The Tri-State Tornado of 1925 spent most of its duration along country roads. A look at how rural communities were torn apart.
This Old Gothic House II: What are ghosts, what type of ghosts are there, and what types of ghosts do I live with?
It’s now October 31 … has been for about nine minutes. Tonight is Halloween. Covid is on the upswing in our town, as well as the towns we venture off to for supplies. Otherwise I’m at home, or in the country, away from people. It’s a good time to take an inventory of the ghosts […]
A Tale Told By A Tombstone: A real life Poison Ivy appears while searching for a ghost in a Carmi cemetery
Red Skelton, a comedian of the mid twentieth century was once asked, “what was the best thing about growing up in a small town?” Skelton grew up in the small town of Vincennes, Indiana, and he spoke for many of us when he replied “leaving.” For some it’s for opportunity, or to see the world. […]
Monster hunting in southern Illinois at Alton, the Murphysboro Mud Monster, Harrisburg, Enfield, Mt. Vernon and more … and why not Bigfoot while we’re at it?
Southern Illinois is a strange place. Those of us descended from the early settlers come from an anti-social stock. They were those who pushed into the Appalachians from the early colonies, only to find those remote regions too crowded. The pushed on through the passes and gaps, settled for a few years then noticed there […]
Stranger Things in the nighttime sky … In the sixties, a little boy sees a rocket in the sky over Carmi, Illinois that shouldn’t be there
It was the sixties in small town Illinois, I was a little boy, and was walking to my Granny Bert’s house. She lived a block away, I wasn’t quite halfway there, in front of the Duvall’s house. I used to walk barefoot, till one day I stepped on a dead squirrel’s skull. I still walked […]
A strange account of the monster rattlesnake Big Jim, who from his lair on Rattlesnake Bluff terrorized the Skillet Fork and Wabash river valleys … (or Snakes on a Plain)
Rattlesnake bluff, home of the legendary rattlesnake Big Jim is a heavily wooded bluff overlooking the Skillet Fork River, in White County, Illinois. I’d figured that much out by poring over Google Earth for some time, trying to match up the satellite images with the historical record. Or what little record I had, and I […]
