A Happy 250th

Kim, Mark, Kim, Mark

For Ms. B. and me, our social calendar for the July 4 weekend was pretty full. On Friday, we met our friends, the "Other Mark & Kim," at Gioia dell'Amore Cellars (formerly Autumn Creek) a short distance down the road in North Carolina. The winery and tasting room is beautiful, though the wine is mostly kind of meh. Their Meritage is pretty good. Kimberly and I have hung out many times with Mark & Kim in the company of several of our other NC friends, but I believe this was the first time we've gotten together as couples. We did have a great time.

Yesterday morning, on the Fourth, we met friends Bob & Yvonne at the Forest Park Country Club swimming pool, where I spent many days as a youngster, especially on Fourths of July. Also a lot fun, and we fortunately had a tent to protect us from the sun, as it was 100°F out there. We all spent a lot of our time in the water. To keep ourselves refreshed, we drank — brace yourselves — Claw Tails (a variant of the ubiquitous White Claw). You know, the stuff that is often described as "drinking TV static while someone yells the name of a fruit from another room." Yeah, that. I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I liked it. And so did Brugger. My God, what have we become? Anyway, the club provided burgers and hot dogs fresh off the grill, and I had a really tasty burger for lunch.

 

We spent the afternoon back home, largely de-sweating ourselves (this took some effort). Then late in the day, we headed back over to Bob & Yvonne's for a very enjoyable Fourth of July party. Lots of nice folks in attendance, all of whom we'd met on other occasions, including friends Scott & Jamie, with whom we sometimes do karaoke at one venue or another. We managed to drink a bit more without getting too toasted. Not Claw Tails this time.

Anyhoo, it was all good company, with good food and good drinks. So, here it is — Happy 250th to the USA, and fuck anyone, inside or outside (especially on the inside), who tries to hijack our ideals and our heritage. I have spoken.

Yvonne, Bob, Brugger, Old Dude

Fred, Bob, Jamie, Scott

Yvonne, Brugger

Magda, Old Dude, Stefan

A Book Release Without a Book

Friend and fellow author, Richard Dansky, from Durham, NC, has a new novel release (Ghosts of Smoke and Flame), so last evening, he had a book release party at Bond Brothers Beer Co. in Cary, NC. Brugger and I decided to attend the event, and since Cary's a good couple of hours from here, we made a day of it in the Raleigh-Durham area. We left Martinsville shortly after noon, grabbed a couple of geocaches, and stopped for a late lunch at Ted's Montana Grill in Durham, which has long been one of my favorite dining destinations when I've been geocaching out that way. Ted's has bison. Lots and lots of delicious bison. So, yes, I had a bison burger. Brugger, however, is not so enamored of bison and had a beef burger. But she loved it, and that's what counts.

She had some shopping to do, so I dropped her off at Streets at Southpoint shopping area and went after a number of caches nearby. After all this, we made our way in the direction of Cary and discovered a nice wine bar called Maximillian's, which was very near our destination, so we each had a glass of wine. And from there, it was off to Rich's event.

Only problem was that he had no books! The copies he'd ordered from the publisher had not arrived on time, so we were forced to simply enjoy a party and his company. Heavens, I tell you! Bond Brothers has some very good beer, though I took it pretty easy since I would eventually have to drive us back to Martinsville. We had a really fine time all around, and Rich will surely have copies at Scares That Care AuthorCon VI next week, where we'll be doing readings together. I shall grab a copy then.

 

We snagged a late, light dinner at Scratch Kitchen & Taproom, right around the corner from Rich's party, which was enjoyable; worth a return whenever we night be in the area again. 

 

You can order Richard Dansky's Ghosts of Smoke and Flame here. And if you're planning to be at AuthorCon VI, I hope to see you!

The Void Project, Karaoke, & I Am Old, Drink My Scotch

"Between waking and sleep lies a place you were never meant to wander. A borderland where time bends, shapes twist, and whispers follow you. It’s the layer of night where dreams blur into nightmares—where every culture tells the same stories of shadows, watchers, and figures that shouldn’t exist. Step too far into this in-between, and you’ll discover why some doors are better left unopened."

Friday evening, Ms. B. and I drove the dark, winding backroads up to my first college alma mater, Ferrum College, up in the boonies of neighboring Franklin County. Last year, the newly opened Ferrum Park put on its first haunted trail attraction, the theme of which was to find some missing hikers—without going missing yourself. This year, the event was called The Void Project, described in the passage above. Like last year, the trail setup was not all that extravagant, but it was absolutely a hootin' good time. There were a few roving creatures, some pitch-black corridors, optical illusions, and creepy alien sounds. I hope there will be another haunted trail there next year, and I might consider helping out with the setup, especially if I can be roving monster. Ha-HA!

 

Brugger and I survived the trail experience, and afterward, since it was on the way home, we stopped at Scuffle Hill Brewing in Collinsville, where friends Scott & Jamie joined us for a few brews and some raucous karaoke. Ms. B. and I both hollered a bit, but nobody ran screaming, so we shall have to try harder next time.

 

Friday was friend and fellow writer Richard Dansky's birthday, and each year, to celebrate, he holds a pretty large gathering at his place in Durham. He calls it "I Am Old, Drink My Scotch," and he puts out innumerable bottles of scotch along with a huge spread of Meats and Cheeses™, not to mention veggies, sweets, and other culinary goodies. This year's event was yesterday, and Ms. B. and I both planned to go. I had reserved a room for us at a hotel near Richard's place, but our cat Moose has developed what we fear is diabetes, and he was not doing well, so she stayed home to be with him. I set out yesterday morning, drove to Durham, and proceeded to hunt a good many geocaches, some of which involved some fairly serious hiking (although nothing as extreme as a couple of last week's outings at Wintergreen). There was also a cache at a very old graveyard hidden in the woods ("Leigh Farm Park Cemetery," GC95G2C), which was apt for the season, and probably my favorite of the day.

I settled in at the hotel about 3:30 p.m., showered and got presentable (as much as possible, anyway), and as the event's 7:00 p.m. starting time approached, I ventured out to the grim and morbid environs of East Durham, grabbed a handful more geocacches, and finally arrived at the grim and morbid Chez Dansky, which was properly decorated for both Halloween and a celebration for turning older than dirt.

 

Indeed, there was scotch. Lots and lots of scotch. And so many Meats and Cheeses™. Silly me, I was so preoccupied most of the time that I hardly took any photos at all. The ones I did take are below. Since Brugger didn't make it and Richard was largely occupied with hosting duties, I was pretty much a stranger in a sea of faces I didn't know. I tend to feel a bit awkward in such circumstances, but I did get into interesting conversations with several folks, all of whom were very nice and sociable. It helped that many were writers or involved in various creative businesses. So, I'm hoping that there will be many more Richard Dansky events, birthdays and otherwise, and that in the future, Ms. B. can accompany me.

Thanks, Richard, for being such a perfect host.

A most appropriate card for the aged Mr. Dansky

Chez Dansky, lit up for the season

The tiniest sampling of the cheezes available at the massive spread

Halloween Party Horrors, Ghosts, Legends, & Cryptids

Joe, Suzy, Jennifer, Jamie, Scott, Samaire, Mark W., Kim W., Kimberly B., Terry, Beth;
the Front Man is behind the camera

The Front Man

'Tis done! Brugger and I put on our annual Halloween Party last night, which was—as expected—crashed by a plethora of frightful fiends. Sadly, several folks who'd anticipated attending weren't able to, but those who did, at least by my reckoning, somehow survived. There was cheese and there was meatballs (alas, no caviar), and long tall glasses of wine up to h'yar. Yes, we did have that and more. I think it's safe to say that no one left the premises hungry or thirsty.

We had a fun Halloween horror trivia contest — 13 questions about horror movies, books, and stories. I made most of the questions pretty easy for the layman, but a few of them required a bit more than casual horror knowledge. At least a couple of people correctly answered the question "Which 1982 horror classic featured the famous line, 'You've gotta be fucking kidding me!'" Go Suzy and Joe!

Now, I started out as the Front Man from Squid Games, but after a while the heat in there began to get to me, pretty seriously, so I changed into last year's slightly more casual costume, which still hung in our entryway closet (see below photo with Brugger). Temperature-wise, this provided some relief, and it also made it a hell of a lot easier to consume wine and vittles. In case I didn't mention it, we had lots and lots and lots of wine and vittles.

Some of us stayed up till the wee hours yakking about scary things, both real and unreal. Sadly, the real is overshadowing too much of the far more agreeable unreal. All in all, we had a fine time. Needless to say, the better part of this morning was spent on restoring the casa to habitable condition.

Horror trivia! Suzy, Joe, Beth, and Jamie won prizes.

This afternoon, I attended a presentation about the ghosts, legends, and cryptids of Martinsville and Henry County, given by Garrett Channel, who is the executive director of the Salem (Virginia) Museum. He provided a lively, very enjoyable talk that was perfect for the season. He related the legend of Sam Lion, a bit of local (very likely embellished) history, which I wrote about a few years ago (here). After his presentation, I talked briefly with him about my writing and interest in such creepy legends, and he told me he actually used my blog as one of his references. Well, I find that kinda cool, particularly since I use both the real and "altered" folklore of this area as a basis for many of my stories and books (most recently, The House at Black Tooth Pond).

As an added bonus, I ran into my seventh-grade American History teacher, Ms. Kerry Tillery, who lives up the street from us. She is a most wonderful person, and I'm so glad she is still around. It's always a pleasure to have the opportunity to talk with her.

"Castle Rock," I call it. I have a geocache here. This was supposedly a part of the original
"Sam Lion's Trail" of local legend.

Prepping!

Tomorrow—Saturday, 10/11—is our annual Halloween Party, and we're expecting a pretty good crowd. This week, we've spent a lot of time cleaning, buying supplies, cleaning, decorating, getting our costumes together, and cleaning. Come Sunday, we'll no doubt need to clean again. But at least the house will be clean before we dirty it all up again.

Brugger and I been well into our Halloween movies this week. We've watched Night (Curse) of the Demon, The Thing (2011), and The Thing (1982), which are absolute prerequisites before Halloween can come. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is also on that list, and I suspect we'll get to it in the next couple of days. We've also caught Evil Dead Rise, The Exorcist, Don't Breathe, Island of the Night of the Damned Doomed Big Heat (a.k.a. Night of the Big Heat, Island of the Burning Damned, and Island of the Burning Doomed (I wrote about it a long time ago here). Tonight, since it's finally available after all these years, we're going to watch Something Wicked This Way Comes. I don't think I've seen it since it was at the theater in 1983, and I recall really liking it way back when.

 

Oh, yeah, there's more stuff a-coming. Hope it's coming for you too. Hahaha,

2024: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times, and All That In-Between

Over and out, 2024. Loved you and hated you (a sentiment I've seen from many folks of my acquaintance). For Brugger and me, 2024 was the first full year we have lived together at Ground Zero, as I sometimes refer to our homeplace. I absolutely love this old house, much about Martinsville (at least, the better aspects it has retained since my youth here), many of our neighbors, and the prevailing atmosphere of tranquility—a critical quality that came to be sadly lacking in Greensboro.

We're farther from so many of the people and activities that made living in North Carolina better than bearable, but not so far that we can't make regular trips back and forth. We have some good friends here in town as well, and we've managed to get some of those unruly North Carolina foreigners together with our local compadres numerous times—including last night at friends Bob & Yvonne's superb New Year's Eve party.

Yesterday morning, I went to Greensboro to witness NC friends Tom & Linda sign some legal documents, have lunch with them, get in a quick bit of geocaching, and pick up daughter Allison to bring her back to Mville for a few days' visit. A little later in the afternoon, friends Terry & Beth drove up from Kernersville, NC, to attend the aforementioned party at Bob & Yvonne's place, less than a mile from Ground Zero. We were soon joined by friend Gretchen, and off we headed to the party—the others by automobile, I on foot because I wanted to make sure I got in my requisite 5,000 steps for the day. Accomplish that I did, plus a couple of thousand in advance for New Year's Day, since I opted to walk home as well. (For the past 365 days, I've averaged 8,800 steps—about four miles—a day, with only two days, both back in January, that I didn't get in at least 5,000 steps.)

Bob & Yvonne throw dynamite parties. We already knew this, but I think last night might have been their best yet. Bob acquired a hell of a nice bar setup, and he served us a variety of killer drinks for the entire evening. What a gentleman! There were 15 to 20 people in attendance, some coming and going at various times, while about a dozen of us lingered till midnight to ring in the New Year with a champagne toast.

This past year, I've done a ton of writing I'm rightly proud of, perhaps most notably my novel, The House at Black Tooth Pond, due for release in February from Crossroad Press. It'll be available as an ebook, trade paperback, and audiobook. You can preorder it from Amazon.com here. I've also completed a few short stories (which I hope you'll be reading in various upcoming publications) and am currently co-writing a new novel with Elizabeth Massie titled Freezer Burn. We hope to have it wrapped up in the spring of this year.

In other writing-related business, I attended Scares That Care: AuthorCon III in Williamsburg back in April, NecronomiCon Providence in August (and I returned to Providence for a wonderful long weekend with Ms. B. in November), and had numerous successful booksignings over the course of the year.

2024 also hit Ms. B. and I with some significant setbacks, most notably Kimberly being laid off from her job of twenty-plus years in February—almost two years to the day after the company laid me off. Since losing her job, Ms. B. has fashioned herself into a very capable freelancer in the educational publishing business. Unfortunately, she makes considerably less than she did at her full-time job, but she enjoys the work, and as things currently stand, her income is adequate for us to get by. But here's the rub: in order to get health insurance, she had to purchase it through Virginia's ACA Exchange; and since her income is relatively low, she receives a decent subsidy to keep her policy affordable. However, by all indications, the Shitgibbon-elect and the Party of Freedom From Every Policy That Helps More People Than It Hurts don't plan to renew the subsidies later this year, so we may well find ourselves in dire straits—along with many millions who depend on the ACA subsidies to afford healthcare. I don't need to go into further detail about how calamitous this will be, but yes, if the GOP goes through with its plans, a lot of us are likely to end up in mortal danger. Yeah, that's the way to make America great, right?

What a load of pure horseshit, my friends.

Enough of that particular commentary. However, on a somewhat related note, while I've generally enjoyed pretty good health, especially since I've taken up my daily lengthy walks, I have occasional complications and unexpected setbacks that do—and will—require medical services. I'm on Medicare, so I also have to hope that the party in power doesn't decide to fuck over everyone who isn't rolling in superfluous dollars.

Coming up for 2025, we have a relatively short Caribbean cruise to look forward to, at least one convention to attend (Scares That Care: AuthorCon V in Williamsburg at the end of March), and I plan to participate in numerous other book-related events, as I did this past year. I've also plotted a few other writing projects, which I plan to undertake once done with the collaboration with Ms. Massie.

And that's about all I've got in me for right now. One more year relegated to the personal history books, and another coming up that represents the next step in the walk of the unknown, as friend Larry Blamire has put it.

I wish we could all be together on this journey into the future, but I swear, I cannot fathom all too many mindsets around me, especially the insane delight in indulging ignorance, stupidity, and general negativity. It's hard to stay above it when the world around us seems to thrive on it. Regardless, I wish everyone in my sphere of influence the very best, and I hope, however bleak things sometimes look, that there are silver linings galore for everyone. These have been known to happen.

Peace out.

Another Haunted Gathering

Halloween gatherings are generally my very favorite kind of gathering, and pretty much every year, we either attend or host one with some of our very best friends. Last year, in Greensboro, we had a pretty damned big one; this year, for a variety of reasons, we opted to go much smaller. Still, it was a dozen freaky folks here at Ground Zero, and it was a hollering good time. Lots of great food, a variety of boos, and a fun brain game or two.

Our friends Bob & Yvonne brought along their 15-year-old grandson, Eli, and he fit right in with this particular gangsome. He decided to leave earlier than our other guests, and since his place is in walking distance, he set out on foot. Now, Eli was wearing an inflatable alien-carrying-a-human costume, which was by no means conducive to graceful mobility. When he left, the road was dark, and he went booking along at pretty high speed. Then... a couple of cars came by and caught him in their headlights. Clearly, the drivers were shocked, for they slowed way down and gave him very wide berth. For us, this provided the biggest laugh of the entire year. You sort of had to be there, but I trust you get the picture.

Sadly, we didn't get that many photos of the attendees in costume. Once things got going, the cameras were pretty much forgotten. Alas! Anyhoo, some of us did snap a few shots from time to time. We ended the evening with a showing of The Mist, which went very late indeed.

We've got another gathering — a Halloween geocaching event — to look forward to, and of course we'll have movies aplenty to keep us busy until the big day.

It’s the Great Hocus Pocus, Charlie Brown!

It has been one breakneck Halloween season, with numerous gatherings (and another one on the slate for this evening), movies, and outings for Ms. B. and me — all of which are mighty welcome. October is always a busy month, and we’ve been working overtime on this one. It sort of helps make up for the near-absence of the Halloween season for us last year; not that there is one complaint about that situation, since we were overseas, getting married, and all that kind of good stuff.

Last night, friends Terry and Beth hosted an outdoor movie night, as is their wont this time of year. Last year, we watched Hocus Pocus, which was a first for me. I hadn’t much expected to like it, but — au contraire — I found it an agreeable hoot. This time, it was Hocus Pocus 2, and I liked it a lot as well. It wasn’t the classic that many consider the original to be, but it was funny and hit plenty of the right notes throughout. Also on our docket was It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. This one is an absolute prerequisite for the Halloween season (and we actually watched it a week or so ago, just for good measure). The drinks and company were delightful; a couple of folks in attendance turned out to be hardcore horror geeks, so we had a ton of topics to yak about.

This morning, Ms. B. wanted to see some fall foliage, so we headed out for a drive. I picked up a couple of geocaches, and we enjoyed lunch at a sweet little Mexican place in Gibsonville called La Casa Dorada. Fantastic Tacos à Diabla — spicy-hot to enough to prompt a couple of good hollers from me.

Tonight, we have the customary Halloween-themed geocaching event at friend Natalie’s place to attend. In fact, it’s just about time to get into character....

Tomorrow... Halloween arrives at last. Then comes the fast train to Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and the eventual Final Chapter. Jebus, how time do fly.

A couple of wacky folk bundled up for Hocus Pocus 2

Lake view at Hagan Stone Park while geocaching this morning

The colours out of space

Mad Monster Party at Casa di Rodan

The house is prepped and darkness is falling.

It’s been a good many years since Casa di Rodan has played host to a big ol’ Halloween bash, so Ms. B. and I up and threw one. About twenty folks came around — geocachers, friends from Martinsville, and some local folks — so we had a very full house. So far, it hasn't fallen through the earth’s crust, though I’m not sure we came through it entirely unscathed...

Anyhoo, it was great fun. Perhaps we’ll do it again next year.

Sarah the Witch and an ornery old cuss

L: Captain Spaulding himself decided to pop in; R: Debbie and Pete, smokin’!

Do not cross Bob & Yvonne, or you may not live to regret it.

L: mad magician and — who’s this? — it’s Dr. Gaki! R: Dr. Deathenbaker and his lovely ghoulfriend

Sarah the Witch and Red Riding Hood are amok, amok, amok!

L: “Open wide and say “Oh my gaaaahhhd!’” R: “Try my poison, why don’t you?”

Like mother, like—OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!

The ornery old cuss puts the bite on our sweet young witch.

The feeding frenzy begins. Wonder who’s on the menu? Maybe the smiling people in the photo below?

Don’t turn around... the ghoulies are in town!