Unfortunately

The Anecdote is taking a brief hiatus to restock its cache of tales. If you are interested in contributing, please, email me at erin.mccann.heintz@gmail.com. Hopefully, this will be the only such hiatus this blog is forced to take, but that can only be insured by your participation. Thanks.

The Table and Nails

My friend, Jennie Kelly, is in Albania with the Peace Corps. Jennie has no shortage of wonderful stories to tell, but decided instead to send me something a little different. I received an email from her containing two sound files. Jennie had recorded one of her new found Albanian friends, Xheni Pema, telling a simple Albanian folktale. In the first recording, Xheni (whose name is pronounced just like Jennie's) tells the story in Albanian, and in the second, she tells the story in English. The following is the English version of the story:

There was a man and he had a little boy. This boy makes a lots of mistakes, and he was a bad boy, so this man was thinking about to find a way to make his son good... a good person.

So one day, he took a table and some nails, and he went to his son, and tell him that "For every bad thing you would do, you would put a nail on the table."

Day after day, this son... his son makes lots of mistakes, so he puts lots of nails on the table, and the table was full. So the son was worried, and he decided to ask his father for another way to put... to take off the nails from the table.

So his father answered him and say that "For every good thing you do, you would take off one nail."

So the son... his son decided to make good things, and day after day he take off all the nails. So he was very glad and walk to his father and said to him that "I am now a good person. I... The table has not the nails anymore."

So his father said to him that "You really are a good person, but the table is not like before because the nails are... (Jennie assisted Xheni with the word, "holes.") Holes. Make holes on the table. And before you make a mistake, you will think twice, so there (not) will be a mistake."

I would like to thank both Jennie and Xheni for this wonderful fable. It amazes me to think of the thousands of folktales like this one that never travel to audiences in other countries. This story, in so few words, summarizes how a person's life is affected by their actions. Imagine how much more effectively we could teach our children and ourselves if we spent more time listening to the stories of the world.

Hopefully, the audio files containing both versions of this story will be available on The Anecdote shortly.

Tick-Tick-Tick

A few minutes after telling me about his childhood reoccurring dreams, Stephen remembered having fever hallucinations as a child. I've never heard of anything like this. I had a fever hallucination once as a child, but the hallucination was completely visual (to the best of my memory,) and it only occurred once, when I was running an extremely high fever and was almost near hospitalization.

Stephen's fever hallucinations were quite different. Apparently, they occurred before, as apposed to during, his sickness. It also occurred, not once, but an estimated half-dozen times. I would say it happened frequently enough to consider it a condition rather than just a coincidence.

I use to have fever hallucinations. It wasn’t when I was sick, because I've looked it up on the internet and stuff since, and read about your temperature goes up really high, and it can make you go crazy. But when I was a kid, I have no idea why, but when I was going to get sick... before I got sick, when I was... my body was, I guess fighting things, but the symptoms hadn't really materialized, so I would maybe start to feel a little bit under the weather, but I wouldn't show a fever or anything like that, I would have... I would go kind of crazy.

I never lost my faculties. I would never loose sense of stuff, but reality would mess up. I think this is one of the reasons I've always avoided drugs and psychotropic whatevers and anything... Even at the dentist, when they put me on laughing gas, I stopped inhaling it because it made me nervous just to be... to be not in my right mind. And I think it's because, at least in part, I got so freaked out when this would happen to me. And it happened to me, probably, half a dozen times throughout my childhood.

But the biggest thing that would happen is I would get hypersensitive to sounds and light and different things. Usually sound was the worst, though, because I'd lie in bed and set up my... I had this little cute yellow alarm clock that my parents bought me to wake myself up in the morning, and it was analog and it would... you know, the little hand would tick-tick-tick throughout the night.

At this point, we had to stop the recording to focus on parallel parking the car. After an excruciating ten minutes of driving back and forth and back and forth, we were comfortably in our parking space, and Stephen resumed his story.

So, because this little alarm clock was analog, it would make a tiny little tick-tick-tick noise as it went, and I went so crazy one night, with this thing, that... You know, I could have just pulled the batteries out. It wasn't even a plug-in clock, but I was so out of it and so weird and overwhelmed with the senses of it, that I just kept trying to bury it. Like I wanted it to... not just not be on, but be far away from me.

So, I buried in my sock drawer, and I could still hear it from my bed. Wasn't even that loud of a thing, but it was just this little tick-tick-tick noise I heard as a Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Which I don’t know how is physically possible.

The rustling I made in my own sheets... I had to lay perfectly still or else I would go crazy. But eventually... I wrapped it in socks. I buried it in the bottom of my sock drawer. Eventually, I had to take it out into the hallway and put it in the hall closet to be far enough away that the thundering noise of this little tiny second hand clicking wouldn't keep me awake all night.

And any time this use to happen, the only way I could get to sleep would be to crawl into my parents' room and sleep on their floor. It was so weird. I don't know why. I would tell them what was going on... I... My dad snores. I don't know how this worked out, but somehow just being close to them... I don't know if it just helped cement my grip on reality or what the deal was, but I could only sleep... I would just bring in like a pillow and... I don't even know if I brought a blanket. I would just throw a pillow on their floor and just fall asleep.

Hasn't happened at any time anywhere resembling my adult life. Just happened when I was a pretty young kid, but... I went nuts. Not, you know, running around the house nuts. Not screaming and crying nuts. Just really felt like I was disconnected from reality nuts.

So Long, Charles Eugene

My husband's Grandmother, Fran Jarrett, just celebrated her ninetieth birthday. She is one of the most well spoken and friendly grandparents that I have ever met. We've often talked about the events of the past, especially concerning her introduction to Bob "Grandpa" Jarrett.

Grandma and Grandpa met at University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana in March of 1941. In April, they were engaged, and in June they were married. They were married for 61 years, when Grandpa passed away in 2002. They had six children, and later, fourteen grandchildren. Bob Jarrett was the love of Fran's life. He was not, however, the first love in her life.

Well, let's see... I met Charles Eugene before I met Bob. I was, let's see, a junior in college, and he was a friend of, well... a girl in our house was going with a boy who was a friend of Charles Eugene. Does that make sense to you? And so, Charles Eugene came with him to the house a couple of times and we met, and then we out on a mass Coke date.

A "mass Coke date" simply meant that the whole house went to one of the Coke places and sat around and had Cokes, or after... well, not after study hall; it was about nine o'clock in the evening. Most of us had to be in by ten-thirty. We were still on that sort of a deal. Girls had to be in that time. I know that sounds antiquated, but it was true then.

So, we met at this mass Coke date, and then he called me up the next night, and we decided to go out. And from there out, we spent a good deal of time together. He lived... he did not live on campus. He lived in Mansfield, which is about fifteen miles... I think fifteen or twenty miles north of the campus. And so, he would drive in. He always had a car, which was a novelty as far as most of the people I went with, because we didn't have cars then. And he was allowed that because he lived off campus.

And so, let's see, we got started going together, and that summer, then... I don't know what time of the year that was. Must have been the spring that we started going together, and in the summer then, I invited him up to my home in Ashton. He came up and spent a weekend up there. My folks liked him very much. He was a nice... nice low-key sort of person, and they highly approved of him.

So, we continued to go together, and then he invited me to his… his mother invited me to their place in Mansfield, and so I went I went there and stayed... well, I can't remember how many days, but two or three days, probably. And they were very nice people. She was kind of a strange one. She was... Oh, I can't think what the... She didn't believe in doctors.

Oh... Christian Scientist?

Yeah, yeah, that's what I was trying to think of. Yeah, she was Christian Scientist, and let's see... but her husband was not. So when Charles Eugene was born, apparently, they were at home, but he was in some sort of respiratory problem. She simply was not going to do anything about it because she didn't believe in doctors, but Charles Eugene's father picked him up and took him in to see a doctor, because she simply wouldn't. Very very strange person. But he, as you can imagine, lived through that and several other episodes as I recall, that she simply wouldn't take him to a doctor at all. And Charles Eugene's father finally had him have his shots and everything like that because there too, she didn’t believe in it. But when I stayed there, they were very nice to me, and we had a good time.

As Charles Eugene would come by with his car and pick me up, and we’d go to class, and he picked me up after class and whatnot. But then I met Bob.

And I met him... He was a good friend of some girls that lived in my house... in my rooming house, and they were from the same town that Bob was from. And so, through them, I got acquainted with him, and we went... We had a couple of mass Coke dates, and... (between) his house and our house.

And so, on a Saturday morning then, he called me up and asked me if I'd like to love him for about fifteen minutes. And it was such an odd way of asking, yeah, I was intrigued by it. And I agreed, and we got together.

He had his car, which was very nice on campus, you know. We simply didn't have that opportunity very often, and... Well, no, wait a minute... Now I'm getting ahead of my story. Bob did not have a car. He didn't have a car at all.

And so, I was... Charles Eugene came to pick me up that morning, and I said, "Well, I need to go down to the Natural History Building." So, he drove me down there, and Bob was waiting there, because we had met the night before. Am I... am I getting ahead of my story?

Oh no, that makes sense. You're alright.

Yeah, and he had said, "I want to meet you on Saturday morning." Well, of course, I already had the arrangement with Charles Eugene, so I told Charles Eugene to take me down to the Natural History Building, which he did, and I simply got out of the car and said, "So long, Charles Eugene. I'll see you sometime," and walked over and met Bob, and we were together from there on.

Charles Eugene really made a good impression. I can't say that Bob did because Bob smoked, and that was simply something my folks could not... did not want to tolerate at all. And he... He made the mistake... We were visiting my grandfather, and Aunt Linda lived up the street from us, and Bob and I went up there to visit them. And he made the mistake of putting his ashtray on top of one of Grandpa's bibles, which was... I'll tell you that almost unsealed the whole deal. But somehow or other we got over that.

When you brought Grandpa home, was your family surprised that Charles Eugene wasn't there?

Well, I had told them that Charles Eugene… well, they, as I said, he was very much liked by my family, but I said, "Well, we have broken up and I’m bringing home another one." So, this time, they were prepared for the fact that it was not Charles Eugene, but I don’t think they ever quite got accustomed to Bob because he did not quite fit in to their idea of what he should be, because he smoked and he sometimes used a little bad language, which, my goodness, my folks just... they... with their Evangelical background, they... goodness sakes, that was simply something you didn't do.

But eventually, my mother came to like Bob. Now, I'm not sure whether my dad ever did or not. In a lot of ways, he didn't. He never really reconciled himself to it. But Mother finally did. Of course, as Winnie* will tell you, she's kind of… she was always kind of fond of men anyway. Not that she ever did anything about it that I know of, but she kind of preferred them to women in a lot of ways.

Now, what have I told you that you didn't already know before?

Several things, actually. I had never heard about the lack of approval from Grandma's family, nor did I know the tidbit at the end about Great Grandma Jennings being "fond of men." *Winnie, by the way, is Grandma's second youngest daughter, who I will have to call soon. I must hear more about this "fondness."

I believe I had heard before the part in which Charles Eugene actually drives Grandma to meet Grandpa, but in my mind I had always seen it sort of flip-flopped. I always envisioned Charles Eugene standing on the curb with a bouquet of wilted flowers as Grandma and Grandpa, smiling, fly away in Grandpa's car, much like the end of "Grease."

Grandma said that she really enjoyed having the opportunity to reminisce, so we're going to make a habit of scheduling phone calls and recording stories. I'm sure she has no idea how much I enjoy it as well.

Shoot Out

On July, 24, Lakeisha told me this story. She was so calm in relaying it, that I figured it was some distant memory. I was, of course, shocked to hear that it had taken place only a week earlier, on Thursday, July 17.

Ok, well, me and my friends and my cousins, we were all outside of my grandmother's building. And we was laughing at my little nephew; he was eleven months old, and he was just dancing, so everybody was just laughing at him. And so our house is like in the middle of between a alley and then a church.

And so, some guy just walks from the alley and then he like jumps, so everybody looking like, "Who is this?" So, my cousin says, "Who is that?"

And so he said that it was a shoot out, and he just start shooting everywhere. So he pulls out the first gun first, and he just started shooting. Then he pulled out the second gun and just kept shooting, and I guess he shot his self in the leg, and like at the bottom of his leg too. In the leg and the thigh. And he shot my cousin four times in the leg, and grazed him two times.

So, Everybody just start running and everything. So I... when I ran upstairs, I looked, and I tried to see if like if anybody was dead outside with my grandma's window, and nobody wasn't dead, but I did see him in the alley still like on his knees.

And so, we ran back down the stairs, and then when the police came, they was like... What did they say? They said, "Where is he at?" So we pointed to where he was. And then, after we pointed to where he was, what happened? Oh, they found him. And then they asked us was this him, and stuff like that. And my little sister, she said, "Yeah." And I couldn't see him cause his face... I didn't see him the first time. Then when they turned his face, I saw that it was him.

So my little sister went into the ambulance truck, and they was like, "Is this him?"

And he was like, "I told you it wasn't me," like saying like he was with us, standing outside, and he was automatically just got shot, you know. But my little sister was like, "Yeah. That is him."

Erin: What happened with the case?

They dropped it, I guess. I think they dropped it.

Erin: You said that cousin couldn't testify?

Right, cause he was in so much pain. So they said they was going to throw it out.

In Alton, this story would have been front page news. It would have been on three television stations in four counties. But I'm not in Alton; I'm in Chicago, Illinois, where this story is casually told, a week after the fact, over lunch in the break room.

Reoccurring Dreams

As we drove across town to visit friends, I convinced Stephen, who was driving, to tell me a few stories for The Anecdote. At first, he was hesitant. He demanded full veto power over the use any story he told. Then he started to worry that he didn't actually have any good stories. Having lived with the man for nearly three year, and having known him for nearly eleven, I know this to not be the case.

I decided to suggest a topic for him: dreams. I asked him to, "Just tell me about an interesting dream you've had." Stephen proceeded to tell me about the two reoccurring dreams he had throughout his childhood.

So ok, when I was little I had... I don't remember a lot of my dreams. I only remember sets of dreams. One was that I had a reoccurring dream where I would try and jump down the stairs at our old house. And you know, the stairs had the ceiling that ran kind of diagonally, parallel to them, so I would... Every night, I would wipe out in a different way.

So, I'd get a little running start, and I'd jump, and I would either hit my head on the diagonal and then collapse and roll the rest of the way down the stairs, and then, you know switch to something else, or wake up, or whatever. But every night, I'd... I'd make it... cause really, you know, it's physically impossible to do. I would land, but then I would slap my head on the wall right across from the bottom of the stairs and collapse in a heap. You know, I would just... some humiliating and terrible and painful way I would fail every night. And then one night, I managed to just kind of launch myself, like E. Honda from Street Fighter, in this perfect little downward spiral, land on my feet perfectly, and they ended. I just had to succeed that one time, and then they stopped.

The other one that I really remember, from when I was little is... I would... It started off very weird. There was this hooded figure that was kind of Death, and you know, it had the black cape, and the scythe, and all that garbage, and there were two stone pedestals, and one of them had this little figurine of this big, psychotic, burly looking guy with a double headed axe. Just this violent... you could see little bits of foam hanging out of his mouth. I remember very vividly that this was a terrifying looking dude. And the other stone pedestal had kind of a skinny, creepy, looking guy with a little... like a foot long kind of curved knife in his hand. And they were just standing there on these two stone pedestals.

And all Death said was, "Choose your fate," in this deep booming voice, which is kind of... kind of... Now that I'm older, and wiser, makes me think of a beginning of a video game... Now that I'm much more mature, I relate that to a video game... cause I'm an adult.

But I distinctly remember, in this dream, making the decision, "I'm going to pick the knife guy, because his weapon is smaller."

And I was transported into this scenario, and it was like some weird old murder mystery setup. It was myself... I wasn't actually there. I switched places between all the different people, and it was what I then had the impression of rich old British people looking and acting like... wandering around a mansion.

It was all locked up, and we couldn’t get out, and we were... We split up... Again, I say "we" because I would switch between all of the ten or so people. And we had to find this guy. And it turns out, the knife guy, even though he had a smaller weapon, could hide inside of items; like stuff. Anything around the house. An armchair: he could just become one with the armchair, and the only way you could tell was that it would glow slightly.

And this entire dream I had, seemed to last forever, was me going to this group of twelve British idiots who split up and wandered to different rooms in this mansion, and it would just cut to a different scene, "Ok, I'm the... the codgerly old professor." And then I'd meander off into the study, and I'd turn on the lamp. But the lamp was glowing before I turned it on! And a knife man pops out! And he stabs me to death. And then I'm the next guy.

And meanwhile, the knife guy is sneaking from room to room in this house, and the last thing I remember is, somehow, we thought we'd caught him, and I was the last survivor, and everyone else had been knifed to death. And I was in a library, and I just looked over and I saw that one of the books, in the middle of this huge wall of books, was glowing slightly. And I just resigned myself, you know? Ok, I'm dead. The guy popped out and stabbed me.

And I wondered... Even, like... I think, in that last moment, even in character I wondered, "Maybe I could just run away from the guy with the axe. Did I make the wrong choice?" And that was that dream. It was really weird, cause I was very young. I was like seven or eight. Probably the most vivid dream I've ever had. The end.

I would have to agree with Stephen: that is a pretty crazily dark dream for a child of seven or eight to have. The detail is amazing. It could almost be a short film (perhaps staring Vincent Price.) The images of Death and Agatha Christie-like characters are so iconic, but where would he have picked those characters up at age seven?

Cory's Origin, Part 2: Human Trafficking and Baby Names

When we last left our hero, she had just been adopted in Ecuador, where she and her mother were now trapped. Her mother was holding her, and a man with a knife was demanding money.

The Cory of the present was telling me this as she, my husband and I boarded the Brown Line train to the Loop, in Chicago. Cory was visiting us on her way to Grad school. The three of us settled on the train, organized her luggage, and then resumed the recording.

I told her, "When you left off, your mother was being robbed."

And the guys comes up to her and says, "Give me all your money, or I'm going to kill your baby." She didn't have any money, so she handed the diaper bag to him, and he got really pissed off. And he went to stab me, and my mom put her arm in the way and like took the stab instead. And she still has like a small white scar from it on her left forearm. Yeah.

She also was almost kidnapped by a cab driver at one point. She told him to take her to wherever she was staying, and he went the other way, and she was like, "Stop! Stop!" And he didn't, and she had just spent, you know, the last few months watching "Annie" in Spanish over and over again. And you know the part where Annie is on top of the building, and Punjab comes down in a helicopter? And she's like, "Punjab! Help me! Help me!" Well, all my mom could think of to say was, "Punjab! Ayudame! Ayudame!" So she's yelling that, and people are like, "Who's Punjab?" Nobody helped her. She eventually was able to get out of there, and get away.

She also... she and her lawyer and Pepe tried smuggling her into Columbia to get a fake passport, or whatever, for me, and they ended up driving through really sketchy mountain area. And it was totally illegal, and they had to drive at night without the lights on cause they were trying to traffic illegally. So my mom was freaking out, and she also flipped out because they stopped at one point... I don't remember why they stopped, but she turns around, and she sees the guy driving the cab take a huge swig out of a liquor bottle, and then get back in the car, so she was like, "Oh, fuck!"

They get to Columbia, this doesn't work out. They're coming back to Ecuador, and they get stopped at the border by these guys with huge machine guns, and my mom's freaking out. They're like, "What are we gonna do?! What are we gonna do?! We have a white woman in the car! We're dead! We're fucked" And Pepe, our little guardian savior hero, Pepe, thinks fast, and he throws my mom down kind of like on his lap and covers her, covers her with a blanket, so they can't see the white skin, and... there was some sort of like horrible disease outbreak at the time. The guards come up, with the machine guns. They're like, "Who's under the blanket?" And Pepe's like, "She's sick. She's sick. She's very sick. She's diseased. Diseased." And they're like... backed away and shooed them on through.

There was a lot of stuff that went down.

One time, my mom finally had everything worked out. My passport, or visa, or whatever, was all worked out, you know, they go through the first round of checks; they go through the second round of checks. They're about to get on the plane, and as they're boarding the plane, they stop me at the gate. They tell her, "You can go, but you can't take your baby. Your baby's papers don't check out." That's the point of her being there was to take the baby back.

So she goes back, and she's just miserable, balling. She just wants to get the fuck out of Ecuador. She wants to go home to Duluth. She misses my dad. She wants the baby to come with her. That's the point of this whole journey. And she's watching the news, and she saw on the news that night that they plane we had almost gotten on had crashed, and everyone on it had died. Ooo, scary.

There were a lot of crazy things like that. She finally, though, obviously got back to America, and I was, I don't know, about nine months. I was naturalized just after a year... after I was one years old, or just before I was one years old. So there's little pictures of me at the little embassy in Duluth or at town hall, or wherever it was, running around with my little American flag. I kept throwing it on the ground. I didn't know any better. I was super cute little Cory Maria and the flag she kept rejecting. But I'm a full up citizen. I can vote, I just can never be president, cause of those nine dirty months in Ecuador.

And one thing, my dad, I just had him… my dad should tell this story. My Dad just retold me how, you know, it'd been like a year after, you know, I'd been back in the... well, when I had come to America, and he gets a phone call from Pepe. He's like, "Hello, Senior Brian!" Cause my dad, the way he tells it, he did always call my dad "Senor Brian."

So, "Hello, Senor Brian! I'm in Canada. I want to come to America. Can you smuggle me in?" My dad is like, "Well, I owe this guy my child. I owe him basically my life. I'll do anything for him." So, in Minnesota, there's this beautiful place called the Boundary Waters, which is a million acres of preserved wilderness on the border of Minnesota and Canada. It's all lakes, rivers, you know, gorgeous woods land, and really through like ninety-five percent of it, you can only get there by canoe, cause you can't have motorized boats.

So, my Dad and his friends, who were awesome hippy rebels, planned on smuggling Pepe in through the Boundary Waters. Like throwing him in a canoe, hiding him, and just coming in. And they had this all planned out. My dad was really nervous, but he was going to do what he had to to help this guy, cause this guy was the reason my mom and I got back to the country. My dad said his one friend, who has passed away now, his friend was like, "Yeah! We're going to get him in!" and he was all about it, and they had this big plan set up.

And not long before they were about to go through with this plan, my Dad gets a phone call. He's like, "Hello, Senor Brian, it's Pepe."

It's like, "Hey! What's up man?"

"I'm in New York."

And my Dad's like, "Really? How'd you get in?"

"I rode in the back seat of a car."

So, my dad was kind of relieved, though. I want you to hear my dad telling this story. It's better. Yeah... pretty much, yeah. My dad has confirmed a lot of these things, so even with my mom's possible embellishments, I have my dad to fall off... fall back on. To be like, "Yep. That happened."

Erin: One thing I remember you telling, previously, was about the nuns, and them wanting to name you "Cory."

Oh, yeah. So, my parents... once they had picked me, the nuns were like, "What are you going to name your baby?"

My parents said, "Cory. We’re going to name her Cory."

The nuns said, "No, you can't do that. That's a communist name."

My parents were like, "What?"

They're like, "That's a communist name. You can't name your baby Cory."

So, they're like, "Alright, we'll name her Marie?" cause my mom's middle name was Marie.

And they're like, "No. That's... That's not good either." I don't remember why they didn't like that name.

So, my parents were like, "Ok, so what are we suppose to name our baby?"

They said, "You have to name her Maria Veronica Velacalarza."

Well, my parents are like, "What?"

And they said, "You have to name her Maria Veronica Velacalarza." I'll like... figure out how to spell that and send that to you.

They were like, "Ok... sure... We'll do that. Maria Veronica Velacalarza it is." So, they say bye to the nuns, the get in the car, and they're like, "Your name is Cory."

Then, fast forward, I'm about three years old. My parents get this phone call from an American adoption agency. And they're like, "Hey, you know that baby you wanted?"

And my parents say, "Yeah..."

And they say, "We've got that baby you wanted."

And my parents were like, "Ok," and that's how we got Toby from South Dakota. Less far. I actually remember going to get him from his foster parents when he was just a baby. And I said I really like him, cause the foster parents gave me chicken noodle soup and hot cocoa, and that made me accept him.

When I was little, my mom got really pissed because I, a hundred percent seriously, wanted to name Toby "Rock and Roll Dack," and my dad really liked it. And he really supported him being named "Rock and Roll Dack," and my mom got really mad and she said, "Brian, we are not naming him Rock and Roll Dack! Stop encouraging her!"

And my dad said, "No, that's an awesome rock and roll name!" cause my dad's a musician, so he loved it. I think "Toby’s" ok, but "Rock and Roll Dack" would have been pretty sweet. The end.

But with Cory, that's not the end. Her dad and step-mother later had two more children, and the stories only get better from their. I'm sure I'll soon have new stories of the zany adventures of the Dack family. Hopefully, several from Brian Dack, their amazing father, as well.

What a Mess, Part 2

As previously stated, This evening, I accidentally deleted "The Anecdote." All of the old documents have been re-posted, but are riddled with errors because I had previously made changes to the texts on the website without saving the original word documents. If you notice any of these errors, please, let me know.

Cory's Origin, Part 1: Abandoned in Ecuador

Originally posted on September 1, 2008.

My husband, Stephen, laughs when I refer to this as "Cory's Origin Story." Origin stories are what comic book characters have, but to be fair, Cory is as close to a comic book character as a human being can come.

This story was told on the Chicago El and not quietly. I've divided the story into two parts because of it's length. The portion posted below is the half Cory managed to tell before we reached the Belmont stop and transferred to the Brown Line.

I've heard this story many times, but it never gets any less interesting.

This is the story of how I was born. Well... not how I was born, cause nobody was there. Well... some people were there, obviously, but nobody I know... other than myself. It's the story of how I was adopted.

It all started when my wonderful dad and my crazy mother wanted to have children. Luckily for the world... That was mean; I'm not going to say it. I was going to say something impolite about my mother. Ok... backtracking. They were trying to adopt, and they got put on like a seven year waiting list. My parents were already thirty, so they were like, "Ah! No way! We're just going to go international."

So, one day, my hippy parents got a phone call from some place in Ecuador. They're like, "We have your baby! You have to come to Ecuador if you want it," and my parents were like, "Ok."

They're like, "You can only have a boy when you get here," so my parents... They're like, "Alright! We're going to name our baby Cory! C.O.R.Y. ...Cory."

So, they fly down to Ecuador, thinking they're going to be there for like a week or two... max. And they meet this guy named Pepe who helps them. They take me to... Or they take... Pepe takes my parents to this little orphanage, attached to a convent, run by nuns, in the mountains outside of Quito, Ecuador. They go there.

Some of the details of all these stories are a little fuzzy. I have to check with my mom and my dad about them. Obviously, I don't remember them, cause I was adopted when I was three months old. Also, my mother is a horrible drug addict and alcoholic who tells a lot of lies, so some of these stories might not be completely factual. A bunch of them are, cause I've checked them with my father, but father is also one of the most forgettable... Not forgettable; he's pretty memorable... forgetful people I know. For example, my Mother was like a hundred percent Ecuadorian, so I know I'm like fifty percent… (I interrupted: "Your birth mother?") Yeah, my birth mother was a hundred percent Ecuadorian, so I know I'm like, you know, at least fifty percent, you know, Native South American. My mom insists that my birth dad was Italian. My dad insists that my birth dad was Spanish, but my mom always makes stuff up, and my dad never remembers things correctly, so neither of them are reliable sources.

My mom said that my birth dad was like the Italian Ambassor*...that's not a word. You're not allowed to put that on the blog! You will. It's ok. Anywho, so some of these stories I need to check with my Dad, but most of them I've checked with him, and they're true.

(*Cory meant Ambassador.)

Anywho, my birth mom and my birth dad were not married; he was, but not to her, and he had kids, so it was a sorted affair. My birth mom had to give me up for adoption because she couldn't afford to raise a baby, so she shamed the family by giving me up. What I think is most funny, she was actually my birth dad's secretary; like some sort of frickin' "Days of Our Lives" soap opera drama thing. She was his secretary, and when I found... when I realized that, my friend in middle school, Christina, she was like, "Ha ha ha! You were made on a desk! Ha ha ha! You're a typing error! I'm going to call you White Out!" So my nickname, from sixth grade until we graduated high school, was White Out.

Anywho, I was originally abandoned in a cardboard box on the side of the road, and we have been told... my parents have been told that I was kept alive by like people on the street like eating food and regurgitating it into my mouth like keeping me alive until somebody got the nuns in the convent, and they rescued me and took me to the orphanage. Somehow, they traced back my birth mom, and so when my parents got down to Ecuador, they actually met my birth mom and my maternal grandmother. And I've been told that they actually had to like pay my birth mom some kind of like fee and a couch. So you know how they say children are priceless? I had a price. It was X amount of American dollars and a couch. I'm proud of that. It was kind of a dowry for living.

And so... but backtrack, my parents get to Ecuador, led by their good friend, Pepe, and they pick out this little boy from the orphanage, cause they, you know, were told they could only have a boy. They're like, "Oh, we love you, little boy! You're our baby!"

The nuns told them that they had to leave little baby there over night, and come back and get them in the morning, so they're like, "Ok, bye, little Cory! We'll come back and get you in the morning," but in the night, little Paco... or whatever his name is, died, which was awesome for me because... when they came back the next morning, they're like, "Sorry, that baby's dead now. You have to pick a new one, and this time it can only be a girl."

And so, they were like, "Ok. We'll name it Cory. C.O.R.Y. Cory." Which is why I have the boy's spelling of my name.

Anyways, they take me, and they ended up... I guess Quito was going through some civil rioting and stuff, so had a really hard time getting me out of the country. And my dad eventually had to leave after a week or so, cause he had a job back in Duluth. ...Need to have his job still. So, he left my mom, and she was like, "Ok. Hopefully, I'll see you in a few days." She ended up getting trapped in Ecuador for almost seven months.

A lot of crazy stuff happened. Well, first of all, my mom tells me how, when they first got me, they thought that I was black because I was so dirty. Then she gave me a bath, and she took me out of the water, and the water was just dark. And so, she was like, "I'm going to give the baby another bath." So, she washed, rinsed, and repeated, and it was like three baths later she got to my regular skin color.

I was also full of amoebas and parasites because I had, you know, been in a box in the streets for a while. So, they had to like take me to the doctor and like give me meds and flush me out, which is why Stephen Heintz refers to me as "a dirty baby."

Stephen, who until this point had not been paying attention, chimed in, "Do I?"

"You don't remember that?" I reply. "Oh yeah, you called her dirty baby for a long time."

For years, cause of my amoebas and parasites. And you were like, "Oh, dirty baby, don't touch me!"

Anyways, my mom got trapped down there. A lot of different things happened to her. She... several times they brought like tanks out and had to mace down the streets, cause of rioting, and she got caught in that once.

She also fell down a couple flights of stairs cause she had really bad food poisoning from bad vegetables, and I was like in my little baby basket, but I was totally unhurt. But like she cradled me just right; I didn't get hurt, but she got really hurt.

One time, she got mugged on the streets. This guy came up to her, and he was like, "Give me all your money!" and she didn't have any, because she wasn't even suppose to be in the country anymore.

At this point, we had to pause the recording briefly, as we transferred from the Red Line to the Brown Line. For that reason, I'm going to place the "To Be Continued" marker here. The full transcript of the story lasted six pages, single spaced.

Cory isn't one to talk quietly, so we were either a huge source of entertainment or annoyance for the other four-ish passengers on the EL that day.

Stay tuned for the second half of Cory's story, which I will post in three days; same Cory time, same Cory channel.

The Wicked Witch and Shit Creek

Originally posted in August of 2008.

In this story, my Dad describes a reoccurring nightmare that terrorized him as a child. He estimates that he was about six or seven when he had the dream, which wouldn't be complete without a brief description of the ditches that ran behind all of the houses in the Milton area at that time. I can't help but wonder if the library, which is currently working on a neighborhood history project, will include "Shit Creek" in their documentation.

Back behind most of the homes, you know, throughout all of these neighborhoods here in the Milton area were septic tanks. You know, there was no sewer system, they were all septic tank systems, and behind the houses, in some cases, you know, the one we grew up in on East Doerre, the one that ran behind the house that was my Grandfather's house, were these little ditches. The ditches just ran pretty much parallel with the street, but behind the house as opposed to these other house where the street was. And then a block over, you know, those backs to those houses ran, you know, again there was a ditch that separated the back yards.

So anyway, from Milton Hill, from Milton Road, and then you go over on Franor anyway, it was downhill. You know, it was a down hill. There was this lower area, there was this larger drainage ditch that they just referred to as Shit Creek.

Well anyway, this ditch behind my Grandfather's house ran towards that. It was just one of those smaller ditches that ran towards this larger one that was referred to as Shit Creek, Old Shit Creek.

So anyway, I'm out playing in the area around this ditch behind my Grandpa's house, and just out playing there, and all of a sudden, the Wicked Witch of the West flies over on her broom. And she's up there just kind of hovering on this broom and laughing, you know, just laughing that evil Wicked Witch of the West laugh. Just scary, man, just horrible scary.

And I'm just running as fast as I can, but I'm slipping in the mud, so I'm like Fred Flintstone, where you're running as fast as you can, but you're not going anywhere because your feet are slipping.

In the meantime, Uncle Jim runs into the house and gets Dad, who comes out the back door with a shot gun and blows the Wicked Witch off her broom. Blows her ass right off the broom.

But I had that dream multiple times. That was the scariest dream I ever had, and I had it multiple times, but I was a kid, you know?

A Behind the Scenes Tour

Originally posted in August of 2008:

After some thought, I decided that if The Anecdote is truly going to live up to it's mission statement, I should probably check in every once in a while with some general observations and whatnot. To start, I thought that it make sense to explain the process with which I've been collecting stories.

The idea for this project initially popped into my head several years ago. I had decided to collect stories from my grandparents that they were locally famous for telling... over and over again. Soon I became interested in collecting stories from other people, thanks to the father a friend who told stories about his experiences during the Vietnam War. Though the idea was there, the project never really took off. This was due, primarily, to laziness.

After creating this blog, I had to come up with a system for handling stories. My first decision was that all stories would be told verbally and transcribed verbatim. When people write down their stories, the edit the content, use words that they normally wouldn't, and take more time to think about how they want to describe things. Verbal stories are raw and fresh. They are a better representation of where and who we are as a culture. Of course, no matter how many times I explain this, I get an email from a friend saying, "Hey, copy and paste this great story from my Facebook page onto your blog."

"No," say I.

Each story is recorded onto a cassette tape. Hopefully, one day I will be recording digitally, but for the time being, an old handheld recorder is my tool of choice. Some of the stories are recorded face to face (over lunch, on road trips, on the L, etc.) while others are recorded over the phone.

The story teller can honestly go anywhere they want with the story, and I’ve been surprised a few times. In the story “Gun Shots,” we were sitting down to lunch, and I pressed the record button with no prior knowledge of the subject matter in which we were about to dive. My mouth was hanging open through a majority of the recording. Most of the stories, however, are ones that I’ve heard before. Since the project is in it’s early stages, I’ve been calling a lot of family and friends and saying, “Hey, you know that story about that time you fell off of a waterfall? Can I record you telling that?” Hopefully, as the project develops, I’ll be talking to a wider variety of people.

In an attempt to move this plan along a little faster, I put up a few ads on Craigslist.com, Riverbender.com (a site that focuses on the area where my home town is located, Alton, IL,) Facebook, and Myspace. Not a lot of luck so far. I’ve heard from a few people, but they generally ask a few questions and then disappear. Having said that, if anyone has family members or friends that they think might enjoy telling a story, please, give them my email address.

Another initial setback has been finding a good way to interview strangers without giving out too much personal information. I have no reserves about having my name attached to my work, but allowing strangers access to my personal phone number is a completely different story. In a world where everyone has Caller I.D. it’s hard to remain anonymous. Two years ago, I could call someone with a calling card, and the number would show up as a business line in Georgia, but technology has caught up with that little loophole. Hopefully, some great solution will present itself, and the spectrum of potential story tellers will grow in leaps and bounds.

I try to stay fairly quiet as people tell their stories, which isn’t always easy. Each recording is speckled with the sound of me gasping, laughing, or letting loose the occasional, “Wow!”

It’s a completely different situation when there are other listeners present. People love to ask questions, and honestly, that’s part of what makes verbal story telling so honest. People do tell stories to groups, probably more often than they do to individuals. Questions, comments, and the story teller’s response are part of the raw nature of the verbal told story. The question is where to draw the line: at what point does questioning turn a story into an interview?

As far as my own questions, I try to save them until the end. Sometimes I keep a notebook out or a word document open and jot down things that I want to ask when the teller comes to the end. Sometimes a question will jog the story teller’s memory, and a whole new section of the story will come into the light. In those cases, I try to edit that section back into the original story. This is the only editing I do to each story; the content is never altered.

Transcribing the stories is the most tedious and dreaded part of the process. It usually takes me about three to five times the length of the original story to get it typed. It is extremely important to not get impatient and rush. Accuracy is the entire point. I transcribe the story into a word document exactly as it was recorded including all of the little interruptions made by myself and other people. Then, I make a second copy of the document in which I put any answers that the story teller gave (at the end of the recording) back into the story at the point which seems most appropriate. This was often done by scribes who recorded the accounts of captives in the past. I maintain both copies of the story, and post the second copy to the blog, which is where you, the reader, come in to the picture.

Feeling more clued in? As usual, I would love to hear from anyone, whether it’s about a potential story or just to chat. Your questions are always welcome.

1109 Revisited

This is sort of a bitter-sweet story. My Mom laughs as she tells it, and it definitely has its funny moments, but at its core, this is a story about the end of an era. My Grandparents had just moved into assisted living, and my Mom and Aunt Pat (who had to travel about six hours to get back to Alton) were charged with organizing the auction of my Grandparents' home, as well as most of their possessions. This story takes place the night after that auction.

1109 Wilkinson isn't an amazing house. It has plumbing problems, no dining room, and very little space to move around. It is, however, a completely magical place. My Grandparents moved to the house in the mid-1960s, and lived there until 2003. They raised five children in the house, helped raise another several grandchildren, and hosted countless holidays. There was a ghost on the second floor, fairies that lived under a bush in the front yard, trees for climbing, a rock garden with a rock full of treasures from near and far, berries to be picked in the spring, and a tremendous amount of love. I haven't been to the old house in over five years, but I still have frequent dreams about going there again.

As my mom tells this story, remember that she is telling it to me, and therefore, she goes back and forth between calling her parents "Mom and Dad" and "Grandma and Grandpa." She also refers to her siblings as uncles and aunts. The siblings mentioned are Pat (born in 1947,) Mike (born in 1950,) Kathy (my mom, born in 1960,) Mark (born in 1962,) and Tim (born in 1964.)

Well, we had just sold Mom and Dad's house, and Aunt Pat and I decided to stay there one last night, just the two of us, and kind of reminisce and celebrate. You know, selling it but reminiscing the good times. And we went from room to room in the house, drinking margaritas and talking about each room, like this is the room she and I shared, and this is the room that Mike had that they painted. He painted real pretty great pictures of grapes, vines of grapes on the door. And her room, Grandpa stepped in paint and made foot prints all through the room. It went under the bed and up the walls. And then there was the room that I shared with Uncle Mark and Uncle Tim. And then there was the room that I finally got the room of my own, and I was too scared practically to sleep in it by myself because I was so use to sleeping with somebody else.

We went from room to room talking about the different things. And we talked about where the Christmas tree was at Christmas; what corner it was in different years, and different places we had had it. And we talked about different things that Grandma had hanging up on the wall that we remembered, and some reason she and I both remember ceramic fruit hanging in the kitchen on the wall, over by the steps as you go upstairs. And I remember sitting in the closet when I was... in my closet when I was probably a young teenager, and just moping in the closet all by myself. But I thought it was pretty cool because it a place that nobody would think to look for me. And I could sit there and think all I wanted without anybody bothering me.

And Aunt Pat and I went into the bedroom, and we'd been sneezing all night long because of all the dust from all the furniture leaving. And all that was in the old bedroom that we shared was a mattress. And we pulled the mattress kind of over by the window where it used to be, and we're looking out the window, and talking about things that were out the window. And I said something about; Pat said something about, "I don't remember that tree being there."

And I said, "No, Grandpa... Dad planted that years later," and I said... We were talking about the neighbors across the street, and she was telling me all about neighbors growing up. And I said, "Remember when you and Linda TPed the trees?" And about that time, she looked down at the roll of toilet paper that we'd been carrying around, since that's the only thing we had, and we'd been sneezing, so we'd used a lot of toilet paper that night with all the dust in the house. And she decided to throw it at the tree to try to TP, and she threw it at the tree, but she forgot to hold the end of it. So now the only roll of toilet paper we had in the house for the whole night was up in the tree.

So we walked around outside, out the front door and around, and we looked at this toilet paper in the tree, and we decided since I was the smallest, I could climb up and get it. And I didn't have to climb too far, but I had to climb up and get this toilet paper out of the tree. We had to have it. It was late at night. Real late. And it was the only toilet paper we had, and we needed it for the bathroom.

So I climbed up the tree. And we're laughing and carrying on, and thinking of how stupid we are, and then we walk around to the front of the house... Oh! We sat across the street on a tree stump that she use to sit underneath the tree and read, she said, to get away from the noise, because Mark, Tim, and I were little and we were always making lots of noise, and she wanted peace and quiet. So she'd cross the street, and sit underneath the tree and read. So we sat over there for a while too.

Anyway, it came time to go back into the house, and walking up the side walk, and I said, "Just a minute." And about that time, I opened up my mouth and out came a fountain of margaritas. And I was really shocked. I didn't know I had it in me.

And my mom never drank a margarita again.

1109 Wilkinson is home to literal thousands of memories, and I'm sure that many of them will be featured on this blog. I would be lying if I said that posting about the place didn't give me a odd feeling of comfort. Sharing our stories is the closest any of us will ever get to going back there.

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

Originally posted in August of 2008.

Another fun story from our pal Cory, who you may remember from "Black Underwear." Cory has no shortage of adventure tales to share. This one, she shared with me on the EL in Chicago. She stayed with me for a night as she moved from Minnesota to southern Illinois to attend grad school.

This is the story of when I fell off of a waterfall. I'm from Duluth, Minnesota, and my best friends and I like to go skinny-dipping, but we like to go when it's dark out at this awesome little place called the Deeps. The Deeps isn't a very big swimming hole, by any means, but it is really really deeps, so people will like jump out of trees into it and do all sorts of stupid stuff that I would never do.

We did like to kind of crawl up along side this waterfall at the Deeps, which I did once or twice. My friend, Ann, actually fell off it, and it was kind of awesome because it was like the moonlight, and I saw this beautiful like white flash coming down the waterfall, and I said, "Whoa, what is it?!" and then a heard a splash, and this naked Ann plummeted into the water below. But she didn't fall from very high, and she was fine, and it was really funny.

Anywho, we also went there during the day, at which point we would not be naked swimming. And my best friend, Megan, and I use to work at a place called Camp Vermilion, and every so often we would bring friends home for the weekend. So, we had a bunch of friends from camp. Actually, I hadn't started working there yet, but she'd brought a bunch of friends home from camp, and we went to the swimming hole. It was her, Lindsay, Connie, Paul, Neal, my brother, and myself.

And for whatever reason, I get it in my head that I want to climb up along side this waterfall. This is a stupid idea because I normally have terrible balance and to not be good at climbing things. So I was like whatever, I’m going to climb this waterfall. Stupid.

So, I started climbing it; a little proud of myself because I'm almost to the top. This is maybe... I don't know, twenty, twenty-five feet. That could be a lie, but I think that's what somebody said they thought it was. So, I'm almost at the top, and I'm really proud because I've never climbed anything higher than stairs and not fallen down. And my friends, Connie and Lindsay, are behind me. Megan is at the very bottom, and she yells for Connie and Lindsay to turn around so she can take a picture of us climbing. And I'm maybe, I don't know, I'm maybe five or ten feet above them, and she's about to yell at me to turn around to smile as well. But at that moment, I start to fall. Now, from here, I have to divide the story into my point of view and Megan's point of view, cause she saw it happen.

But all of a sudden, I just like lost my grip, and all I remember is WHOOSH! Like just falling down; sliding down. I was climbing up on slippery mossy rocks. What the hell was I thinking? And so, I remember like, you know, as I'm falling down the waterfall, sliding off the rocks, I must have like Tasmanian Devil spinning in a circle down. So I’m like spiraling down, and I hear my friend Paul, who... We joke how we're soul mates. I just hear him go, "Soul mate! Noooooooo!" And I hear this as I'm plummeting down the waterfall, in front of... it was a really hot day, so there are tons of people at the Deeps, and it's not a big place.

And so, I get to the bottom of the waterfall, and the rocks kind of made like this little ski-jump. And as I go off it, my thought was, "This is either going to be awesome or I’m going to fucking die." I got like WOOP! Off into the air, and I slam into the water and I start to sink, which is awesome cause that means I've missed the jagged rocks below. But I feel them grazing my back as I'm sinking, so it means I just missed the jagged rocks below. But I'm just really happy that I'm sinking because it means that I'm still alive and conscious.

So I kind of like kick off and I surface, and I'm like immediately elated. I was like, "Yeeeaaahhh!" You know? Because I lived. And I like I come up to the surface, take a huge breath, and I look around, and I was like, "Yeah!" and it's just like... cricket cricket... cricket. Dead silence. Every single person at the Deeps was just like staring and like pointing with their mouths open. And after a second, all I hear is like Megan, who hardly ever swears, "What the fuck is your problem?! Don't you ever fucking do that again! You scared the shit out of me, Cory!" She is laying into me.

I don't remember this, but Megan said, as I was coming down, I almost took out Connie and Lindsay as well, who were below me. And she said that Connie like barrel rolled over Lindsay to get out of my way. And she also said, which I don't remember, that as I was like falling down, I would kept like grabbing all the little mossies trying to hang on, but I couldn't get a grip on anything, which just shows that like your basic physical instincts... I don't even remember doing that, but I just... basic instinct was trying to grab the moss.

And Megan like pulls me out of the water, and she's like, "Your life just flashed before my eyes! YOUR life flashed before MY eyes! I was there when you were adopted from Ecuador! I was there when you graduated from Cottey! I was there through it all!" And she was just freaking out.

And my little brother was just standing there, smoking a cigarette. He was like, "Dude," was like his only response. And my response was to be like, "I hate it when you smoke." And I mean, I survived. I had some really sweet bruises all over my body, but I survived.

I'm sure it will surprise no one to find out that Cory currently works for a company that specializes in outdoor adventures for families. She is a certified canoe guide, and is currently working on her Masters Degree in Outdoor Recreation.

Mustard

Originally posted in August of 2008.

For some years, my Dad's position with the Hardees company consisted of traveling to new stores and acting as manager as the store was getting off the ground. This story takes place in 1991 or '92, at a Hardees in Illinois that had only opened their doors about a year or so earlier.

Mark Heil. I think it was his first name; Heil was his last name: H.E.I.L. He's a good kid, you know? He's probably seventeen or eighteen maybe. Maybe sixteen, seventeen, I'm not sure, but he was a high school kid.

And, I think it was a Saturday, for some reason. It was a weekend day, because he typically didn't work with me. He'd usually work in the evenings. But he was working with me on this particular day, and I'm looking for things to keep everybody busy. And the three compartment sink, the stainless steel sink, back where all the dishes are done, gets pretty nasty underneath of it. You know, the legs get all grungy; you slop a mop up against them, and then it just gets the junk from the dirty mop and the broom. But, you know, if someone takes the time to clean it up, you know, it's stainless steel, it'll shine up pretty nice. Not just that, but the wall underneath of it, the base boards, and all that stuff.

And I'm telling this kid, that I want him to do me a favor, "I would like you to clean up this area. I'd like the table legs clean, and I'd like the baseboards clean, and I'd like the floor scrubbed real good. I'd just like the whole area shining." And while I'm talking, I apparently have picked up a mustard packet, you know, sitting on the floor, someplace. But someplace, I had picked up a mustard packet, and while I'm talking I'm pointing at the things like, you know, like the legs, the sink, and the baseboard, and the floor. I'm pointing at it with this mustard packet, so I'm kind of shaking a mustard packet at these things, as like, as I'm talking about it, "I'd just like everything nice and shiny, so you know, if you could do me a favor, get it all cleaned up, I'd appreciate it."

He goes, "Well, what do you want me to clean it with? ...Mustard?"

And I look down, and I realize that I have this mustard packet in my hand, and I just kind of chuckled, and I said "Yeah," and I walked away.

I go back about five minutes later, ten minutes later, whatever, and this kid has a gallon of mustard opened up, and he has got mustard spread over the wall, and the legs, of this sink, on the floor. He has got a gallon of mustard spread just all over everything. And I went back, and I was starting to laugh, and I said, "You're going to get this stuff all washed off of here, right?" And he just says "Yeah."

And the next time I go back, he has it all rinsed off, and it was as clean as hell.

The Phantom Lady of Kennedy Hill Road

Originally posted in August of 2008.

This story was told at a family gathering on Sunday, August 10, as we were all having breakfast. Several members of the extended family were present, including Jarrett, who was born moments before this story takes place.

I am always ready to jump on a good ghost story or unexplained event, which is why I think it is so interesting how honestly unenthusiastic Libby is about her own story. She told me several times before sharing it that she finds the story "boring," and doesn't see why anyone would be interested. One of her sisters mentioned to me, later that morning, that Libby never shares the story. She always seems reluctant. Even I hadn't been told this, it was obvious from the story itself. Libby's disinterest, to me, the biggest mystery of the story.

I worked in a restaurant in Rockford, IL, with my now husband, he was my boyfriend. He was a bartender. I was a server, and I was called by somebody to let me know that I had a nephew. My nephew, Jarrett Heintz, was born. It was January 4, 1981, and I was very excited. It was... my whole night was just, you know, I couldn't remember a thing else besides that, and Mark was excited for me. He knew how important this was. And I closed that night, so who knows if it was... It was the wee hours. We made have stayed afterwards; I'm not sure, but on my way home... I remember it being six below zero.

On the way home, I was on Kennedy Hill Road, going towards Byron, where I lived, and I saw a very tall woman with long blond hair walking on the left with my, you know... on the opposite side of the road that I was on. Coming... Going... my way. In fact, I'm trying to say that I was looking at her backside. It appeared that she was wearing nothing but green underwear, but it was one of those flash moments where I questioned what I just saw. I thought am I dreaming? Am I too tired? What is going on here? And a few seconds later, it dawned on me that this person could be in trouble. Maybe she was raped. It dawned on me that it was January 4, and how cold it was.

So at the next possible road I turned around. I wanted to go see if there was anything I could do to help, because this was in an area that I was very familiar with. It was in between my old boyfriend's horse farm and one of my best friend's dairy farms. I just didn't feel that there was any danger to me, so I wanted to help. This was before cell phones. And I turned around and nowhere was she to be found, and I felt really guilty, so I continued home, told my Mom and Dad the story, and said, "Don’t you think I ought to call the police?" And they said, "Yes."

So I did. I called the Byron police, and I said, "Just have to tell you who I am. I'm not some weirdo that's making up stuff. I'm not mentally ill. I'm Doc Jarrett's daughter. This is what I saw, so I thought you just might want to know in case you want to go check things out."

And I don't know how I found out, if they called me the next day... They never found a thing, and that was the end of it, until I'd say... a few weeks later when my friend Kim, who lives on the at dairy farm, saw the same person, and I don't know if there were any other sightings.

But all of a sudden, Kim and I started getting phone calls from radio stations. How it got through Byron, I don't know, but it got in the Byron Tempo. Dianne Motes was probably what? The Editor? We were getting calls from San Diego, out east, Boston, I'm not sure. She got calls from different? What?

One of the sisters chimed in, "No Money?"

No Money. No one offered. And I said, "Oh please, this is yesterday's news. We don't need to talk about this," and I didn't tell any of them my story. They really wanted it. I mean, it was a slow news day, I guess.

So there were several other sightings, and she became the phantom lady at Kennedy Hill road. I believe I was the first. I was the first to report it probably.

Jarrett asked if the green underwear were a constant factor as people reported seeing the woman.

I'm not sure, Jarrett. See it's all foggy to me: was she naked? Was she... blah blah blah. Anyway, then we heard it could be the weird guy that lived on the Jacobson's... in the Jacobson's tenant home, that was tall and thin. Cause this... And then as I thought back, well, this woman really did have some thin... a real thin build. Not your hourglass figure. Long blond hair. It almost... I thought of Lady Godiva, you know, I thought of a blond... maybe a long blond wig.

And then there were all these stories about how, "Oh yes, there was this girl, there was a death, blah blah blah," and I was so not into it. Not interested, so to me it's a non-story.

But the other day, I was thinking about how everyone has a story in their life to tell. And I was going to have my patients write a little paragraph about their life that they would think a stranger might be interested in. And I thought, "Well, what could my story be?" And I thought, well, I could always tell that one.

And so I looked it up on line, "Phantom Lady of Kennedy Hill Road," and up comes this story, and it's fiction. Dianne Motes had to have written it, because she was from Illinois, and this fictional story was not anything about phantom lady the way I saw it. It was totally redone, but the main character's name was Dianne, and it took place at the gatehouse on Slingerland Farm on Kennedy Hill. Why would anyone call it Slingerland Farm? It was bizarre.

I found, moments ago, the story that Libby had found while searching for the phantom lady of Kennedy Hill Road. It was posted on a blog: http://raginmom.blogspot.com/2006/10/deerfield.html. I plan to contact the author (or at least poster) of this story to see what their connection is. Perhaps there is more to learn about this series of sightings.

The Skeleton

Originally posted in early August of 2008.

I've had my Dad retell this story several times, and I always find it just as fascinating. As a person grows older, they can usually see retrospectively with a bit more clarity. They can admit that imaginary friends weren't really there. My Dad is no exception to this, but this singular childhood memory has stuck with him, and to this day, he isn't sure what happened that night, because he is so convinced that he was not asleep. When I asked him to tell the story again for my recording, I referred to it as "The Skeleton Dream."

The Skeleton Dream... Well, see that's the problem with it, you know? Was it a dream? Cause I couldn't have been, couldn't have been more than four, ok? We were still living at my Grandma's house down in East Alton, and we moved to Alton when I was four. So I couldn't have been more than four, right? And my bed, which was still a baby bed, because I remember the flaps on the side, you know, was in my Mom and Dad's room. My bed was in the same room that their bed was in. And at some point, I wake up in the middle of the night and look out, you know, look over toward my Mom and Dad's bed, and standing next to their bed was this skeleton with this razor strap, sharpening up a razor, like "fshm, fshm, fshm." You know? Sharpening up this razor on the thing.

And I pulled the covers over my head. It's like, "There's a skeleton in this bedroom!" And, you know, pulled the covers up over my head, and I guess I fell back to sleep.

Well, anyway, the next day I remember asking my Dad, I said, you know, "Are there really skeletons?" You know, like are there really monsters, kind of a thing, you know? And anyway, he proceeded to give me the, "Well, yes there really are skeletons, and..." you know, explaining more the anatomy kind of a thing, as opposed to... You know, because he knew my reference was more of a monster kind of a skeleton thing. Anyway, he says, "Well, yes there are skeletons and," I don't remember what words he used, but that was pretty much the end of it, but you know, to say that it was a dream... I can't say to this day that it was a dream. I woke up. I looked over there, and there was a skeleton.

Zoo Stories

Originally posted in late July or early August of 2008.

My Mom has a lot of wonderful stories, but her story telling technique is just the opposite of my Dad's. She goes strait to the point, and the story (while extremely interesting or funny) is over before you realize it. Because of that, many of her stories don't translate very well to paper. While most members of my family tell stories that take pages to write, Mom has a unique ability to get to the punch line in less than a hundred words.

The following are four stories that my Mom tells about taking us to the St. Louis Zoo when we were little. This first story takes place around 1987.

I took Erin and Michael to the Zoo, and Michael was probably about two years old, and we were looking at all the animals, and I said, "Look, Michael, A Penguin," and he says, "No, Mommy, a black and white one."

It was so real, though. I mean, I thought it was odd that he would even notice the color. A pink one... "No, Mommy, a black and white one."

Within the St. Louis Zoo, there is a small petting zoo, known as The Children's Zoo. There are several different domestic birds and mammals that children can interact with, including several pygmy mountain goats that hop on and off of rocks and ledges. This story takes place in that vary area of the zoo, in about 1984.

We were in the Children's Zoo, and I had Erin in the stroller, and she had been eating crackers all morning. And we went down, her Dad and I, and Erin went into where the goats were walking around. And Erin wanted to see them better, because she was real excited about them jumping up on the walls, so her Daddy took her out of the stroller and showing her the goats, and I was standing with the empty stroller. And a little boy came up to me, and a goat was eating crackers out of the seat of the stroller that Erin left behind, and the little boy said, "Lady! Lady! I think the goat ate your baby!"

At this point, in the storytelling, that my Mom had warmed up a bit to the idea and was no longer worrying about being recorded, which is why her stories switched from third to first person. She was now directing them to me directly. It's a strange feeling to be a character in a story, when you have no memory of the events.

Also, as the stories switched gears, my Dad went from being "Erin's Dad," to simply "Dad." I couldn't help but notice that both of my parents do this when telling me stories that involve family members. Even in stories where my Dad and his brothers are children, they will always be referred to as "Uncle Jim" and "Uncle Dave."

Enough digressing; the following two stories are about me... as told by my Mom... to me.

We were walking around the zoo. You were probably about in Kindergarten, I want to say. And we walked passed the kangaroos, and we're watching the kangaroos, and you see this tiny little bubble about the size of a pea on the grass. And we had no idea where the bubble came from or why it was there, but it was a real pretty little bubble with all different colors. And you picked it up on a leaf and carried it around all day long until it finally popped. We can't even... we didn't even know what the bubble was.

It was amazing that, with all the things to look at, you noticed a tiny little bubble on a leaf.

The family mentioned in this next story is the French family. Brenda has been my Mom's friend since they were a year old. She and her husband, Mike, have four children: Nicole and Michele, who are several years older than me, and Matt and Nathan, who are younger than both my brother and I. The Frenches are frequently focal characters in stories told by my Mom.

Brenda and Mike, and Michele and Nicole, and Dad and I, and you went to the zoo. And you had done this thing with your neck where you stretched your neck out, and you put your eyes up real big, and you'd stick out your tongue like you were licking something, and that was your giraffe imitation. And it was real funny, and so Dad and I kept having you show everybody your giraffe imitation. And Mike French hadn't seen it, so we says, "Show Mike your giraffe imitation." And you stretched out your neck, and you opened your eyes, and you stuck out your tongue, and you went over to the nearest tree and started licking it. Mike French about fell on the ground laughing.

Gun Shots

Originally posted in late July or 2008.

On July 16, I had lunch with my friend, C. I asked her if she would be interested in telling a story for my project. She agreed, but said that she didn't know any funny stories. I told her that everyone has funny stories that they would love to share, and to be honest, I would love to get a good serious story. Nothing could have prepared me for the story she then told.

At several points, she restarted thoughts and sentences. Considering the moments that she was recalling, I'm amazed that she was able to tell the story so clearly. Twice in the story, I have added subjects to sentences that may otherwise have appeared confusing. These instances are marked by parenthesis. Otherwise, these are C's exact words.

The summer of 2004, that would be the year that I would be a freshman in the fall. My Mom, she went out; she told us we couldn't go out. It was about twelve o'clock, so I snuck out the house, and I was outside with my friends, and I had like this funny feeling that I should go back home. And I was like, I want to get there before she do.

I'm on my way, well, actually one of my friends stopped me again, so we were talking. Like I said, the whole time I just had a feeling that I shouldn't be where I was.

So, out of nowhere there's gun shots that go out. So now we all... everybody was running, screaming everywhere, but I couldn't run because I already knew that I was hit. So, I just stood there cause I was scared. I knew... when I was little, I thought that if you moved like it would travel and you would instantly die or something. So I wouldn't move. I was just like walking, and my friends were screaming like, "Run! Run!" They're like already at doors and stuff.

So I'm like, "I can't run! I can't run!" But as I'm like I'm walking, I can still... I can feel more shots like hitting my body, but it's like... it's like they felt like... I didn't know how many cause I was scared. I wouldn't look down. I didn't want to see it or nothing. All I could think about was my Mom telling me not to leave out the house, and I wasn’t supposed to be out the house.

So now I'm blaming myself. I'm scared. Now the only thing I want to do is go to sleep, but you know, now I'm stuck or whatever. So, I walked to my friend house. It was like half a block from where I was, or whatever. So when I got there, I kind of like collapsed on her couch.

And I thought that, because I could feel the one in my chest... and I knew there was other ones, I can only... I thought that one… It felt like a blow. It was like I could barely talk, so I knew that one was there. And my arm was stinging, so I knew there was one in my arm too. But I thought that was it.

So, I was laying there, and I could hear my sister screaming. Somebody went and got my sister, and I was just thinking like I know how upset she is, cause she's my big sister and my Mom's going to be mad at her, or whatever. And I could just see everybody like around me, just looking at me, or whatever. And like my eyes were... they were... they were shutting on me. I kept trying to open them, and I could feel my sister crying.

And I don't know what happened, but I just like... I kind of woke up for like just a second, or whatever, to the paramedic cutting my shirt off. And even then, I was embarrassed. I'm like, "There's boys in this room!"

And like I wasn't really thinking of the things you might have thought I was thinking. I was thinking like, "This shirt. This is my favorite shirt, and it's ruined," or whatever. "There's blood all over this lady's couch." Just thinking crazy things.

And the paramedics, they came like... no exaggerating, probably about twenty-five minutes later. And my sister was arguing with them, cause she was telling them like, you know, "She was shot!" and this and that.

And he was like, "Well, it's not going to make anybody come any quicker. I'm here now, so..."

So I get in the ambulance, and my Step Father, they wake him up, and he gets in with me. My Mom, she's out so she doesn't even know, and she didn't have a cell phone so everybody's trying to find her. They're riding around looking for her.

Of course they didn't find her. They were just trying to ride some random clubs, but when they found her my sister was like... I guess she went off, smacking my sister, yelling, screaming, you know, angry, frustrated or whatever. But, once I got out of surgery the next day, that's when I saw her.

(We) head to the hospital, and I remember... I think I remember taking my jewelry off my hands and telling me what they were going to do before they put me to sleep.

When I woke up, I found out that I had been shot five times, and I had four out of the five bullets which were used... I had one left in my liver. And I was hospitalized for about six, seven days, like a week, or whatever, give or take a day. (I was shot in) my chest, my back, my arm, my stomach, and my side.

And it's just like... it was like a... kind of like a out of body experience where I thought I was dying. And they say your mind goes blank, but it didn't. So I guess I was thinking all of these weird stupid things like, you know, just nothing other... I didn't even think if I was going to be ok... cause I didn't, actually. I thought I was gone. I was dead, or whatever. But... I don't know.

At this point, I asked C. a few questions. The first of which was, "Did you ever find out who was shooting?"

Yeah, I figured all of it out. I did, like I said, cause I wasn't running, we were like face eye to eye. We saw each other. So, it was all so crazy cause he live like... It was opposite gangs: where I stay and like a block away a different gang. So he was from a different gang, and I recognize his face from going to like the grocery store and stuff.

So when the paramedics... I mean, when the detectives came in to visit me in the hospital, whatever, they was asking me like, "Do you know who did this?"

And I was like, you know, "Yeah, I know."

And he was like, "Who?"

And I gave him a name of the person, and the kind of car they were driving, and he's like, "Are you sure?"

And I'm like, "I'm sure."

And he's like, "Are you positive? Because it makes no sense for you to lie," and then I got angry, and I'm like, "Why you think I would lie?" You know, he didn't believe me, so after that, I pretty much... I stopped talking. I wouldn't answer anything else he said. But they never got locked up, never no time, no trouble, or nothing.

After that, I don't think I went outside until like March my sophomore year or something. I wouldn't go outside, I wouldn't go to the door, I wouldn't look out the window... just to school. And back then, I road the bus.. but because I was like that, my Mom always... they had somebody... because we didn't have a car... to pick me up to take me. But... grew out of it, I guess.

But I just got over... It was like, well I guess that'd be for anybody in that situation, just startled at the gunshots. It make me panic, I guess. I can't explain how I get. I shake.

I asked her if she thought he was aiming at her, specifically.

See, when they get into wars like around where I was at, there was like... nobody scream like, you know, tell the kids, "Go in the house." If you was outside, you were a target. And even like, you know, they can't believe that but it's serious, cause like they'd kill like the dogs, the cats, just... If you left your dog outside, you know, it'd be dead the next day; shot in the head or something.

And it was just like... I myself, personally, I think once he saw me and we locked eyes, that he was trying to kill me. But I never fell, or whatever. Like I said, I could feel the shots, or whatever, but I never fell. And I remember him, just like it was yesterday, he shot and like I was trying to... I wasn't running... but I was trying to moving along the side of the wall; trying to get away from him. And you could hear like sirens in the distance, which I don't know where they came, cause they never came. But he eventually ran away, or whatever. But I saw his face, which I said I knew him, the car he was driving, the color, the year, the make. We locked eyes. I seriously think he was trying to hurt me once he realized that I saw him.

But the night that it happened, we were the only kids outside. Even it was like twelve or one, you know. There were no adults outside. I think that anybody could have seen that we were just kids.

So many questions have come to mind since hearing C. tell this story. I was so shocked, at lunch that day, that I didn't even think to ask in what city these events took place. Now, I'm torn between my desire to know the answer and my hesitation to continue to remind C. of that night. I am thrilled that she had the courage to share her story with me in the first place.

Black Underwear

Originally posted in mid-July, 2008.

One of my favorite story tellers is my friend Cory, a twenty-five year old force to be reckoned with. Cory is spunky, loud, and always laughing about something. To her, no subject is off limits, and no company is exempt from what she has to say. The following story is, in no way, a good example of the extent to which this description of Cory applies.

I first met Cory at Cottey College, a two-year liberal arts women’s college in Nevada, Missouri. Tens of thousands of wonderful stories take place at Cottey, because of its very nature. Imagine a place where three hundred girls, ages eighteen to twenty, spend every waking moment together… in the middle of nowhere, with no boys to impress. That is the setting for this story. The time was either the fall of 2001, or the spring of 2002.

When we were Seniors at Cottey, nope, lied, when we were Freshman at Cottey, I was eating lunch around the big white table, well, they're medium tables, the circular tables in Raney Dining Hall, and it was me, and I can't remember everyone who was there, but I think Sarah Hutchins was there, and I know for sure Kate Robinson was there because the story is about Kate.

And Kate was talking about, ok, have you seen the movie "Ten Things I Hate About You?" Ok, there's a part in the movie where the younger sister is snooping through Julia Stiles's room, and she's like looking to see if there's signs of life, like is she a normal teenager or is she just like a crazy bitchy older sister, and she goes into her underwear drawer, and she pulls out black underwear. And she goes to the guy, the guy who plays Joey* or whatever from "Third Rock from the Sun," she's like, "Ooo, black underwear. You know what this means, don't you?"

And he's like, "I don't know, what's that mean."

And she goes, "Black underwear means she wants to have sex."

So we're talking about that, and Kate was like, "That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You know, I have sex all the time, and I don't even own any black underwear. All of my underwear is either pink, or white, or they've got Pooh on them..."

And we all just kind of stopped eating our lunch, and we look at her, and we're like, "Gross."

And she's like, "What?" and I was just like... we just kind of look at her, and she's like, "No! No! No! Pooh Bear! Pooh Bear! Winnie the Pooh!"

And I thought she meant she had like, I don't know, shit stains in her paints, like bacon strips.

And so, so we're like, "Gross Kate, we didn't know you meant Winnie the Pooh," and she goes like, "No, Pooh Bear! Why would I tell you that? That's not what I meant! Why would I say that to you at lunch?"

And so we're all laughing really hard because we were all really grossed out because we thought she was talking about... having a problem with wiping, and it wasn't what we wanted to hear at lunch. And I've always remembered that because every single one of us, when she was like "or they've got Pooh on them," like we really thought that she meant like her underwear had shit streaks on them. I mean, would you have thought of Pooh Bear? No. None of us did, and then she was embarrassed, but you know, that was her own fault.

* The "Joey" that Cory mentions is really the "Third Rock from the Sun" character named "Tommy," played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He played the character "Cameron" in "Ten Things I Hate About You."

Cory/Cottey College stories will, no doubt, become a regular feature of this blog, seeing as both provide so darn much entertainment.

Large and In Charge

Originally posted in mid-July, 2008.

Some of my favorite stories are told by my Dad, Steve. The stories he tells about his childhood, and his old neighborhood have a wonderful "Little Rascals" or "Sandlot" quality about them, but a bit more harsh. It's easy to listen to his stories with little to no thought of the repercussions or injuries that may have occurred; to just enjoy them for the humor.

This story took place sometime between 1967 and 1970, in our home town, Alton, Illinois. My Uncle Jim is about a year older than my Dad, so I'd guess they would have been about eleven and twelve at this time. To this day, my Uncle Jim is, without a doubt, the large-and-in-charge man of the family.

After a baseball game, a neighborhood baseball game... so we would have been, me and your Uncle Jim would have been... I don't know, eleven, twelve; twelve, thirteen, I'm not sure. This was in the old house over on East Doerre, the house we grew up in. We always played baseball with Darryl and Denny Hibbs, and you know, different people in the neighborhood. I think this particular time, a couple of the Surrey brothers, Karl Surrey, and... what's the older one's name? But, anyway, baseball game: quite often they would have a tendency to get heated up because someone would get into an argument about who cheated, you know, who didn't do what that should have, who threw the baseball into the ditch and didn't go get it. You know, Stuff like that.

And eventually, Uncle Jim and I went to our house and Hibbses came down, Denny and Darryl Hibbs. They had come down to the house, and somebody else was with them. I think one of the Surrey brothers was with them too, and we're having this argument out in the front yard, and the argument turned into a scuffle, you know? Just pushing back and forth, and stuff like that. Next thing I know, we're throwing punches out in the front yard.

The next thing I know, I was just getting beat up. I was like, "Where did my brother go?" You know? I was just getting beat up.

The next thing I know, they're falling off, you know? These guys are just like bmm.* They're not knocked to the ground necessarily, but they're no longer on me. And I finally look up, and there's your Uncle Jim standing there with his baseball bat, and he's just swinging this baseball bat around. He'd gone in the house and gotten his bat, and he was just swinging it at these guys.

But anyway, the fight ended with Darryl Hibbs kicking my bicycle. With that, I grabbed a hold of the baseball bat that your Uncle Jim had, and I started smashing spokes out of his bike. He hit my fender and put a big old dent in the fender of my bike, and I took out the spokes. But anyway, the cool part was Uncle Jim. It's like, I'm thinking, "Where in the heck is my brother?" You know? I'm getting the crap beat out of me. Next thing I know, these guys are just dropping like flies, and there's your Uncle Jim standing there with his baseball bat. Bmm! Bmm! It was pretty cool. Like I said, he just shows up. There he is: large and in charge.

I would love to one day hear this story from the perspective of any other person involved.

* "Bmm!" This is a noise that frequents my Dad’s stories. It is somewhere in between a "thud" and a "boom," but sounds more like a very short "pbum." I can think of no better way to describe it. It's placement in stories ranges from items and people falling over, to objects hitting people or other objects.