Heard today
Jun. 3rd, 2006 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
same_skyTonight's feature event was a historic ghost tour in downtown Beckley. This sounds like a great idea, but there were a few things that went wrong. One of them was a spontaneous downpour--in the midst of a perfect, cloudless, temperate evening. The worst part of the evening was that one certain youngster of our acquaintance was less than thrilled with the proceedings, so I felt a little bad that we were keeping him out past his bedtime. However, other than that.. and a certain extreme-scary event that I think I will let Carrie write about if she wants to, even though it was one of the most WTF moments of the entire tour.. it was rather fun. Ooh, the mystery, the intrigue, the only-in-the-company-of-this-person-would-this-ever-occur! It was also decidedly less than scary (which, I say that now but with my luck they will be running through my dreams tonight!)
Anyway, at the beginning of the tour, we were hanging around a set of stairs while the very charismatic tourguide (who reminded both M and me of Lewis Black) began to explain why ghosts are real. He had prefaced the entire thing by letting us know that every single thing that we would hear and see tonight was REAL. R-E-A-L. Like, not made up AT ALL. Spooky! Ghosty! Also, real. So anyway, he got onto the notion of unfinished business, and then he started talking about location. He asked if anyone in the audience was married, and decided to pick me as his example. The first thng he asked was if we were married in a church, and then he wanted to know how far that was from where we were from. So, I told him that it was thirty miles for me, but five thousand for M. Then he asked if I was driven to the church on my wedding day, and indeed, I was.
What would it be like, he asked, if someone forgot to pick me up on my wedding day? What if everyone else had made it to the church and was waiting for me, but no one had remembered to pick me up? What would I do? In his story, I get into my car and drive to the church, but after a couple of miles, I run through an intersection and die. (Do you think this could be a tourism angle for West Virginia? "Dying to be in Beckley!" or maybe "If you weren't dead when you got here, you will be when you leave!") Anyway, I am still anxious to get to the church, and I do not know that I'm dead. My granny comes to take my hand (here, I have to take his hand) and lead me into the light, but I still think I need to get to the church, so I don't go with her. So, where do I haunt? Do I haunt the intersection? No! Do I haunt the church? No, I haunt the location that I associate with our courtship, because that's where I feel safe and secure with my lost groom-to-be. So, where do I haunt, he asks me--where did we meet? "The internet?" I ask in reply. Poor guy, I totally ruined his story. :)
If you see my ghost flittering across the screen now and then, don't worry--I'm more Casper than Headless Horseman. I will mainly just say "ahh boo!" a lot. (Just ask Mr. E.)
We also went to the Tamarack, which is an arts and crafts thing that is also known as "the best of West Virginia". That's a large reason that we're here, since a lady I work with loves to go here and has mentioned it several times. They really take that "best of WV" thing to heart because they start advertising it a hundred miles away, which I think perhaps is a little excessive. It was fun, though, and M took about thirty (literally) pictures of a table and chair set that he is dying to go home and build. I really liked it, too, but he stopped at least three different times to take more pictures of it. Perhaps he was afraid it had changed since last time, I don't know.
A few other key moments from the day, from various persons:
"I'd better be seeing some dead bodies tonight."
"Ghosts who haunt a ghost tour.. man, those would be some definite B-rated ghosts."
"I only post naked pictures to a special LJ filter. You're not on it."
Anyway, at the beginning of the tour, we were hanging around a set of stairs while the very charismatic tourguide (who reminded both M and me of Lewis Black) began to explain why ghosts are real. He had prefaced the entire thing by letting us know that every single thing that we would hear and see tonight was REAL. R-E-A-L. Like, not made up AT ALL. Spooky! Ghosty! Also, real. So anyway, he got onto the notion of unfinished business, and then he started talking about location. He asked if anyone in the audience was married, and decided to pick me as his example. The first thng he asked was if we were married in a church, and then he wanted to know how far that was from where we were from. So, I told him that it was thirty miles for me, but five thousand for M. Then he asked if I was driven to the church on my wedding day, and indeed, I was.
What would it be like, he asked, if someone forgot to pick me up on my wedding day? What if everyone else had made it to the church and was waiting for me, but no one had remembered to pick me up? What would I do? In his story, I get into my car and drive to the church, but after a couple of miles, I run through an intersection and die. (Do you think this could be a tourism angle for West Virginia? "Dying to be in Beckley!" or maybe "If you weren't dead when you got here, you will be when you leave!") Anyway, I am still anxious to get to the church, and I do not know that I'm dead. My granny comes to take my hand (here, I have to take his hand) and lead me into the light, but I still think I need to get to the church, so I don't go with her. So, where do I haunt? Do I haunt the intersection? No! Do I haunt the church? No, I haunt the location that I associate with our courtship, because that's where I feel safe and secure with my lost groom-to-be. So, where do I haunt, he asks me--where did we meet? "The internet?" I ask in reply. Poor guy, I totally ruined his story. :)
If you see my ghost flittering across the screen now and then, don't worry--I'm more Casper than Headless Horseman. I will mainly just say "ahh boo!" a lot. (Just ask Mr. E.)
We also went to the Tamarack, which is an arts and crafts thing that is also known as "the best of West Virginia". That's a large reason that we're here, since a lady I work with loves to go here and has mentioned it several times. They really take that "best of WV" thing to heart because they start advertising it a hundred miles away, which I think perhaps is a little excessive. It was fun, though, and M took about thirty (literally) pictures of a table and chair set that he is dying to go home and build. I really liked it, too, but he stopped at least three different times to take more pictures of it. Perhaps he was afraid it had changed since last time, I don't know.
A few other key moments from the day, from various persons:
"I'd better be seeing some dead bodies tonight."
"Ghosts who haunt a ghost tour.. man, those would be some definite B-rated ghosts."
"I only post naked pictures to a special LJ filter. You're not on it."
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-05 02:54 pm (UTC)