Th's the season when graveyards speak and we've added our two-bits to the fray. Ghosts, spirits, and haunts are all the rage - our stories are aimed at a general audience of mixed ages and for the most part the stories are meant to be read aloud for entertainment.
The stories come closer to being eerie more than scary as Lynnwood Montell mentioned about an earlier volume they are both "plausible and possible."
I'd like to say they were planned and constructed according to all the writing rules, but it isn't true. The stories evolved as we record the speech of the storyteller. The narrator tells the story and we follow them with our fingers on the computer keys, so that some are rather complex as the human mind and its experience.
Ford Nashett's non-fiction piece from this collection, 'Ghosts of Baseball' was posted earlier this month when the World Series began.
Games of Death is a collection we had fun writing, because we took simple games and sports we enjoyed then twisted them into ghost stories.
How many of you have played mumblety-peg in a vacant or behind a building where no adult can see and tell on you? We were warned not to play with knives, maybe that was why it was so much fun learning to put the right torque on the tip of the blade to bury it in the circle. I still have my 'Barlow Knife.' I carry it in my camera bag.
'Snow on the Track' is built around snow mobile racing. A friend of Nash's was present about forty years ago when a driver was decapitated. Coincidence? Maybe, but just after he wrote the story a photo appeared on Piniterest of a driver with his helmet on a table beside him. In the helmet is a ghost's head - you explain it because I can't.
I've read about haunted dolls being possessed. Our doll has waited for 100 years for someone to find her, and then free her from the roots of an ancient lilac bush. 'Swing in the Lilacs' is a ghost tale of a mother's grief at the loss of her child who found a new lease on life through the ghost of another little girl.
Have a scary Halloween!
Haunted Holidays: Twelve Months of Kentucky Ghosts is the current title Roberta Simpson and her husband, Lonnie Brown have added to their long list of exceptional ghost story collections that take place in South Central Kentucky.
Their stories have entertained thousands and over the years people have told them about their experiences with ghosts. Many of these stories have ended up in previous collections by the Browns. This year they realized they had accumulated a trove of ghost stories that center around the various holidays we celebrate, not just Halloween.
As they state in their introduction ghost stories originally were told during the Christmas holidays as witness Charles Dickens; famous A Christmas Carol.
Haunted Holidays begins with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and continues through the year to New Year's Day for 16 specific holidays. Several stories are included for each for each specific holiday.
When I first began reading I'd planned to read through the collection on a specific holiday, but their stories were so fascinating I kept turning the pages. I knew some of the places they were describing and through their writing I became acquainted with the people who had shared their experience with Roberta and Lonnie.
Their stories invoke a deliciousness of being frightened, but safe at the same time. Most of their ghosts go about their own ghostly business what ever that is? Some of the ghosts lend a helping hand to loved oe in times of great need when danger threatens them.
At times they delve into the paranormal when persons disappear and are never seen again. Questions remain, did they meet foul play? No one knows except once they were there and then they were gone.
All of the stories are for the sole purpose of entertainment and to be told for enjoyment on days like last week when all one can do is watch it snow and the satellite dish is coated with ice blocking the signal.
We are included when Roberta and Lonnie tell of a visit to the local movie theater, which is now a playhouse and other places in Ono County. They brought their friend, Susan Brown, who has an amazing ability to communicate with ghosts.
Several months earlier I'd taken a photo of a house on a road near our home where a man was murdered. When it was viewed on the computer the photo showed an orb (psychic energy) hovering near the roof on the side of the house. I'd sent it to Roberta as Nash was skeptical and thought I'd caught a rain drop on the lens. No one can tell for sure, but it remain my only "possible or probable" photograph of a ghost.
Susan and I were standing on the road in front of the house. Lonnie, Nash, and Roberta had walked down the road a piece. We has no intention of trespassing or collecting chiggers and deer ticks from the weeds. Susan was using copper rods and asking questions. I was watching the rods move in a lazy fashion. The she clearly asked, "Is there anything we can do?" The rods slammed violently crosswise in a definite, "No." I lost any doubt. There was a presence that wanted us to clear out and mind our own business.
The Brown's books are published by the University Press of Kentucky and are available on Amazon. When you see them I'm sure they have copies they are willing to sign in the trunk of their car.
Th's the season when graveyards speak and we've added our two-bits to the fray. Ghosts, spirits, and haunts are all the rage - our stories are aimed at a general audience of mixed ages and for the most part the stories are meant to be read aloud for entertainment.
