It's Starting to Look a Bit Like Christmas

Black Friday is when I typically start decorating for Christmas, and so it was this year. I do love the festiveness of the Christmas season, and Brugger and I always try to do up the house as best we can. We both have a bunch of decorative stuff from our days of living in our separate places, and there's a good bit that Mom had in the house. Mom's decorations were always nice, but fairly low-key. Ms. B. and I tend shoot for at least slightly more extravagant.

A Beastly Feast

For me, Thanksgiving is generally a happy holiday. Growing up, Thanksgiving Day was a big affair in my family. Mom always made a feast fit for a beast, and sometimes we'd spend it with friends or my grandparents. Yessir, I do love me some turkey (fuck you, J.D. Vance), as well as most of the associated dinner trappings. Above all things, I consider Thanksgiving a time for friends and family (not to mention eating well). Since I am the last of my original family, Ms. B. and I always try to host the folks from my "second" family whenever they can make it. Dick & Martha Wickliffe were my parents' best friends since not long after I was born, and my brother and I grew up alongside their kids, Gretchen, Todd, and Scott. Martha died some years ago, but Dick is still around, and today, he, Gretchen, and Todd came over to feast on some dead bird with us.

We fixed ourselves a pretty good pile of food—a big honking turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, cranberry relish, rolls, and cheesecake (all homemade, of course), and the Wickliffes brought a green bean casserole. All this was accompanied by a couple of bottles of a decent Pinot Noir. So, no, we did not starve, and we followed dinner with a couple of hours of solid family time.

Afterward, the trypofans set in. Brugger napped, and I kicked back in the recliner and spent about an hour and a half writing this short little blog.

It's gonna be a mellow night.

Geocaching and Technoflopping

After a long, sometimes torturous trip back from Georgia yesterday, I'd just as soon have stayed home all day, but I had a doctor's appointment in Greensboro this morning that I really couldn't miss. So, to soften the blow, I got hold of geocaching partners Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) and Fishdownthestairs (a.k.a. Natalie) and arranged for an afternoon geocaching trip to the Cane Creek Mountains Natural Area just south of Burlington, NC, where several relatively new geocaches awaited us. After my appointment, I snagged a delicious lunch at Thai Corner Kitchen in Greensboro and then hit the road for our caching destination.

Things began swimmingly enough. It was a lovely new trail system, and the caches proved to be nicely done. We hadn't gone but so far, though, when my phone screen decided to die on me. No, this did not help with navigation in the woods. The phone had power, obviously, but nothing I did would activate the bastard, conniving screen again. I suspected the problem was simply the phone brightness, but why it suddenly decided to default to zero, I had no idea. Now, my phone is old and sometimes cranky. But this was way over-the-top cranky. Fortunately, my caching partners had properly functioning phones, so we managed to find all our target caches and get out of the woods without undue difficulty.

Sure enough, once out where sunlight could reach my phone, I could dimly see the standard icons on my screen, and I was able to restore it to the proper brightness. I suppose I'll need to pick up a new phone sooner than later—as will Ms. B., since we both got these at the same time, which was just before our late-2019 trip to Europe. So, at over six years old, I guess these devices can retire with something akin to honor.

I guess that's just a matter of getting 'er done. Whenever.

Our favorite cache of the day lurked in the ruins on ancient cabin in the woods

Georgia on my Mind...Again (or Still)

Home away from home in Gainesville, Georgia—the "Blue Bungalow"

Back in July of last year, old friend, horror aficionado extraordinaire, and head honcho of the storied Overlook Connection, Dave Hinchberger, along with his wife, LeeAnn, of Atlanta, Georgia, graced Brugger and me with their presences at our home in Virginia. So, Ms. B. and I decided then and there that we needed to make another pilgrimage to the Peach State and punish these people for their egregious trespasses. We calculated that, while we were at it, we could also subject friend/fellow author Leverett Butts, as well as my cousin and namesake, Mark Bell, both of whom live in the area, to our lunatic ravings. So, we conferred with all the parties involved and set the date for a new sojourn—the week before Thanksgiving (a.k.a. now).

 

But then...poor Mr. Moose. A few weeks ago, our cat, Moose, came down with pancreatitis (see "Mr. Moose," November 7, 2025), which was pretty serious, but he's come through it all reasonably well. Regardless, Kimberly did not feel that she could go away with him still needing medication and a strictly regulated feeding schedule. So, since plans had already been engraved in some pretty heavy stone, with Ms. B.'s blessing, I decided to make the pilgrimage myself, as I have on several previous occasions. I'm very sad that Ms. B. couldn't make it because I know she would have had a hell of a good time, but so much of my fondness for coming to Georgia hearkens back to my long personal history here.

So, this week, I'm making some more personal history.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2025

For the first time in decades, I made the trip to Gainesville without any major traffic and/or construction woes. Make no mistake, the interstate was wall-to-wall traffic, but with nary a single significant slowdown along the way (although the plethora of relatively new traffic lights on US 129 between I-85 and Gainesville are enough to make the Pope say "Goddamn!"). It was about a seven-hour drive, counting a 20-minute lunch and several pee and geocaching stops. In Gaffney, South Carolina, there's a big water tower in the shape of a peach (called the Peachoid), which I've passed countless times since I was a kid, but a couple of newish caches there—one a virtual and one a traditional—led me to visit it for the first time ever. It's kind of a cool landmark.

 

I rolled into Gainesville about 3:15 p.m. and settled in at the AirBnB we had reserved (it's called the "Blue Bungalow"). Since Ms. B. isn't here, it's more than plenty spacious. It's located in a very familiar area, only a couple of blocks from where my grandparents lived. A few of my other relatives lived nearby as well. Also, my mom went to elementary school right around the corner from here; the site is still a school, though it's a much newer building than in her day.

 

Since it's only about a mile to downtown from the B&B, I set out on foot to hunt down dinner. I was not surprised to find myself making a slight detour to walk past my grandparents' old place. On a previous trip, I met the current owners, which was very pleasant, but they did not appear to be at home this evening. Before I even left Martinsville, I had already decided to seek dinner at Bourbon Brothers Smokehouse & Tavern, just off the town square, and this proved to be an excellent choice. I had a brisket sandwich with fries and a Buffalo Trace Old Fashioned, both of which about made me stand up and holler. I didn't, but I almost did.

Hell yeah, brisket...

After I was done, I wandered around the square a little, as it looked to be hopping. Even since my two visits here in 2022, there are tons of new shops and dining/drinking establishments, and I expect I'll be sampling a few of them before I head out on Sunday. Again, it really is a pity that Brugger isn't here because she I know she would go ga-ga over a bunch of these places.

 

By the time I hoofed it back to the Bungalow, it was well after dark. I still needed a few provisions, so I drove to the nearby Publix supermarket and stocked up on some goodies. I worked on this blog for a bit, and then...crashing time. Sitting in a car most of the day is always exhausting.

 

Tomorrow, I plan to have lunch with Mr. Butts, and on Friday, I'll be heading to Atlanta to visit with the Hinchbergers. For tonight, I are done.

Evening falls on Gainesville's town square

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Thursday, November 20, 2025

I woke up pretty early, made eggs for breakfast, and, once I got going, set out after some geocaches in the area. Most of these were of the simple park & grab variety, though a couple were innovative and unique. At 11:30 a.m., I rolled over to El Sombrero Mexican Restaurant, near the University of North Georgia, where Mr. Leverett Butts works (though he was off today), and met him for an excellent lunch. We carried on extensively about our writing adventures; Dark Shadows; monsters of all sorts, including, cats; and other such apt topics for a couple of scary writers. I mean, as in writers of scary things. Of course that's what I mean.

After we parted company, I hunted several more geocaches and found all but one. Actually, I'm pretty sure I found the cache container, but there was trick to opening it that I couldn't figure out from cache page description (late addendum: no, that was not the cache, for the cache owner wrote to give me a clue what to look for). I made another stop for a few extra supplies, and then I returned to the Blue Bungalow, where I caught up on some correspondence, blogged, and worked on my current novel. I decided that, rather than go out and eat again, I'd tear into some of the handy-dandy provisions I had picked up for just such a purpose. And since I'm venturing toward Atlanta tomorrow to have a first-class lunch with Dave and LeeAnn Hinchberger, I'm sure I shan't starve on this trip.

Then, rather than wandering down to the bustle and lights of the square again, I decided to take a long, mostly peaceful walk around my old stomping grounds. (The only non-peaceful part was crossing Green Street, both coming and going. It's one of the busiest roads anywhere, so getting from one side to the other is like playing Frogger. I got a couple of honks, but I survived.) One of my destinations was the nearby Ivy Terrace Park, where I spent tons of time and energy as a kid. In my teen years, when we'd come to visit my grandparents, Dad would strap our bicycles to the top of the station wagon, so when we got here, my brother and I went wild on them—frequently in the park. The city has installed lights along the trails, which are very pretty, but I don't think it's as much fun as wandering around there in the dark, like we used to.

I've posted pictures of it before, but here it is again (below). There's a little stone spring house in the park that's been there since my mom was a kid, and it looks just the same as it did when I was a young'un. I seem to recall finding a snake in there once.

It was kind of nice seeing many of the houses already decorated for Christmas. This really brings back so many wonderful ghosts of Christmas past, since I spent every Christmas from my very first year of life up through my late twenties at my Grandparents' place here in Gainesville.

That is gonna be it for my ramblings this evening. Tomorrow, I'll be up pretty early to head to Atlanta.

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Friday, November 21, 2025

I had a feeling that the absence of traffic ills on the way from Martinsville to Gainesville was too good to last. The traffic woes between Gainesville and Atlanta today were damn near enough to put me off Atlanta. I've spent countless good times there over the past six-plus decades, and being there today was just something I really wanted—and kind of needed—to do. But on my way in, the last twenty miles on I-85 were a hellish, creeping horror. Then, when I left, it was a hellish, creeping horror for thirty-some miles outbound—the worst part being that the massive jams extended to every secondary road, back road, and residential road for miles and miles around. I know this because I left the interstate to travel them. It was a long, beyond-frustrating drive back to the Blue Bungalow, exacerbated by the fact that, by the time I hit the Gainesville city limits, I really had to pee.

Yeah, the photo to the left is of a random Atlanta building near where I was geocaching. It's the only photo I took in the city, except for a selfie of Dave, LeeAnn, and me, below:

Originally, I had planned to meet Dave and LeeAnn at the Steamhouse Lounge at 11:30 a.m. However, they had some stuff come up and moved the meeting time to 1:00 p.m. As it turned out, it's a good thing I set out early, since it took so damned long to get into the city. I still had time hunt a couple of geocaches, which was fun. Then, given the traffic situation, they were held up until past 1:30. I had parked my car in a nearby garage, and my space expired at 2:45. Since I wasn't in a position to get back there and add time to the total, we ended up having a relatively quick lunch. Still, I consider this some much-valued time together. Hopefully, wherever and whenever we gather again, Brugger will be able to make it.

 

Once finally back at my lodgings, I decided to shower, have a scotch, work on my blog, and listen to some 1960s lounge music. Hey, if I'm gonna be a bachelor here, I'm gonna go all at it. I ordered some sushi for dinner from Dynamite Sushi, Steak, & Grill and had it delivered by DoorDash, which I haven't done in forever. It was some right good dead fish, not to mention healthier than that delicious fried catfish and french fries I killed at lunch.

 

All in all, it would have been an altogether pleasant day in the city—geocaching, seeing good friends, and having an excellent lunch—if not for the round trip taking about three times longer than under less hellish traffic conditions.

I am a just about worn-out old dude, so I'm chilling for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow, it's more visiting, this time with my cousin, Mark. I expect I'll fit in some more caching for my last full day in town. And I'm pretty sure I'm gonna darken the doors of Southern Recess Gastropub, which has long been among my favorite dining establishments anywhere.

 

And thus, till laters.

Damned Rodan, Lounge Lizard

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Saturday, November 22, 2025

This morning, I went over to visit my cousin, Mark Bell, and his wife, Sylvia, which was indeed a lovely time. They (and their children, who are about my age) are damn near my last living relatives on my mom's side. They have a very nice house not very far from here, and as it turns out, their son Robert knows the owner of this AirBnB, as they worked together for many years. Interesting how such connections randomly come about. I didn't think to take any photos this morning, but the photo below is Mark & Sylvia from 2013 (they hardly look any different!), when Kimberly, Mom, and I came to Gainesville, primarily so that Mom could attend her 60th high school class reunion.

For the afternoon, I braved the insanity of Gainesville's congested roads (shudder), and went geocaching for a couple of hours. It was pretty enjoyable, as I found all those that I hunted, including the one I did not find the other day. It turned out to be one of my favorite hide types.

 

Once back at the Blue Bungalow, I made myself clean and reasonably purty, and then walked downtown, where there was some variety of Christmas festival coming together. (I understand it's called "Jingle Mingle," and one of the highlights is lighting up a big-ass chicken sculpture on the city administration building; since way back when, Gainesville has been known as "The Poultry Capital of the World." I can attest to this by way of having suffered the reek of chicken processing plants around here on perhaps a few too many occasions in the past.). Tons of folks were migrating to the square, which was decorated for the occasion. My specific target was North Georgia BBQ & Oyster Shop, which I had settled on for dinner instead of Southern Recess, since I had never tried the former—and I love both BBQ and oysters. It was a good choice. I had a half-dozen raw oysters on the half shell, which were DAMNED delicious, with all kinds of sauce and seasonings, and some hot & spicy smoked chicken wings (they came with a large pile of celery and carrots, so at least I did get some veggies with this feast). Brugger and I are gonna plan to come back to Gainesville soon, and I know she'll go for the BBQ, though not the oysters. Leave that to me!

Afterward, I decided to try out a relatively new wine bar called Cork It, right there on the square. I tried a Washington Cabernet Sauvingnon, which was quite good. They had a small orchestra warming up to play Christmas music, but I didn't hang around long enough to give them a listen. Of all my discoveries in Gainesville on this trip, Cork It will be the one that Brugger will be most inclined to visit.

 

On my walk back from downtown, I snapped a few photos of some of the houses in the area, as they are among those that remain from the days of my youth. They include my grandparents' house, my great uncle & aunt's house, and a fair-sized mansion at Green Street & Forrest Ave, which I always loved. Back in the 1980s, when I was regularly doing pen & ink artwork, I drew all of these houses. Below, I'm posting the recent photos of those houses and my old pen & ink renderings of them.

Although the traffic and the rampant development here does not please me, as in not at all, Gainesville still feels like my second home, especially since I've renewed a great relationship with my cousin Mark and his wife, Sylvia. Being here brings home the fact that I am the last of my immediate family, and my brain is literally the last existing repository of intimate, personal knowledge of my parents, my brother, my grandparents, and other relatives. And so, on these personal blogs, I am inclined to write all the details I can, so that at least some of my most meaningful recollections will perhaps survive me in some fashion.

 

Tomorrow, I'm off for home, probably pretty early. Despite a couple of niggling physical issues that made functioning normally a bit harder than I like, not to mention the billions of metric tonnes of human beings stuffed into too small an area, I absolutely hope to continue returning to Gainesville for as long as I am able.

 

Arrivederci, America. 

Above: my grandparents' old place on Forrest Avenue as it appears currently, and my drawing of it from the 1980s

Above: my great uncle & aunt's former house on Park Street and my pen & ink rendering from 1980s; the only copy I have of this is a 3" x 5" postcard reproduction, so it's not as well-defined as the original.

Above: one of the classic Gainesville mansions on Green Street, taken today, and my pen & ink drawing of it from the 1980s

OUR SHADOWED PAST III on Terror at Collinwood

A couple of weeks back, Bob Issel and I appeared on Penny Dreadful's Terror at Collinwood podcast to talk about his latest Dark Shadows volume, Our Shadowed Past III, which he and I spent several weeks producing, back in August and September (see "Our Shadowed Past III Is in the Works," September 16, 2025). Penny Dreadful—a.k.a. Danielle Gelehrter—has been running this Dark Shadows–themed show for I don't know many years now, and I've had the honor of appearing on it numerous times. This time around, Bob and I get into the nuts and bolts about how Our Shadowed Past III was conceived, developed, and produced, and how so many Dark Shadows fans contributed meaningful essays, stories, artwork, and photographs to bring Bob's most ambitious publishing project to life.

 

The book itself is 256 big-ass pages in full, bloody color, with hundreds of photographs of countless events and fan gatherings, with an entire section devoted to those at Seaview Terrace in Newport, Rhode Island, which served as Collinwood in the original Dark Shadows TV series (1966–1971).

 

We had a great time on the podcast, and our thanks to Penny Dreadful for seeing fit to inflict Bob and me upon an unsuspecting world.

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Our Shadowed Past III on Terror at Collinwood!

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On the Loose

I just received the S.H. MonsterArts Godzilla 2000 figure, and I had no sooner taken him out of the box when he set about trashing my miniature city set. Talk about a miscreant. A friend suggested that I call ICE on him, but I'm not that big an asshole.

Here's a version with a little extra "oompf."

Moose Is Home, Terror at Collinwood, and Other Fun Horrors

Mr. Moose was able to come home yesterday, though he still requires blood sugar monitoring and a battery of medications. He's eating normally and seems much more comfortable now. We're hoping he's going to do well for the duration, as we're feeling quite done with the trauma of having to take him to veterinarians both in and out of town. It's bad enough that it's so hard on him, but the financial burden is astronomical. He is family, though, and we're doing what we've gotta do under these circumstances.

 

It's a busy day all around for me. A little earlier, friend Bob Issel and I participated in a chat with Danielle Gelehrter (a.k.a. Penny Dreadful) for her Terror at Collinwood podcast. This one was about the release of Our Shadowed Past III, the massive;Dark Shadows book that Bob and I recently produced (see "Our Shadowed Past III Is in the House," November 4, 2025). It was a great conversation that ran about an hour, and it should appear online within a week. If you're at all a fan of Dark Shadows, this podcast is for you. Of course, I'll post an alert when the episode is live.

I've got another podcast at 7:00 p.m. EST this evening, this one with the Lovecraft eZine group. It's to be a discussion of Roman Polanski's classic film, The Ninth Gate. It's a favorite horror flick of mine, and Brugger and I watched it for the umpteenth time just before Halloween. I believe the movie discussion is for eZine editor Mike Davis's Patreons only, and if you're not currently subscribing to his podcasts, you really otter.

This afternoon, I'm hard at work on Freezer Burns, the newest collaboration between Elizabeth Massie and me. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we're hoping to have it finished up in the very near future.

Mister Moose

Y'all, please keep Mr. Moose in your thoughts. He's suffering from pancreatitis and is under a specialist's care in a facility out of town. Depending on the severity of the case, he may be able to recover, but it's not a sure thing. Seven years ago, Kim took him in after he was found starving and barely clinging to life when he was a tiny kitten. Ever since then, he's been living the dream with us, and we'd so hate to lose him. You'd never find a sweeter kitty.

Autumn Woods, Unexpected Stashes

The backyard is looking pretty nice

For well over two years now, I haven't missed a single day of walking and/or running at least three miles, usually a good bit more than that. Fall is my favorite time to take long walks around the neighborhood (except maybe sometimes when it snows). This year, we don't seem to have as many varying colors of foliage as we sometimes do, but it's still pretty, and the temperature is pleasant. We have woods on three sides of our lot as well as on the far side of the street out front, so we're surrounded by nature.

 

Lake Lanier is a small lake just down the street from us, and I walk there frequently. There's a smaller, adjacent body of water that we locals have always called "The Little Lake," and beyond it, a stretch of woods between two roads about a mile long. When I was a kid, several friends and I frequently played among those woods (mostly as soldiers who fought against the giant monsters that lived out there), and in my teenage years, we rode minibikes and motorcycles on the trail that snaked through the woods.

 

There's still a trail back there, now used mostly by our sizable deer population. Once in a while, I take a walk back there, and today was just the day for it. The terrain has changed somewhat over the years; the trees are denser and taller, but there's far less undergrowth. Back in the old days, the ground was largely covered by tall reeds and flowering plants, which gave it a more jungle-like appearance. During my adolescence, when I was so smitten with the daikaiju movies of the day, like Destroy All Monsters and War of the Gargantuas, we always kept a sharp eye out for monsters, and our BB guns at the ready (yes, they were very powerful, anti-monster BB guns).

When I was 11 or 12 years old, what I didn't count on finding back there was a stash of the most grotesque porn magazines possible—mostly about bestiality. The graphic photos and stories of animals, mostly horses and dogs, having sex with young girls were pretty traumatic. I was with a couple of young friends at the time, and I think we ended up burning them. I never had any idea which neighbor had hidden the magazines in a plastic bag in a hollow tree, but whoever it was must have been pretty sick.

 

The memories of fighting monsters in those woods are far more pleasant. And nowadays, it's a tranquil and lovely place to engage with nature.

Another Longest Day

Back in June, I took my first turn as an elections officer in my home precinct for the Democratic primary. Election Day, even for a smaller one like the primary, is a pretty long one: up at four a.m., at the polling place by five a..m., work the station for thirteen hours, then break down and repack all the equipment and complete the mountains of required paperwork, which takes from sixty to ninety minutes. Very tiring, but since I found working the previous election ultimately gratifying, I decided to do it again. I'll probably even go for it again next year for the mid-term election.

 

Yesterday, the election for state governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, plus several local positions, brought out a record number of voters in town for a non-presidential election. Whereas the first time around was a slow day (I even managed to get in a significant amount of work done on my then-current novel-in-progress), yesterday was busy, busy. Very little downtime, and quite a few hours on my feet, which I'm feeling a bit today.

 

The other officials on our team are all fantastic, consummate professionals, and I'm proud to serve with them in one of the most important democratic processes in this country. No matter who the members of our community voted for, it was my honor to be part of making their votes count.

WDBJ Channel 7 from Roanoke did a short segment about our election, and you can even get a quick glimpse of ye Old Dude in action in the video story. The link is here.

OUR SHADOWED PAST III Is in the House

During the month of September, I spent my days hard at work designing, laying out, and creating graphics for one of the most intensely detailed projects I've ever undertaken: the third in a series of books about the legendary TV series, Dark Shadows, titled Our Shadowed Past, created by the legendary Bob Issel, Dark Shadows devotee and mastermind of many evil things. (See "Our Shadowed Past III In the Works," September 16, 2025). It's a 256-page volume of essays by fans, interviews with show's stars, fan fiction, and—as the book's centerpiece—a retrospective of the many fan gatherings, all organized by Mr. Issel, at Seaview Terrace, a.k.a. Collinwood, in Newport, Rhode Island. There's also a detailed look at Dark Shadows: Sanctuary, which would have been the fourth Dark Shadows audio drama I wrote for Big Finish, had things not gone south prior to its production.

This book is a big, sturdy monster, with around 750 photos throughout, about half of which comprise the Seaview Terrace retrospective section. Alas, I've never been to any of the Seaview gatherings. Brugger and I were planning to go last year, but HBO tossed a monkey wrench in that plan—see "A Weekend in Providence," November 19, 2024 for details. But the in-depth essays and photo albums from the gatherings are so detailed and immersive, it really makes me feel as though I were a part of it all. We're still hoping we can get there for a gathering at some point, though the Carey family, who owns Seaview, has put it up for sale (at a cheap $29.5 million). We'll just have to see how things pan out in the coming days.

If you're even a casual Dark Shadows fan, I don't think you could ask for a better, more compelling volume to draw you into the world of Collinsport, Maine, and the big house on the hill known as Collinwood.

 

Our Shadowed Past III, like its predecessors, is a very limited edition, so few copies will be available beyond those who pre-ordered the book. However, I can't recommend this big honking love letter to Dark Shadows highly enough, so if you are interested in a copy, email Mr. Issel at bobubas59@gmail.com right now, and I mean NOW. You'll not regret it.