Okay, these days nobody wants to hold hands (or touch anyone else) due to a certain pesky virus that's sweeping the world. (But don't worry...just like all of you, I'm sick of hearing about CV and you won't be reading about it here!).
No, what I'm talking about is hand holding between couples. These days, it's rare to see couples strolling along and holding hands. And I know why this is...it's because their hands are always busy playing with their gawd-damn smart phones!
My wife and I are dedicated hand-holders. Whenever we walk in public we're attached at the hands. However, I've noticed a disturbing shift lately in how we're perceived.
I brought it to my wife's attention...
"You know...it used to be when we held hands in public, people would smile at us, their message clear: 'Sigh. Ain't love grand?' But now, everyone's smiling at us in a different way."
"Really?" she said.
"Yeah. Now, it's like sadness behind batted eyes, saying, 'look at the cute old folks in love.'"
"Nooooooooo!"
Yes, it's true. We now garner attention like tiny puppies instead of big, galloping, romancing horses.
The odd thing is, I don't ever remember holding my first wife's hand. Hand-holding's not everyone's cuppa joe. It got me thinking...where in the world did this practice start? It's hard to imagine cavemen holding hands. And if you swing that way, I imagine Eve grabbed Adam by the hand and pulled him toward that forbidden fruit, natch. But, where, oh where did this quaint custom start....?
Frankly, my usually competent research assistant, Ms. Google, let me down. However, she did uncover a few interesting facts:
*In
the Chapel of St. Morrell in Leicestershire, England, archaeologists
found a pair of skeletons who had been holding hands for 700 years! Now,
that's commitment!
*According to the "Touch Research Institute (and I wonder how hard it'd be to get a job there?)," holding hands stimulates the "vagus nerve" which decreases blood pressure and heart rate and puts people in a more relaxed state. (Vagus, of course, being Latin for "vague," kinda like this study, I think.)
*President (Junior) Bush caught some flack for holding hands with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia in 2005. The photo's just adorbs! I never thought lil' Bush had it in him, to be all touchy-feely. It must've killed him inside.
So, get out there, kick start your "vagus nerve," drop the damn phone, already, and grab your partner's hand. You'll feel better for it (unless you're Pres George W. Bush).
Speaking of ancient skeletons and buried secrets, come visit Gannaway, Kansas. Sure, it's a highly toxic area due to the abundant chat piles gathered from mining, and alright, the town's had its fair share of evil and murder, and okay, okay, okay, there is the small matter of ghosts running about, but hey, the Gannaway Bureau of Tourism has a pretty thankless job these days. Ask for Ghosts of Gannaway by name!
Say it with me... "The Land of Ahhs." One of the Kansas state slogans.
How insulting. Not even the Chamber of Commerce or the Kansas Tourist Board or some schlocky advertising agency or whoever could come up with a better state slogan than to tip an unimaginative nod toward The Wizard of Oz.
Sigh.
Honestly, when people visit Kansas, I doubt many mouths drop in awe at the beauty of our boring, flat landscapes. Or rednecks. Or good ol'-fashioned cracker barrel behind-the-times religious hypocrisy, racism and homophobia.
No, a tourist (and why in God's sake would a tourist end up HERE?) would more likely go "Kansas...AHHHHHHHHH!" You know, kinda like the Tokyo populace in all of those (English-dubbed for us real 'Mericans, you know; don't need no subtitles and don't get me goin' on all that Parasite hooey, either, by gum!) Godzilla movies: "Ahhhhhh, Ghidra!" (Time to digress a bit more: how come Japanese natives always know the names of the giant monsters before they're ever introduced? Did the English speaking audience lose something in the crappy dubbing? I mean, names like "Hedorah" and "Gigan" don't really just come naturally. Ah well, back to my regularly scheduled gripe...).
I can just imagine the brainstorming behind the Kansas slogan meeting...
"Bring me something new to the table! Go!"
"Um...how about this, sir? 'K...K...K...Kansas is C...C...C...Cool!"
"You're an idjit, Smithers! We don't need to remind the rest of the world we still have an active Ku Klux Klan here in Kansas. You're fired! Next!"
"Kansas rhymes with Schmansas and that means excitement?"
"How in hell is that supposed to make our state great again, Wilshaw? Doesn't even make sense! You're so fired, you're fired out of a cannon! Bring me something that pops!"
"Ah...well...um...'Kansas Pops Like Corn'?"
"If you're still standing here in the next five seconds, I'm gonna rip out--"
"Kansas, the Land of Ahhs."
"Who said that?"
"Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Blowhard. I just...had...this idea about The Wizard of Oz and..."
"Dougie, the coffee boy?"
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sorry, sorry, I'll go pack up my stuff and--"
"I like it! The rest of you are fired!"
On and on it goes. You should hear some of the other Kansas slogans. Well, hell, if you've read this far, I may as well list 'em: "There's no place like home (another insipid short-sighted Oz thing; like that's ALL Kansas has to offer. Hmm...maybe it is.);" "ARRR Kansas: The Pirate's Kansas (I defy ANYONE to even explain that one to me!);" "Kansas: As Big As You Think (well, Kansas is known as one of the most overweight states in the country);" and my personal favorite (which says it all) "Kansas: Stupid is the New Smart."
Ta-daaaaaa! And how depressing. My point is it's pretty sad when the only thing the so-called Kansas brain trust can come up with about my state is either Oz allusions or stupid, unfunny t-shirt slogans.
I suppose I should be happy that the much ballyhooed and planned major tourist attraction, "The Land of Oz" was scuttled. Could've had something to do with sticking all of the Midwest's little people into Munchkin costumes for entertainment exploitation.
All of my books take place in Kansas. It's my cross to bear. But the one book that most typifies the dark little seeds planted deep below the beatific picket fences and farmlands and Rockwellian masks of Kansas is my short story collection, Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley. Read it and understand Kansas a little better and then stay away for the luvva Pete!
You've heard of C.H.U.D., right? A middling '80's horror film regarding "Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers?" Now do you remember it? The late John Heard and Daniel Stern? No? Doesn't matter. (Come to think of it, I believe I worked with several C.H.U.D. at my last job.)
Anyway, welcome to "B.O.M.E.," the Midwestern cousins of the C.H.U.D. Maybe not the entire Midwest, but my basement, for sure.
I first became aware of these terrifying nocturnal monsters when my wife decided we had to clean up the basement. Until that point, I had used the basement for a repository for all of the crap I thought I might find useful later down the road. You know, I'm talking large Styrofoam packaging pieces, broken chairs and lamps, ages old and mildewed children's toys, you name it. Far from a hoarder (but probably straddling the hoarder border), I never met an empty box I didn't like.
Anyway, the clean-up process was vast, requiring a rented dumpster. We filled that big boy up with at least 10,000 moldy videotapes, my empire of dirt. That was tough as I unloaded box after box of my lifetime savings into the dumpster. Hell, who woulda thought videotapes could get moldy?
Then the process of cleaning down the old, lumpy stone walls came next. You see, this ain't no yuppie finished basement we're talking here. It's a perfect place for a haunting. Built during one of the wars, the basement is a mess of bad wiring and plumbing, crumbling stone walls, the site of many a flood, webs of gargantuan arachnids, inexplicable leaves, and...yes, monsters.
"Honey," I called out to my wife, "you gotta come see this." I stood before a crevice in the wall, fingering an orange gelatinous goo (for you see, apparently I've not learned anything from watching '50's horror and science fiction movies).
She joined my side. "What?"
"Look...you ever seen anything like it?"
Clearly frustrated, she said, "No, get back to work."
But I knew. Yes, I knew the truth. B.O.M.E.
I had forgotten about them for several years. But they existed, I knew this in the darkest recesses of my haunted mind. One insomniac night as I lay in bed, I heard proof of them.
Thump...tump...timp...timp...thump...
I sat up, terrified. And listened to make certain it wasn't part of a half-lucid dream.
TUMP! Timp...timp...timp...
I lay in bed wide awake until the sun rose, listening to the horrific, foul creatures of the underworld using the network of our heating ducts for their transportation highway. Taunting me because I slept right next to a main vent.
THUMP!
I imagined all sorts of nightmarish creatures: there were man rats with huge, bulging eyes and teeth a bunny would be envious of; slithery, goo-dropping, albino slugs with large glaring eyeballs that waved on antenna stalks; and little orange-colored, bad-haired, narcissistic monster men taking over the basement.
My wife awoke shortly after the calamity had stopped. I told her of the monsters in the basement. She responded with a "yes, dear" and patted my poor, lil' over-worked head.
I searched the basement (in the daylight, mind you) for physical proof of their existence. I found more orange goo. And strange pyramids of sticks, cracked acorns...and were those...bones?
I questioned my sanity until one fateful night when my wife heard them, too.
They're down there. Oh, yes, they are. And your basement may be next!
While on the topic of my spooky basement, it did inspire one of the creepiest hauntings I've committed to paper in one of my earliest books, Neighborhood Watch. Read it with the lights one. And don't say I didn't warn you. Like all of my books, it's 100% true!
A couple years ago my wife and I visited the Amazon and I recounted that trip here. Today, I'm taking you on another tour, one just as exotic...to Oz, Kansas! You're welcome!
Of course it's not really called "Oz," but that's what some of the townies call it. It's a small Kansas town where my daughter ended up through convoluted reasons I'm sure she wouldn't care for me explaining. First things first, though... Everyone get it out of your system and say it with me: "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto!" There. Everyone happy with their lil' joke, one that Kansans have NEVER heard before and one that never gets old? Good. Let's go!
Oz doesn't have much. There's a Main Street and when I say "Main," everything is based off it.
There's a courthouse, a mortuary, a Chinese restaurant cleverly named "Chinese Restaurant," a couple of dollar stores, a kazillion churches, three tattoo parlors, yet, not a single grocery store in the entire town! Lore has it that the last guy (the mysterious "Ron") who ran the market got run out of town for his crooked ways.
We're talking John Brown country, the home of the famed anti-slavery bad boy/hero whose cabin was made into a museum.
But what is Oz truly famed for? Why it's extremely creepy and run-down mental institution!
Just take a look at these pics and tell me how in the world someone's mental health could be improved by their confinement within these brick walls and wired fences. It's enough to drive someone batty.
On our drive-through and walk-about tour, I couldn't wait to get out of there.
We followed a strange, wooded and harrowing gravel road to nowhere ending in a locked gate with an ominous large black "X" painted across the faded sign.
Even eerier, there was someone sitting off the side in a station wagon with tinted windows, the engine running. When my daughter hopped out of the car to take a photo, I told her to hurry up and get back in. We hightailed it outta there before we got chainsawed, my eyes glued to the rear-view mirror. We still couldn't figure out what that guy was doing there, weird place to take a lunch break.
Time works differently in Oz. My daughter's house needed a ton of work, including an emergency fix of the bathroom sink's plumbing. The first guy who answered the phone got the job and changed our lives forever. Because that's how long it takes him and his brother to fix things: forever. Amiable enough, and eventually getting around to doing good work, they don't believe in rushing anything. They'd show up for an hour, then say, "hey, we're gonna go grab a quick bite of lunch, and be back in a minute." Two hours or so later, they'd return for another one hour work detail. And on and on it went. My daughter and I figured they'd found a wonderful cafe in Oklahoma they liked to dine at. Regardless, time is fluid in Oz and no one seems to be in a hurry, catering to their bellies their top priority.
Folks there are nice as well, for the most part. Lots of waving and polite driving, unlike what I'm accustomed to in the big bad Kansas City metro area. Cordial to a fault, sometimes you can't get out of a long-winded conversation with a convenience store clerk or get the pick-up truck in front of you to move faster than 5 MPH. Still, it's almost refreshing after the heart-attack hustle of KC.
We wound up our tour of Oz at the town's sole bar, "Cookies."
"Cookies needs to be experienced, Dad," said my daughter. So, we pulled into a gravel-filled parking lot in front of a large tin shed. Not knowing what to expect, my daughter grinning, we entered the domain of the doomed. One guy held up the bar. Behind the bar was a listing of specialty drinks, every one of them filthier in name than the last. The menu carried one type of food: grease.
Not even a passable pool player, my daughter talked me into a game after a few beers. Little did I know we were in the middle of a pool tournament. I proceeded to shoot the cue ball off the table onto the tournament players tables. My daughter, red from embarrassment and laughter, said, "Dad, I'll be in the car!" I hurried after her.
We ended at the infamous "Whistle Stop," a diner that advertised $2.00 tacos and beer. Bargain! My daughter was acquainted with the owner, a customer of hers. However, the seated woman was rather chilly with us and sorta looked disgusted that we'd ordered beers, the only sign of trouble we'd had in Oz.
The next day, when I got home, I experienced a sorta surreal culture shock. "Huh," I said aloud, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." My wife rolled her eyes.
Hey, have you ever visited Gannaway, Kansas? It's just a hop, skip, jump from Oz, set a little west of there. My "travelogue," Ghosts of Gannaway, details all of my research of the haunted little burg. It's a nice place to read about, but trust me...you DON'T want to visit.
