shoes off at work -- it's -- WORK!

In my case it was an experiment to cure procrastination, and I think it succeeded. But a lot of these self-help ideas work on the first day. Could I keep it up tomorrow and the next day?

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Friday I followed the same schedule.  Up, dressed, out, got potato chips and chocolate bar, back to the apartment.  Applied for a job, looked for the Palace of Nestor Xeroxes again ("It flourished 1200 BC!  Where else would it be except the Archaeology file?").

Decided F22s are so expensive and tabs are kept on them so well, they couldn't just go off the map in my novel, so I read about the F15 instead.  Typed 500 words on my work-in-progress "Other Realms," finishing the bits on wormholes and Zero Point Energy.  Practiced Excel spreadsheets.  Washed laundry.  When's quitting time?  "Only two hours in?  This fake job is hard!"

On Saturday I could have declared it the weekend, but I didn't want to lose my momentum.  More job searching, more reading, more typing (both on my novel and my non-fiction book), cleaned out and cleaned up my new car to keep it snazzy.  I felt exhausted at some points, so I had to go "off the clock" to rest for a while in my armchair -- yet I ended up working an hour past "quitting time."  Maybe there's something to this fake work ethic!

The Phantom Photographer

An occasional curious event noted by forteans is the appearance of Phantom Photographers, unknown people who apparently take pictures of people and/or their houses during a UFO or monster flap.  John Keel wrote of them in The Mothman Prophecies.

I once worked with people in charge of foreclosures at the Bank of Oklahoma.  Their files were full of photographs of houses from which the unfortunate residents were to be evicted.  I noticed that all the pictures had been taken on the move, so to speak, from inside automobiles.  Maybe some of these phantom photographers come from financial institutions.

A number of reports describe, not an obvious camera, but a burst of light as from a flashgun.  Jim Keith, in his book on MIBs, mentions a secret government “light weapon” meant to temporarily blind the enemy.  I suspect this concept eventually became the memory-erasing “flashy-thingy” from Will Smith’s Men in Black movies.

Anyway, I used to think of myself as the guy fortean/paranormal events avoided at all costs, but maybe I once ran into a phantom photographer.

Decades ago a used book store opened at 10th St. and Boston in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  It was the largest book store I've ever seen -- almost the largest store, period.  Walking through its irregularly placed walls was like wandering through the Carlsbad Caverns -- but all its walls were covered with books, stretching up beyond human reach.

I only visited it a few times.  I think it was open only a year before it was gutted by fire.  I walked past it not long after the fire; the shell of the building remained, but the interior was all charred shelves, timbers, and ashes.

Strangely enough, the floor was strewn with books that looked untouched by the flames.  Bibliomaniac that I am, I actually considered climbing in through the shattered picture window and seeing what was there.  I argued with myself that even if they weren't burnt, the volumes had to be sodden by fire hoses; there could be sharp nasty things under the rubble; maybe I'd even fall through the floor.  So I didn't enter.

Before I could walk away, however, a figure came picking its way through the blackened rubble from the depths of the store.  It proved to be a skinny young man, maybe in his mid-20s, with scraggly black hair and a black mustache and beard.  He wore (to the best of my memory) a pale tan shirt or pullover and blue jeans.  He climbed out the broken front window to the sidewalk.  He carried a camera of some sort that he kept turning over and over in his hands.

"Hi!" he said.  "Can I interest you in a camera?"

And he gave me this long spiel about what kind of camera it was and how good it was and how it was almost new (don't ask me what sort of camera; I long ago forgot).  And he only wanted $20.00 for it.

At one point in his turning and rolling the camera (he held it about stomach level), he paused and pointed the lens right at my face and snapped the button.  He apparently took my picture, and he gave a funny grin like he knew I knew.  Anyway, $20.00 was a lot to college student me, and I declined his offer.  The bearded man didn't press the matter and sauntered off down the sidewalk.

The first thing I thought of was the Phantom Photographers chapter of Mothman Prophecies, but I didn't really assign any significance to the encounter.  I assumed he was just a hustler trying to make a quick buck with a probably-stolen camera.  But it was weird seeing him clamber into view from way back in the lightless depths of the burned-out store.  Any why did he take my picture?

Found an old book review I wrote during a bout of depression.  Think I'll resurrect it here:

The Silmarillion

by J. R. R. Tolkien

(Fantasy novel; Middle Earth #1)

Perhaps it is because my mind is empty and cobweb-ridden this year, since I have sold so many books and disavowed many more, but Tolkien's The Silmarillion poured effortlessly through the windows of my eyes. I have heard that even Tolkien buffs have trouble wading through this precursor to The Hobbit and the Ring trilogy; I paused several times because I didn't want it to end.

It may not be the literary merits (as great as they are) of The Silmarillion that mesmerized me so much as the mood it evoked: reading of the earliest eras of Middle-Earth transported me back to my own adolescence, when books of wonder with their fantastic lands and marvelous inhabitants stretched out endlessly before me -- yet all remained within my grasp, if I but pulled out my library card or saved up a few quarters for a paperback.

Studying the well-limned map of Beleriand, with its mountains, forests, lakes, and rivers, became strangely calming. Here were far lands with alien names, the stage for great and mythic works. Now the urge steals over me to pull out my Atlas of Fantasy and study other realms of the fantastic. A covetous feeling engulfs me -- I must take back the lands that, due to whims, temperament, and circumstance, I have relinquished over the past quarter-century: Amber, Narnia, Nehwon, Darkover, Deryni, Oz, Islandia, and a score of others.

Much effort went into these maps and into The Silmarillion itself (Tolkien labored on it, off and on, for most of his life!). This storehouse of talent, this battery of a love of storytelling, sent its current through the filaments of my being. I must re-start my own tales and fill them with adventures dear and creatures dire!

I have become a boy of twelve again, the "golden age" of SF (and fantasy) reading; I am free of school on a lazy summer's day, belly-down on the sofa or bed or carpet, chin propped on hands. I listen to the rush of a fan or air conditioner, my roamings through the molten July heat done for the afternoon. I leave my room and my home -- temporarily, at least -- and drift like an astral traveler to other worlds and times.

Yet I am also an adult, more worldly, better able to understand the complex words and phrases, spotting more similes and references. I am able to scribble my own thoughts on paper and even see them in print once in a while.

Old folks think wistfully of former days. Youth expects "now" to last forever. A few people, however, hold the best of both ages within their breasts; they are guided and goaded to this state of bliss by miraculous books like J. R. R. Tolkien's Silmarillion.

You might expect me, after the above ravings, to give the book endless "stars", but I know few readers will agree with my blathering assessment. Realistically, had I read The Silmarillion at any other time in my life, I would have barely kept my head above the ocean of names of Elves, Dwarves, Humans, rivers, cities, lands, weapons, and battles. (Indeed, I recall several false starts in reading the book back in the '70s.) Even as a compromise, however, I can't give the Bible of Middle-Earth less than four out of five stars: **** 

How High's the Water Mama?

Sometimes the best intentions come to naught. Take all the recent fuss over global warming. Even if everyone came together to prevent cars and cows from giving off greenhouse gases, it may not help, due to an interesting fact uncovered in February 1993.

At that time a team of geophysicists led by Donald Blankenship (University of Texas) and Robin Bell (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) were flying over the Antarctic ice sheet south of Marie Byrd Land. Three hundred miles in from the Ross Ice Shelf, they noted a four-mile-wide depression. They flew back, using radar to penetrate the ice, and discovered a 2,100 foot mountain. They measured the peak's magnetic field and found "the strong signal characteristic of iron-rich volcanic rock." In other words, there was an active volcano beneath the Antarctic ice -- probably more than one, as the area is a rift valley, like the infamous Atlantic Ridge.

Oddly, the problem is not that the icecap might melt. Not even a volcano could do that. But it could melt the lowest layer of ice, which would then mix with the sediment base, which would erode away. The western ice sheet might then collapse into the sea. According to science writer Robert Naeye, "if it did, the global sea level would rise about 20 feet, and coastal cities will be flooded."

This is not to say we should let greenhouse gases spew into the atmosphere at our hearts' desire, but . . . Someday I intend to move from my apartment of ten years habitation, and when I do, it will be to someplace inland. And high.


Naeye, Robert, "The Strangest Volcano," Discover vol. 15, no. 1, January 1994.

I brought 15 copies of I Heard of That Somewhere to my book signing last Saturday.  The event was to last from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM., and I sold the last one at 4:59 PM. Good timing!

An amazing number of people showed up despite the cold and wind and rain, which started off gale-strong and just kept getting worse as the day wore on. I'd like to take credit for that, but it was probably just the luck of the draw.

With the possibility of more people checking my blog, I'd better produce some new material -- specifically, a glimpse of my next book, tentatively entitled Other Realms, about mysterious disappearances of people, animals, and vehicles, unexplained appearances of strange creatures, and the possibility of other dimensions impinging on this earth:

THE FOG OF VANISHING

            Many cases of disappearances and appearances prominently feature a strange fog or mist gathering about the vanishing/appearing object.  This mist has parallels in old legends.  “Manawydan, Son of Llyr,” a tale found in The Mabinogion, tells the story of Manawydan, his new wife Rhiannon, her son Pryderi, and Pryderi’s wife Kigva.  Upon marrying Rhiannon, Manawydan becomes lord of Dyved in southwestern Wales.  After riding out from their castle at Arberth, the foursome encounter a curious phenomenon:

            “As they were sitting on the mound they heard thunder, and with the loudness of the thunder a mist fell, so that no one could see his companions.  When the mist lifted it was bright everywhere, and when they looked out at where they had once seen their flocks and herds and dwellings they now saw nothing, no animal, no smoke, no fire, no man, no dwelling . . . They returned to the hall, but no one was there; they searched the chambers and the sleeping quarters but found nothing, while the kitchen and the mead-cellar were equally desolate.”  [Jeffrey Gantz translation, 1976]

            An unknown fate supposedly befell Romulus, the legendary co-founder [with his brother Remus] of Rome.  Romulus mysteriously vanished in 714 BC.  (The mention of a solar eclipse during the event would set the date as May 26 of that year.)  The Roman author Livy (Livius Titus) wrote, in The Early History of Rome, that “One day while he was reviewing his troops on the Campus Martius near the marsh of Capra, a storm burst, with violent thunder.  A cloud enveloped him, so thick that it hid him from the eyes of everyone present; and from that moment he was never seen again upon earth.”

For those of you who will be in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area in the near future: It's official! Michael D. Winkle will be signing (and hopefully selling) copies of his book I Heard of That Somewhere at Gardner's Used Books, 4421 South Mingo Road, Tulsa, OK, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturday, April 13, 2019!

Unless the signing is called due to Spontaneous Combustion or asteroid strikes.

Read of Astounding Wonders of Time and Space, such as the Subterranean Heartbeat!

Mrs. Massey's Migrating Mice!

The Devouring Vine and the Snake-Tree!

The Portal in the Desert!

And Many Other Miracles Never Before Exhibited in any North American County Fair!

On a Country Road

Now a glimpse of my next book of true-life mysteries and strangeness, I Heard of That, Two:

The 1970s show Kolchak:  The Night Stalker, about a hard-bitten newspaper reporter who constantly stumbles across monsters in modern-day Chicago, is my all-time favorite TV series.  Most critics agree that the episode “Horror of the Heights,” scripted by Hammer Films alumnus Jimmy Sangster, is the best of the series.  In it a Hindu demon called the Rakshasa, a hairy, toothy, humanoid flesh-eater, preys upon the elderly Jewish inhabitants of a Chicago neighborhood.  Not satisfied with a simple shape-shifting spirit, Sangster kept his monster to one form – but it can telepathically project images into its victims’ minds, who see someone they know and trust instead of a fanged and clawed predator, and who walk happily into its shaggy outstretched arms.

The closing lines of "Horror in the Heights" always remind me of this account from that early volume published by the Society for Psychical Research, Phantasms of the Living.  The story came from John Rouse of Croydon (a borough of London).  Rouse worked for Cockerells, a coal-distribution company, but he was also a member of a group “which met to investigate spiritualistic phenomena” (which sounds a little Kolchakian in itself).  A “Mrs. W.” was part of this group, “between whom and himself a strong sympathy existed.”

In the spring of 1873 Rouse traveled to Norwich on business.  At about 11:00 PM he decided to take a walk in a rural area on the edge of town.

“It was in the brightest moonlight, about full moon, I should think, with hardly a cloud in the sky,” Rouse recalled.  He mounted the summit of a hill and could see far across the land in the silvery lunar light.  The only moving object for miles was a human figure on the road ahead, which was walking his way.  As the two drew closer to one another, the coal representative decided it must be a country woman hiking to Norwich with eggs and other produce to sell at the market.  Rouse continues:  “The next moment I began to fear that, the time and place being so lonely, the woman would be afraid to pass me.  I, therefore, under this feeling, got as near as possible to one side of the road, thus giving her all the width on the other side to pass; but, to my astonishment, she also left the middle of the road, and took the same side as myself, as if determined to meet me face to face.  I then walked into the middle of the road, thinking I would avoid her, but to my surprise, the woman did the same.”

Though the figure was a woman, it was no farmwife:  "I could plainly see that the figure before me was a well-dressed lady in evening dress, without bonnet or shawl.  I could see some ornament or flower in her hair, gold bracelets on her bare arms, rings on her fingers, and could hear the rustle of her dress.”  No matter where he walked on the road, she shifted to match him, as if intending to crash right into him.

Mr. Rouse suddenly recognized the woman as Mrs. W. from London.  He was not overly shocked; he assumed that some business had brought her to Norwich as it had himself.  The two late night pedestrians came within five feet of each other.

“She held out her hand to me, and I could see her face and lips move as if about to speak to me.  I was in the act of taking her hand to greet her, but had not touched her, when some iron hurdles which formed the fencing of the cattle market, rang as if they were being struck with an iron bar.  This startled me, and unconsciously I turned round to see what made the noise.  I could see nothing, and instantly turned again to Mrs. W. but she was gone.” [Sidgwick, pp. 366-367]

Mr. Rouse sensed something strange was going on.  He walked swiftly back to Norwich and spent a sleepless night in his hotel room.  The next day he made inquiries about Mrs. W. and was informed that the woman was quite well, and had been in London that night among friends.

Misdirection that pulls one’s attention from a strange sight is not unknown in fortean tales.  “We have found in a number of instances that, while mobs of monster-chasers were combing one forest or swamp, UFOs were engaged in covert activities only a few miles away,” notes John Keel. [Keel, p. 129]  In folklore there is the old saw that a Leprechaun is under your power unless it can get you to look away.

I keep thinking of The Night Stalker episode, though.  We learn in “Horror in the Heights” that only a crossbow bolt blessed by a priest can kill a Rakshasa, and there are apparently “Rakshasa hunters” roaming the world watching for the ravenous demons.  Perhaps the "clanging noise" at the fence was a crossbow bolt ricocheting off the iron hurdles, fired by a nearby Rakshasa slayer, and the creature itself vanished "like the cowards they are."

I hope Mr. Rouse counted his blessings.  As Carl Kolchak (played by Darren McGavin) finishes up in “Horror”:  “And if you happen to be walking along a lonely country road one night and you see your favorite aunt coming towards you . . . Good luck to you, too!”

Keel, John A.  Strange Creatures from Time and Space (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, 1970).

Sidgwick, Eleanor, et. al, eds.  Phantasms of the Living (University Books: New Hyde Park, NY, 1962 [1886]).

Tommy Bowman Won't Let Himself Be Forgotten

One of my hobbies in recent years has been the annotating and expanding of David Paulides' Missing 411 books.  Accompanying the cases of missing people in rural areas (and now cities), Paulides notes, are strange coincidences, such as people missing in different areas having nearly identical names and/or appearances, people somehow managing to avoid numerous closed-circuit cameras on their way to their destinies, and people vanishing in areas with "Devil" or other alarming words in their names.

I don't have any personal experience with a missing person case, but I suffered through a bizarre coincidence (if it was a coincidence) many years ago.

It happened in 1979 or '80, probably during the summer vacation from school.  I was riding my ten-speed bike through the semi-rural countryside near Bixby, Oklahoma, a small town about ten miles south of Tulsa. The land (back then, at least) consisted mainly of pastures, fields of grain, and patches of forest.  Paved roads divided the area into squares one mile on each side.

I pedaled and coasted along one mile-long strip of road and halted at an intersection.  As I balanced atop my bike, panting heavily (I don't think I've ever actually been in shape), I noticed the telephone pole next to the STOP sign.

A haze of staples, thumbtacks, and nails covered the lower six feet of the tar-coated pole, all that remained of posters and notices of the past.  Several notices still defied the elements and clung to the wood, and one in particular caught my eye.

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THIS BOY? read two-inch-high letters.  Intrigued, I edged my bike onto the shoulder of the road.

A faded photo had been reproduced beneath the heading.  The Xerox machines available at Quik-Trip and other convenience stores of that time were less than perfect, but I could make out the features of a young, excited-looking, freckle-faced boy.

"Tommy Bowman," began the next line.

A simple, common-sounding name.  It seemed familiar.  I sidled my bike off the shoulder onto the grass.

"Tommy Bowman, aged 8."

Then it hit me:  Tommy Bowman?  The Devil's Gate Reservoir Tommy Bowman?

"Tommy Bowman, aged 8, disappeared March 23, 1957, from near Altadena, California."

I would have let loose a foul oath, but I was gobsmacked.  Thomas Eldon Bowman, one of the children who disappeared in the area around Devil's Gate Reservoir in southern California in the late '50s/early '60s -- an area dubbed "The Forest of Disappearing Children" by Brad Steiger and other authors.  I was really into historical mysteries, and my favorite subject was mysterious disappearances -- and one of my favorite missing person tales was Devil's Gate Reservoir.

. . . What was a missing person poster for Tommy Bowman, who disappeared in 1957, 1500 miles from Bixby, doing thumbtacked to a telephone pole in Bixby in the summer of 1980?  What were the chances that I would have braked beside it and noticed it out of all other phone poles with fliers and posters stuck to them?  If the entire population of Bixby, OK, had come marching by that pole, would any of them recognized the name?

I gave what I call a "thousand yard plus three feet" stare.  I scanned my surroundings.  There was nothing around for a mile but empty roads and fields, but I focused my eyes only a few feet away, as if someone was going to be standing there saying "Ha-ha!  Made ya look!"  I've done that a few times in my life, when I've run into coincidences so amazing, I was sure someone set it up (even if it had to do with private thoughts I'd never told anyone).

"$1000 will be paid by Mary and Eldon Bowman to the first person with information reuniting Tommy with us."  I removed the thumbtacks from the phone pole and snatched the poster.  I didn't expect to collect the reward, but this weird little artifact was going into my permanent record.  To this day it resides in my file cabinet, in the manila folder marked "Mysterious Disappearances."

Tommy and several other missing people from the Altadena area now form a "cluster" in the book Missing 411:  Western United States by David Paulides.  In recent years it has been suggested that California serial killer Mack Ray Edwards may have killed Tommy -- or was Edwards an example of The Convenient Madman?

I Heard of That Somewhere is Out!

A hundred years ago, a young boy went out to the well to fetch a bucket of water and never came back. His family went to look for him; they found his tracks in the snow, but these ended in mid-stride as if he'd stepped off a cliff. The boy called for help as if from a distance, but he was never seen again.

You know, I heard of that somewhere. It happened in Indiana - or Alabama - or Wales.
In bustling, modern New York City a man dressed in Victorian clothing materialized in the middle of Times Square during the rush hour. He was immediately hit by a cab and killed. All the papers found on him were dated from the 1870s. An inquisitive police chief dug back through old records and found that a man by the same name had left home for a walk one night in 1876 and had never returned. At least, I heard of that somewhere.

Before Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, or Zodiac, Jack the Ripper stalked London, killing women by ones and twos. For over a century detectives and researchers tried to learn his identity, and he was finally revealed to be the same man who built the horrible "Murder Castle" at the Chicago World's Fair. Or he was a high-ranking member of the Freemasons who rode around the dingy alleys of East London in a royal coach. Or he was Queen Victoria's grandson. Well, I heard of that somewhere.

We've all heard of mysteries historical and paranormal; we've all discussed "true" tales at parties, around campfires, and at other informal gatherings. We are all fascinated by strange, scary, and inexplicable events, yet when we collect them and pass them on, we forget basic facts concerning them.

Even serious researchers into the paranormal suffer from this dichotomy. If the stories are true, they imply that the laws of nature don't always agree with scientists' theories, that we share this world with unknown creatures, spirits, and intelligences, and that powerful forces are at play in the universe - powers that might someday be harnessed by humanity. They might spark several paradign shifts in science and philosophy, if the phenomena behind them could be studied. Yet many writers and self-proclaimed experts can't seem to locate basic texts and first-person accounts on anomalies, relying instead on second- or third-hand versions from tabloids, YA and juvenile books, or mass-market publications meant only to entertain the general public.


In I Heard of That Somewhere author Michael D. Winkle traces famous and not-so-famous rumors, tall tales and urban legends to their origins, or as close as is feasible. Some old stories fade into fiction or hoax (though not as many as you might think). Others spread out in unexpected directions, bringing us to new, equally intriguing stories. Some actually become stranger the farther we search. And a few actually happened the way you heard of - somewhere.

Available at Troy Taylor's American Hauntings Ink: I Heard of That Somewhere