Driving up route 95 north of Las Vegas was one of the prettiest rides I had taken in a long time. It sure is nice to have a job where I get paid to tour the country. In the mix of beautiful sights I also see some very interesting things. I saw some signs warning me that there might be cows and bulls crossing the road. Why? Because cows free-range out there, no fences anywhere except around Area 51, the secret government base where they hide aliens or what-ever they do there that we-the-people can't know about. I was in a mini-market standing in line while a tourist asked the clerk some questions. I overheard the clerk telling the tourist that at Area 51 he needed to stay out of the desert because the guards would chase him out with big guns. I guess that's good information to have.. I didn't see any guards or aliens or even an UFO. Darn my luck!
I had been driving for about 500 miles and started thinking about where I wanted to spend the night. I got the map out and decided I would try the town of Toponah, Nevada. Many of those towns along the mountain route were old gold, silver or copper mining towns, maybe I could get a motel and be a tourist for a day.
I drove another 150 miles and entered the little town of Toponah, I knew I was nearing the town because the speed limit signs asked me to slow down, from 70 to 65, from 65 to 45, then 35 and finally 25. I gladly obeyed, there was so much to see..
"Welcome to Toponah" the sign said. "Thank you", I said. I noticed a small sign on the right that beckoned me to 'get my gold weighed here'. No thanks, I don't have any today. I saw a McDonalds. 'Oh, a modern town', I thought. On my left was a block building, no bigger that a two car garage, which is what it probably started out to be before it became the "Wart-Hog Dollar Store". I passed by it, didn't need to spend a dollar at that time.
Moving on, I came into the downtown area. To my right was the tallest building in town, about 5 stories, way up in the sky, and etched into the false front at the top, way up in the sky, were the words 'First Bank of Toponah, 1907'. It was made out of hand-hewn sandstone blocks. Neat. Next block down and across the street was a similar building, only 3 stories high, labeled "Hotel and Saloon". The sign was wood and the paint was fading. The building was empty and boarded up.
A block or so later I left the 'downtown' area and found a motel on the left, named "the Clown Motel". There were gaudy paintings of huge pink clowns all over the building and on the sign. Yikes. I wondered several things about this strange apparition on the outskirts of Toponah.
First: Who the HECK would stay in a Clown Motel? Don't people KNOW that clowns are evil?
Second: I wonder what the decor is inside? Clown sheets and pillow cases? 'Come, my dear, lay your head here'. No Thank You! I would rather sleep leaning on the wall. But wait, they probably had clown wall paper, clowns every where, just waiting for you to get close enough to grab you.
What about the bathroom in the Clown Motel? What kind of motif could they possibly have? Clown towels? Clown noses, hands and eyes for faucets and door knobs? Oh, and the toilet, think about it, a huge clown mouth for a toilet seat. "Come my dear, sit here".
No thank you, I'm really in the mood to go squat under a bush and risk making a scorpion or a rattle snake mad when I pee on them.
I decided that Toponah wasn't a safe town to stay in, clowns could get loose and run amok during the night, then who knows what kind of things could happen.
I left that town, and drove another 100 miles to the next town. I found a safe place to sleep there, hoping the clowns stayed in Toponah!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Hauntings
I spend a lot of time behind the wheel, riding up and down the road, thinking, about the future, my next exit, the past, and where I can stop to do the potty thing. I was thinking about the guy who wants to buy my house the other day and what kind of 'disclosures' I'm obligated to pass on to him and his wife.
I had gotten an Email from LegalZoom which by strange coincidence contained an article about home sales and disclosures. It explained that it was a good idea to disclose any information about the house possibly being haunted. My house is only three years old, could it be haunted? Surely not! But then again.... nobody died in that house, but, there is a dead body buried in my woods.... Well, I thought, there IS my mother who visited me several times after she died, just bumping around and doing some mischief stuff.. should I tell them? Is she still there?
About a week after she died, I was snoozing away at around 5 in the morning, and my radio came on, full blast, top volume, on a station she liked to listen to. I flew out of bed in great surprise. WHAT THE HECK??? I turned the radio off. Maybe I bumped it. Maybe the cat bumped it. I don't know....
A week or so later the piano came on and started playing. Chopin, Beethoven, I don't know, something classical. Ok, it has an auto-play feature, it's electric, maybe I left it on and the cat stepped on the auto-play button. But the first song on the auto-play list is a children's song, not a classical piece. But the cat was on the bed with me, equally surprised at the sudden music playing. It wasn't playing the first selection, what the heck is this??? I jumped up and ran to look at it. The keys weren't pressing down, nothing spooky like that but it was just music-ing away, I reached out and pressed the 'off' button. It stopped playing. Gee Whiz, what the heck was that all about, I wondered????
My Uncle had given my mother and I a tin of fruit cake the previous Christmas. We ate the fruit cake, washed the tin out and put napkins in it. The tin lived on my kitchen table. After she died I started to find the tin of napkins neatly turned upside down on the floor by my chair. Not a single napkin out of place, just turned over on the floor. Ok, stupid cat, knocking things down, right? I put the tin of napkins in the cupboard. Guess what? I found them upside down in the cupboard, several times. Not the cat this time!
One day I heard some dishes clattering in a cupboard. They were on a half-shelf in the back of the cupboard. They'd been there for a year or more, undisturbed. How did they fall? No earthquake, nobody there to root in the cupboard except me, how and why did they fall? Oddly enough, there were some of HER dishes, not my dishes. Ok, I decided, she's still here. I could hear her bumping around in the kitchen at night, opening and closing cupboard doors, rooting around for, what, coffee? I could hear her cane thumping and bumping into things. It was a noisy house at night.
I went to a psychic. Crazy, I know, I've never gone to one, don't really believe that stuff. Didn't tell the psychic about my Mother, about the possible haunting, I just went and said, read my Tarot, tell me what you think. She told me about someone close to me that didn't want to 'separate' from me. Asked me if I was breaking up with a beau, sending a kid to college, who could this person be that didn't want to be away from me? Good grief, I told her about the stuff going on in my house. She told me to go home and tell my Mother to leave, go to her new place.
I felt foolish talking to what appeared to be an empty house, but I did what the psychic said to do.
I don't think Mom listened, because the 'haunting' stuff continued. Now I'm not there anymore and new people are in, I wonder where the Maternal figure is? I guess is they ask, I'll talk.
I had gotten an Email from LegalZoom which by strange coincidence contained an article about home sales and disclosures. It explained that it was a good idea to disclose any information about the house possibly being haunted. My house is only three years old, could it be haunted? Surely not! But then again.... nobody died in that house, but, there is a dead body buried in my woods.... Well, I thought, there IS my mother who visited me several times after she died, just bumping around and doing some mischief stuff.. should I tell them? Is she still there?
About a week after she died, I was snoozing away at around 5 in the morning, and my radio came on, full blast, top volume, on a station she liked to listen to. I flew out of bed in great surprise. WHAT THE HECK??? I turned the radio off. Maybe I bumped it. Maybe the cat bumped it. I don't know....
A week or so later the piano came on and started playing. Chopin, Beethoven, I don't know, something classical. Ok, it has an auto-play feature, it's electric, maybe I left it on and the cat stepped on the auto-play button. But the first song on the auto-play list is a children's song, not a classical piece. But the cat was on the bed with me, equally surprised at the sudden music playing. It wasn't playing the first selection, what the heck is this??? I jumped up and ran to look at it. The keys weren't pressing down, nothing spooky like that but it was just music-ing away, I reached out and pressed the 'off' button. It stopped playing. Gee Whiz, what the heck was that all about, I wondered????
My Uncle had given my mother and I a tin of fruit cake the previous Christmas. We ate the fruit cake, washed the tin out and put napkins in it. The tin lived on my kitchen table. After she died I started to find the tin of napkins neatly turned upside down on the floor by my chair. Not a single napkin out of place, just turned over on the floor. Ok, stupid cat, knocking things down, right? I put the tin of napkins in the cupboard. Guess what? I found them upside down in the cupboard, several times. Not the cat this time!
One day I heard some dishes clattering in a cupboard. They were on a half-shelf in the back of the cupboard. They'd been there for a year or more, undisturbed. How did they fall? No earthquake, nobody there to root in the cupboard except me, how and why did they fall? Oddly enough, there were some of HER dishes, not my dishes. Ok, I decided, she's still here. I could hear her bumping around in the kitchen at night, opening and closing cupboard doors, rooting around for, what, coffee? I could hear her cane thumping and bumping into things. It was a noisy house at night.
I went to a psychic. Crazy, I know, I've never gone to one, don't really believe that stuff. Didn't tell the psychic about my Mother, about the possible haunting, I just went and said, read my Tarot, tell me what you think. She told me about someone close to me that didn't want to 'separate' from me. Asked me if I was breaking up with a beau, sending a kid to college, who could this person be that didn't want to be away from me? Good grief, I told her about the stuff going on in my house. She told me to go home and tell my Mother to leave, go to her new place.
I felt foolish talking to what appeared to be an empty house, but I did what the psychic said to do.
I don't think Mom listened, because the 'haunting' stuff continued. Now I'm not there anymore and new people are in, I wonder where the Maternal figure is? I guess is they ask, I'll talk.
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