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.
Have you ever wondered what sixty years of grease looks like (and I'm NOT talking about a reunion of the cheezy musical, either). Well, we uncovered this disturbing sight when we moved out an old range from a house we bought for my daughter.
Wait. Let me back up.
Maybe you remember my kvetching about when my daughter and her two dogs moved into our house not so long ago: Hell-Spawn Hound Dogs. It soon became apparent the only way to get these needy dogs of destruction out of our house was to move them into their own house. Besides, my daughter couldn't keep commuting two hours a day to work.
So. We went house shopping in the small Kansas town where she works at a bank.
Gross.
One realtor proclaimed his advertised house as "Ready to move into!" (Maybe if you're a rat.) The carpet was alternately black and green with hair and urine stains (I hope those were pet urine stains). One house visibly sloped to the side. We'll just call another house, "The International House of Mold" and leave it at that. I didn't think we'd make it out of that house of horrors alive. Things got worse from there.
My realtor buddy turned to my daughter, said, "Sarah, your town sucks."
Finally, we went back to the first house we looked at. In comparison, it seemed a hella lot better. Hey, at least it had a basement (cracked though it was), instead of all of those scary crawlspaces where, undoubtedly, bodies were buried.
So we bought the house. And have been working on it non-stop since, trying to make it habitable. Gotta get those dogs outta our house.
The problem is, the previous tenants (who'd been in the home for sixty years) had forgotten how to clean.
Really, really gross. Moving the dangerous range outta there exposed what sixty years of grease looked like. It wasn't pretty. Imagine "The Blob" if it was black. I went to town scrubbing. (Somehow I always get stuck with the less glamorous and triply gross jobs in the "World's Most Expensive Dog House.") Hours later, it finally came clean.
Proud of my handiwork, I turned to my wife, said, "You know, this is kinda fun. Maybe we should flip houses for a living."
Until the pain set in the next day and I came to my senses.
Speaking of creepy towns in Kansas, how about visiting the twelve or so sites on my spooktacular tour of Haunted Kansas? Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley, just a nightmarish day trip away.
Kansas has its fair share of hauntings, one of the most "haunted places in the United States."
There's Fort Leavenworth, home of the haunted military fort where a priest's ghost ("Father Fred," not the spookiest of names) roams the land. The Hollenberg Pony Express Station in Hanover, Kansas, purportedly hosts long-dead pony express riders, hootin' and a'hollerin' from the spiritual plane. My favorite's gotta be the Stull Cemetery in Douglas County, home of nothing less than the gateway to Hell!
So, Kansas is not only known for fields of wheat, sunflowers, meth labs, rednecks, guns, and stupid Toto, but lots of ghosts abound here, too.
Why?
'Cause Kansas is spooky, that's why. You try living here all your life and tell me differently. Ever since I was a kid and peeked through the windows of a supposedly haunted house in Kansas City ("Ygor's House," where it was said you could see Ygor swinging from a rope on certain nights), I've been fascinated. (Of course, at the same time, I can't wait to move out of this God forsaken state). Of course I had to write about it.
Peculiar County, my first YA book for BWL Publishing Inc., is the result. It's a ghost tale, sure, but it also encompasses
nostalgia (in my opinion, all effective ghost stories should be
somewhat nostalgic), suspense, romance, humor, paranormal, murder
mystery, and a coming of age tale. It's also my attempt at evoking the
early sixties in a Midwest small town; a turbulent time not only for my
fifteen year old heroine, but the entire world.
I'm gonna get a bit writerly here, so hang on...
The year the book's set, 1965, is a metaphor for my young
heroine, Dibby Caldwell. The first major shock of the sixties had
happened two years earlier: the assassination of US president John F.
Kennedy. The tragedy portended the end of the easy-going fifties, a time
of silly, blinders-on innocence. The world wasn't adequately prepared
for the radical changes of post 1963: hippies, the Vietnam War, rampant
drug use, free love. Bell bottoms, for God's sake! Culture shock at
seismic levels.
Talk about a nation haunted...
Dibby's experiencing similar changes on a more personal front. Fifteen years old, hormones are rattling her to her
core. Not just changes to her body, but of her self-perception, an
awakening of sexuality and adulthood. The arrival of "cool" bad boy,
James--representative of the new, scary times to come--really triggers
matters.
And, of course, there's that pesky ghost in the cornfield next door, haunting Dibby into finding out who murdered him.
Welcome to haunted Kansas! And thanks for stopping by Peculiar County. Perfect reading for the upcoming fall season.
Peculiar County...CLICK HERE for spooky Midwest shenanigans!
